Narrow Vs Flared Handlebars

Cycling Weekly

Flared handlebars. They’ve been widely adopted in the gravel riding world, with the wider stance providing greater control on technical terrain—as well as the secondary benefit of getting your hands out the way of your bar bag.

Transcript

00:00Do you need flared handlebars on your road bike?

00:03They've been widely adopted in the gravel market because they give you greater control over technical terrain and you can squish a bag

00:10In between the drops that bit easier, but are we missing a trick not riding them on a road bike today?

00:17I'm gonna tell you all about it

00:19Before we get into it though

00:20We should really talk about what effect handlebars have on our aerodynamic efficiency as riders

00:26You see I'm not talking about aero bars here ones which have prioritized

00:31Being easy to go through the air as their thick flat tops

00:34No, I'm talking about round flared bars and surprisingly, they don't actually have that bigger impact on our CDA

00:40That's our coefficient of aerodynamic drag

00:44For a rider in a fairly average position on a bike so not too aggressive not too relaxed

00:5085% of aerodynamic drag is going to come from that rider was only 15% coming from the bike itself

00:57So it goes without saying that really the best way to optimize any

01:01Aerodynamic position on the bike is to optimize the riders position and the handlebar is the first port of call when you want to do that

01:09It's pretty well adopted now that the aero hoods position is the most aerodynamic for riding on the road

01:15Now this position is the one where you sit holding on to the hoods here

01:20Like in this position with your arms at 90 degrees to where you're holding on to the bars and this lowers your frontal section

01:27That's being hit by the wind and allows your forearm to come in line behind your wrist

01:32You'll see racers doing this more now at races rather than sitting

01:35Straight on the drops because it gives them that lower frontal area to be impacted by the oncoming wind

01:42Now a narrower handlebar can reduce your CDA even further and where once 42 centimeter bars were common

01:50You now see 38 centimeter bars and 36 centimeter bars in the pro peloton as those racers

01:56Try and reduce their frontal area and their CDA that bit more

02:00But of course it would be a miss to not mention that

02:03Barwitz obviously plays a massive part in how a bike handles the narrower your handlebar

02:09The twitchy of the bike is going to feel and that's because the handlebar is simply a lever through which you apply pressure

02:13To turn the bike and if you apply pressure through a narrower space, it's gonna happen that bit quicker

02:19Now it is possible to adapt to twitchy steering, but not all riders are going to want to do that

02:25It's very very common that riders want to ride a nice stable bike and only the pros are gonna want the fastest handling

02:31Possible. So why am I talking about all of this?

02:33Well, that's exactly where flared handlebars come in

02:35The principle is you get the narrower top section so you can sit on the hoods in a nice aerodynamic position

02:42But then the flare out at the drops puts you in that nice controlling position for descending

02:48now it's worth mentioning that a

02:50Standard flared gravel bar isn't gonna cut the mustard here because they're simply too wide to put you in an aerodynamic position

02:58You don't really get gravel handlebars narrower than a 44 or a 42 whereas on the road

03:04You're really looking for a 40 or a 38 to make the most of that aerodynamic position

03:10Now for demonstration purposes, I've equipped this bike with a Sousa cowbell bars

03:14Which are 38 centimeters wide hood to hood but then have 12 degrees of flare

03:19And hopefully you can see from the camera angle. You can see that coming out at the back

03:25now one thing to consider with flared bars is

03:28The reach and drop and how that might affect your position because some riders do like to ride with handlebars

03:33Which have a bigger drop to the drops than these shallow ones do here

03:38So bear that in mind now

03:40The downside is is not exactly like the road market is teeming with flared handlebar options available for people to buy

03:47There are a few notable options including MV's SES aero handlebar that measures

03:5435

03:55centimeters at the hood

03:56Which is seriously narrow but flares out to 40 centimeters down on the drops giving the rider the best of both worlds

04:04a

04:05More avant-garde option would be the Spico ABB which stands for aero

04:11Breakaway bar and this takes the principle of flared bars to its logical conclusion

04:15Which is it builds in an armrest to make sitting in that aero hoods position that bit easier and the hoods are just 32

04:23Centimeters wide flaring out to 37 centimeters in the drops now

04:28You may have seen these bars used in the pro peloton

04:31they were designed in collaboration with and then used by Jan Willem van Schiep and

04:36Astonishingly UCI actually haven't banned them yet. They're still UCI legal, but at

04:411,500 euros we wouldn't expect take up to happen that quickly

04:46Of course there are those that argue that flared bars on the road are not the way to go and zip are one of these

04:53They say that flared bars can mess with the brake lever alignment

04:58Which is supposed to be in a vertical plane and you can see here that the brake lever is not on that plane

05:03It does flare out in the same way that the drops do

05:07They also say that having your hands in that position on the hoods is more likely to cause injury

05:13And it's not going to be for all riders who might try and force themselves to ride in that position and suffer from discomfort

05:20That's not to say that zip haven't explored down this route at all and they have but they called it

05:26Outsweep rather than flare and this is a bit different because the hoods and the brake levers sit in a vertical

05:33alignment and instead the drops at the end sweep outwards to give a rider a bit more of a controlling position and

05:40Zip has done lots of testing around this and they've landed on 5 degrees of flare and 11 degrees of out sweep being the optimum

05:48Orientation of relationship between the drop and the hood before the ergonomics of the handlebars start getting messed up

05:56So are flared handlebars worth it for your road bike?

06:00Well, if you're trying to optimize your aerodynamic position without really affecting the handling of your bike

06:06They could be worthy of your consideration

06:09However, bear in mind that aren't that many options to buy right now

06:12So you could be short suited in the exact spec you're looking for

06:16however

06:17We would expect this trend to increase as the lines have blurred between the road cycling world and the all road gravel world as we've

06:25Seen pretty much in every is a part of the bike. So really it's a watch this space type of debate

06:32So there you go a little introduction to the world of flared handlebars on the road

06:38If you have enjoyed this video do give us a thumbs up

06:41Don't forget to subscribe to the cycling weekly channel

06:44And if you have any of the questions leave them in the comment section below now

06:47I'll be back soon with some more great tech content and I'll see you then

06:55I'm gonna go I'm gonna go shut your mouth. I'm gonna go

06:58Am I

07:01Yeah

07:04No, pause it then

07:08Can't work in these conditions

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