28 Handlebar & Stem Setups of Enduro World Cup Riders

 Very interested in rider height/wingspan vs bar width as well!

 And shoe size vs stem length. To see if the rumors are true.

 @IntoTheEverflow: sadly, it's not. i wear a size 12, and run a 35mm stem...

 Bars and stem exist in different lengths for a reason - just because the pros prefer one length doesn't mean you should immediately rush out and chop your bars down to little nubbins. It's fine to feel validated by the fact that Richie Rude runs relatively short bars, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong if someone likes wider bars. There's no absolutely right answer - it really comes down to whatever feels comfortable and doesn't cause you to smack trees or go over the bars all the time.

 @mikekazimer: it's probably the case that these pro athletes all tried different bar lengths and settled on their preffered one, where normal people just get a 780 and don't cut it because they might regret it. But actually they don't know what length would be best

 @mikekazimer: Well if it's all so irrelevant, why present this basic information in the first place?

 @sonuvagun, things can be both interesting and irrelevant (or only slightly relevant) - think about suspension settings, for example. It’d be interesting to know what Brage Vestavik’s settings were for hitting the Jah drop, but that doesn’t mean they’re relevant for the vast majority of riders.

And I’m not saying that the numbers in this article aren’t useful, it’s just that the amount of criticism / judgement that gets doled out around something that’s really a matter of personal preference always irks me.

We ran a poll on handlebar width / stem length a couple years ago: www.pinkbike.com/news/pinkbike-poll-whats-your-ideal-handlebar-width.html. Might be time to run it again and see if preferences have changed.

 @mikekazimer: I’m absolutely no way riding to the level of these folk however I find it interesting that my bar/stem setup sits pretty much bang in the middle of all this. I’ve spent a lot of time researching bike setup and with that made a lot of changes progressively until I found my sweet spot. In terms of width, 760 seems to be bang on for me and my style of riding. Seems a fairly popular choice for riders of similar height.

Curious though as so many people I see just run the standard 800/820 bars that bikes come with and at full stack with little consideration as to how it might feel/effect their riding. Like you mention, it’s not necessary the right idea to clone pro setup as it doesn’t reflect a lot of riders needs however. Ok to take some ques given that they likely know a thing or two about setup.

 @mikekazimer: being dismissive about the relevance of the information isn’t doing the article any favours. It’s a safe bet to say that the audience of Pinkbike is generally the enduro type rider so this data surely is relevant.

Just because the pros are faster doesn’t mean that sone aspects of their setups won’t work well for the average enduro or trail rider. My guess is that these numbers are very relevant, unlike your example of Brage’s suspension setup. Why not look into this further?

 @mikekazimer: The width of bars are mostly discussed in conjunction with steering or clearance and not as much with pushing and pulling movements. Hence, wider bars are going to be more difficult i maintaining strength for said movements, thus, putting strain on the upper body and over long term may cause injuries if not suited for a particular rider. There are several types of test you can experiment with to determine the width which will produce optimum leverage combined with pressing strength to strongly push / pull the bike or absorb violent incoming forces and impacts from drops or the sniper rock/root/hole, without sacrificing too much in the way of control in steering .
I suffered from acute shoulder issues for some time on 760mm then went to 750; It wasn't long thereafter my shoulder issues subsided and was not hindered when riding, from pain. I now run 755 and found it produces the steering i prefer with the ability to have authority and strength for the fun part of aggressive riding without the miserable pain. I'll probably never go back to 760 unless it's mellower trails that i'd be riding.

 @emptybox: well you can use 780mm bars with grips fitted to 750mm to try it before cutting

 Indeed, this article is completely pointless without riders' height, shoulder width, wingspan... and riders' statements. Come on Pinkbike

 @bogey: Next thing you’ll want to analyze their sit bones or something. Contact points, bar width, seatpost height are all relative to the individual. It’s not that hard to move your grips in 10mm and see how you like it, is it?

 @mikekazimer: best thing would be to chop the handlebar to what you think you prefer, but if too narrow - to be able to lengthen it again with extenders!

 @bok-CZ: Same. It seems that the simple tests are completely lost on most of the PB crew

 @likeittacky: I hope this is an irony . 5mm difference has transformed your riding?

