Wide bars = comfort?

[adeejaysdelight]

I get pain in my shoulder blades and left wrist when I am riding either of my bikes for any length of time. Especially on the motorway. The same goes for almost every other bike I have ridden too. Except for my mates supermoto, which has silly wide bars. So I conducted a little experiment to see what my natural stance is when I hold "air" handlebars. Measuring from the outside of one hand to the other is 840mm. I have had a look online and found some bars that are exactly 840mm. Has anyone out there changed their bars for the same reason, and if so, how successful was it?

[stevierst]

Yep done it on my last four bikes.
I put a pair of 780mm wide moto-x bars on my R1, my last two fazer 600's,  have 740mm bars, my tiger 1050 had 750's, and my current fz1 has 760mm fatbars which are almost straight. I've got longer than average arms, so I've got to have them or I get cramp in my hands, elbows and shoulders.
What bike are they for? I've got a set of bar extenders and end weights for the standard fz1 bars if your on one of them.

[stevierst]

My fz1 fatbars

[stevierst]

My tiger bars

[adeejaysdelight]

It is for my FZS 600. I have fitted bar risers, but that did little to nothing. The penny only dropped when I sat on the supermoto. I am not that tall, but I have quite long arms and broad'sh shoulders, so I thing wide bars are the answer. I will probably do down the Renthal route. Not quite straight, but with a bit of a rise.

[noggythenog]

I took advice from the chaps on here & replaced my standard bent fzs600 bars for renthal ultra low 758's....now i never had any pain before so i cant comment on that but they are so much more comfortable & give me much more leverage......it seems much easier to counter steer now & just a cheap simple mod has transformed the bike.

[adeejaysdelight]

Lets see a picture of the front of your bike noggy. It looks interesting.

[Hedgetrimmer]

Hmmm, still some fine tuning going on there Noggy, changed the mirrors again?

[noggythenog]

Hmmm, still some fine tuning going on there Noggy, changed the mirrors again?

No no mr nick, was just an older pic to show the bars,


Heres my last pic , bit of a duplication but sunce you asked adee here ya go!

[adeejaysdelight]

I like the streetfighter look dude. Tidy wee bike 

[noggythenog]

I like the streetfighter look dude. Tidy wee bike 

Aye it does the job anyway


Some people cut down the 758 bars but im glad i didnt, about an extra 1.5 inches each side i think.


Was about as wide as i could have gone with original cabling too, was a little bit fiddly but theres plenty info on here about changing over the bars, particularly a dell boys garage video that helped me.

[jon]

I've got a set of 18" apes if that will help 

[ogri48]

My fz1 bars suit me fine. Cb1300 ones were too narrow, but wanted it to look like it still had stock bars instead of rentals so made some 28mm bars extenders. Much better. Me harley bars are wide anyhoo, and along with the feet forward riding position you feel like your chilling and sitting on a couch watching Saturday night tv

[CRH]

I like the streetfighter look dude. Tidy wee bike 

Aye it does the job anyway


Some people cut down the 758 bars but im glad i didnt, about an extra 1.5 inches each side i think.


Was about as wide as i could have gone with original cabling too, was a little bit fiddly but theres plenty info on here about changing over the bars, particularly a dell boys garage video that helped me.

...whats the total length above std then nogg?...and are you still in comfortable upright poss?...ive got std with 30mm risers made a bit of diff" but get pain in shoulders and wrists after bt 20mile!!..cheers clive.

[stevierst]

758 bars are probably the comfiest bend I've tried, and I've tried a few! God only knows why you'd cut any off the length?

[noggythenog]

Hey Clive, just measured my 758 ultra lows - 72cm to end of the grips.


Measured my old standard bars, not totally accurate coz they're bent but - 62cm


So a good 5cm extra length on each side.


Im not sure why they call them ultra lows because it makes it sound like youll be lying on the tank all the time to use them, as far as i can see & how i have them aligned on my bike they pretty much rise roughly the same as standard.


The difference is the length & quite importantly the angle (or rake if that's the correct term )


The angle is much more opened up rather than the sporty in comparison angle of the standard bars.actually i dont quite know why sports bikes have the extremely close angled bars, obviously theres a good reason for it but do those type of bars make more sense on sports bikes alone because like i said earlier these wider & more open bars seem to give me more leverage.


Because you got me thinking about your shoulder pain ive been doing some air riding on my couch (alone i must add ), put my elbows close in, triceps touching my ribcase & angled my hands to sports riding,....quite allot of  tension in the rear deltoids at the rear of the shoulder.


Then place my arms wider like on the renthals & angle the wrists outward to be more neutral....much less pressure on the rear deltoids & more tension on the sides of the shoulder which is a much bigger muscle & can no doubt last longer before fatiguing........im no physio but it seems to make sense that youd be in a bit less pain....dont forget to stay loose on the bars too.

[CRH]

Hey Clive, just measured my 758 ultra lows - 72cm to end of the grips.


Measured my old standard bars, not totally accurate coz they're bent but - 62cm


So a good 5cm extra length on each side.