 @emptybox: this is one of the reason that ibis’s carbon bars are cool - the ends are threaded, so with nothing on the ends, they’re 750, but they come with 25mm inserts for each end so you can experiment with cutting them down without worrying about needing new bars. if you go too short, you only need new inserts, which is like $10

 The most important thing to remember is to pick a bar width/stem length and be a dick about it.

 @mikekazimer: So if things CAN be interesting and irrelevant, would it not be interesting to the reader to see the wingspan to handlebar width relation?

 Seems like not too long ago everyone said your shoulder width dictated bar width.... ahh, times have changed.

 @nerdymtbiker: Did i say the original 10mm less transformed my riding, NO! Did it aid in rehabilitating my shoulder pain,YES! Did i find it to be my optimum width for all in which i mentioned, YES! Do i wann't to reintroduce that pain by assuming 760 will be fine, Hell NO!! Typical PBer that doesn't read for what is meant to read and assume some sorta of stupid ass idea like yours! Go ride your Cross country - Ebike, Nitwit.

 @adamstraus: yeah, but you need Ibis’ handlebar first which ain’t cheap. Much better would be to have some universal ones designed to mount on any handlebar!

 Nah I like to cut my bars unevenly so one side is longer than the other

 @mikekazimer: You overestimate the ability of a not very skilled rider like me to get things right by trial and error. A bad bike setup might "feel comfortable" because it partly compensates for my poor technique and terrible body position. I want a setup that rewards the better technique I'm trying to learn. Copying the pros may not be the best way to get there, but trusting my own sense of what feels comfortable isn't either.

 @adamstraus: whats old is new again. Pros like Rennie used bar extensions 20 years ago to widen their bars to 760 or so.

 @mikekazimer: You could include backsweep in there as well. It would be nice to see more brands offering more options for it though...

 @IntoTheEverflow: lllllol

 @mikekazimer: Would love to see that poll with current setups!

I have a theory that people are running taller bars/stack partly just because of reach increases so they don't feel quite as going over the front end on the steeps.

 @mikekazimer: I just cut my bars at 752.7 now I’m searching for a 41.7 stem

 Wingspan would’ve been useful, but it’s unfortunate the table didn’t even include rider height since that would’ve taken near zero effort to include. Josh Bryceland is 6’ 1” I believe.

 @danstonQ: Agree. At least the rider’s height and frame size. Otherwise, it’s just numbers being thrown out there...

 @jrs77: you realize this is because of sponsor obligations/product availability right? The fact that so many still actively seek out ‘obsoleted’ product speaks volumes. My new bike with 35 aluminum bars was noticeably uncomfortable until I switched them out

 @jrs77: 35s look better, 31.8 generally ride better. I appreciate a good thicc bar looks wise but prefer 31.8 when I’m actually riding my bike. My first bike came with a two bolt stem on a 25.4mm bar. Now THAT was a pencil neck stem. The fancy fancy new new 35 is a marketing push for aesthetics, and not much more.

TLDR - if someone kills a standard, kill the 35 and go back to the 31.8 that still works great and wasn’t problematic to begin with. Not that anyone could do that now that the standard has been established.

 @toxic-toast: And generally it's hard to find 35mm bars with high rise numbers and/or more back sweep. Just big fat straight and stiff pipes. Plenty of options in 31.8mm!

 @tcmtnbikr: so much this. This is essentially preferred setup within the limited options of sponsor obligations. I wonder how many 30/35/40mm rise bars are the max rise their sponsors offer? Certainly the case with OneUp's carbon bar (35mm max rise).

 I have never understood the argument for 35mm bars: Stiffer = bad, Looks = who cares, Strength = who actually broke them in the first place. 31.8mm results in a more compliant and vibration reducing ride... why would anyone want to move to something worse.

Oh yeah... Marketing!

 @hirvi: The opposite seems true to my eyes. Way easier to find 35+ mm rise bars in 35mm diameter than in 31.8.

The Enve DH bar at 50mm rise and the Renthal 40mm rise are really the only 31.8 high risers I can think of.

 @BrambleLee: I just picked up a pair of 50mm rise Title bars in 31.8. I think Deity and Reverse also have some options.

 @BrambleLee: answer pro taper comes in 31.8 w/ 75mm rise

 @BrambleLee: FSA Gradient has a 40mm rise 31.8 as well

 @BrambleLee: Chromag FU40 and FU50 in 31.8.