Im not sure why they call them ultra lows because it makes it sound like youll be lying on the tank all the time to use them, as far as i can see & how i have them aligned on my bike they pretty much rise roughly the same as standard.


The difference is the length & quite importantly the angle (or rake if that's the correct term )


The angle is much more opened up rather than the sporty in comparison angle of the standard bars.actually i dont quite know why sports bikes have the extremely close angled bars, obviously theres a good reason for it but do those type of bars make more sense on sports bikes alone because like i said earlier these wider & more open bars seem to give me more leverage.


Because you got me thinking about your shoulder pain ive been doing some air riding on my couch (alone i must add ), put my elbows close in, triceps touching my ribcase & angled my hands to sports riding,....quite allot of  tension in the rear deltoids at the rear of the shoulder.


Then place my arms wider like on the renthals & angle the wrists outward to be more neutral....much less pressure on the rear deltoids & more tension on the sides of the shoulder which is a much bigger muscle & can no doubt last longer before fatiguing........im no physio but it seems to make sense that youd be in a bit less pain....dont forget to stay loose on the bars too.

...thanks alot f that nogg ..yes makes sense what you say there matey?..think ile give em a go and see what happens?..are they pre  drilled or do we have to do it?

[adeejaysdelight]

Jon - 18" is too narrow for me mate. I am looking at 840mm, so around 33". If I find that is too long, I wil cut then down a bit. Thanks for the offer though 


Ogri - That CB is the bomb. Not a Harley fan, although I read your thread about something different and I get that. I do watch sons of anarchy though


Noggy - air riding is the way forward. I seen this machine when I was buying my mountain bike. The machine measures all of your natural dimensions and calculates the most comfortable and productive (effort + energy = output) lengths of every component of the bike. So I kind of blagged the idea from there. I sat the measure tape on the kitchen counter and let my arms hang where they may. I t might not work, but there is only one way to find out.

[noggythenog]

No need to drill, but you need to file down the small plastic pointy but that goes into the holes because with no hole to go into, the switch gear wont close around the bar properly, leave enough of the plastic to just bite on the bar whilst allowing the gear to still close up.i used the file in my leatherman multi tool.


I wrapped some aldi double sided tape around the bars where the gear will go for extra sticky grippyness (ive actually heard that none of this is actually required because the gear will clamp to the renthals nicely as they arent polished shiny metal like the originals but hey everyone else was doing it so i did it .[size=78%]i actually went a bit overkill & wrapped folded over tin foil over the tape for extra bite but it looks a bit daft where i can see the foil in the gaps between switches & throttle etc.ill see if i can find my thread where i did it.[/size]


Also thanks to Stevie, punkstig, buzz & deadeye for their assistance & the help in doing this when i was asking.


Edit heres the link to my post which shows handlebars....[font=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://foc-u.co.uk/index.php/topic,9486.50.html[/font]

[font=.HelveticaNeueUI]Ill have a look now for the delboy garage thread....edit...here it is & shows my complete lack of knowledge on the subject & i still managed it......the delboy garage video link is also on this one...most useful.....http://foc-u.co.uk/index.php/topic,9595.msg97224.html#msg97224[/font]

[CRH]

cheers for all that nogg ...going to order a set tonight?...

[JoeRock]

Jon - 18" is too narrow for me mate. I am looking at 840mm, so around 33". If I find that is too long, I wil cut then down a bit. Thanks for the offer though 


Ogri - That CB is the bomb. Not a Harley fan, although I read your thread about something different and I get that. I do watch sons of anarchy though


Noggy - air riding is the way forward. I seen this machine when I was buying my mountain bike. The machine measures all of your natural dimensions and calculates the most comfortable and productive (effort + energy = output) lengths of every component of the bike. So I kind of blagged the idea from there. I sat the measure tape on the kitchen counter and let my arms hang where they may. I t might not work, but there is only one way to find out.

840mm are bloody wide mate for bars, like really bloody wide. I've had ultralows on most of the upright bikes I've had now, but I always tend to chop an inch or so off each end - I like being able to filter without whacking mirrors everywhere on them!

[noggythenog]

Hey Stevie...if youre still reading the thread....any more pics of that tasty R1 from the front, looks like you chopped the fairing.....for an outright sportsbike how did it compare when you put the wide renthals on it????

[ogri48]

Pm sent mate regarding some bars.
I have to say, off all the bars I've tried over the years, the stock gen one fazer thou ones, once widened, were the perfect fit for me. Height just right, perfect sweep and rise...if anyone has a set of those you could try, they might be the ticket. I'm 6'2", wide shoulders, and lots of aches of pains courtesy of age and bike offs, and slightly wider bars are the first mod on all me bikes, though strangely my gen 2 thou is the first that didn't need em. I'm guessing most of mine have been heavy old buggers so it's nice having the extra leverage along with the comfort, the fz1 conversely is like chucking a 250 about. Well, almost, certainly after the cb...

[stevierst]

Just for noggy.
The front end is from a CBR 125 highly modified so it would fit. And the extra wide bars were superb on that machine. Never had a tank slap and the bike was like that for about 5 years. I miss her so much

[stevierst]

And here's from the side.