 @jrs77: SQLabs offers their bars with mega back sweep in 31.8

 @toxic-toast: It's funny because I have recently switched to a 31.8 stem and new handlebars, I never thought that the stem might be one of the reasons why it rides so much better. But what makes it better (as far as you know)?

 @sonuvagun: Wider diameter tubes are inherently stiffer in bending loads, and the mounting point (stem) is where those forces primarily act through. Things get more complex with carbon layups, tube shapes, and different alloys, and there are comparatively compliant 35s and stuff 31.8 bars out there. But in broad strokes, and noting that there are exceptions to this rule, 31.8s tend to be a little more forgiving than 35s if all else is equal.

I’d say it matters as much as width, in that a bar will feel stiffer when cut down. If you look at it as a system of parts, where fork stanchion diameter, wheel choice, tire pressure and casing, etc. all act together to create a “feel” I find that narrower bars can add compliance to the system as a whole, especially if you have other particularly stiff parts in your build. And, as the industry chases stiffer this and compliant that, inherently softer bars seem to be an easy choice to me.

The softest bar I’ve found so far is the PNW one with extra sweep, 31.8, and slightly softer aluminum than usual. Very nice ride feel and the sweep feels good on the wrists. I also have a Chromag BZA, which is one of the more compliant 35 options out there. To my hands the PNW feels a little smoother and less chattery.

 There are plenty of 6'+ folks out there who get along great with an 800mm bar

 I made little press in extenders to make mine 820mm

 They sort of made some sense on too short of reach bikes

 @Tmackstab: maybe the bar wasn't designed / strength tested for that width.... yikes.

 @nateb: 10mm man, it's really nothing. I did it because the outer clamp on the grip took up space which made my bar narrower at my contact points.

 And now it's just Wanking on

 Narrow bars corner better. IYKYK.

 Modern geometry is great, and oh so thoroughly modern. But why do so many believe wide bars are only a recent discovery? I’ve put old school Moto bars on a Mtn bike in the 90’s for the width. I had some extensions machined for some other bars back in the day.
Myself, I run the widest bar possible that doesn’t cause crazy hand speed through a high speed rock garden.

 @no-good-ideas: this was a huge surprise to me when I went 800 -> 780 to gain a little tree clearance. I expected to have to deal with slightly worse handling.

190cm tall on a frame with ~510mm reach and slightly narrower feels way better.

 @Tmackstab: kayak background?

 @Tmackstab: yep, but once pressed in, if you want to remove them it’s quite hard and they might break. Better way is to make them removable!

 @hitarpotar: Controltech sell these:

www.controltechbikes.com/products/itemlist/category/122.html

I've bought some for bars with more sweep that in years gone by were only 720mm wide or so

 @DaveRobinson81: yeah, didn’t know these existed, so i designed some of my own. As far as i see, Controltech’s are road-parts - i tested mine on a downhill bike!

 I've ran 800mm bars and nothing bigger than a 40mm stem for years. They feel perfectly natural to me and I can ride comfortably all day.

 @hitarpotar: They make both MTB and road versions

 @KJP1230: yup, I've got a 205cm wing span and very comfortable on my 820 bar!

Everyone needs to realise that the average height of enduro pro riders = very short ass!

 @DaveRobinson81: yeah, saw these, too. To be honest, can’t really figure it out how they tighten inside the handlebar - my design widens itself once inside the bar via a bolt. Controltech’s probably does the same, just can’t seem to understand which part and how it happens with all being metal (mine isn’t ).

 @hitarpotar: It's a wedge... same as carbon CSU plugs

 @DaveRobinson81: thanx, just checked the instalation of such a csu plug - in essence, the metal parts are held together only by the o-ring while being widened. I’m not using o-rings and the only metal part on my extenders is the bolt!

 @hitarpotar: That sounds like Hope bar ends... elastomer of some kind?

 @DaveRobinson81: filament for a 3d-printer - i was frustrated cause i couldn’t find a dm-stem spacer i could buy locally, so i designed and 3d-printed one. But it was a failure, change the design by simplifying it and found someone that can manufacture this simplified design from aluminium. In the mean time i was already thinking about the extenders and knowing already what a 3da-printer is capable of, made the extenders by using it. Even managed to crash-test them on a dh-course - no problems whatsoever (kinda hard to maneuver with a 850mm handlebar, but had to do it for the test ).

 Too lazy to cut his bars?

 That was my assumption, the women will likely be on average shorter than the men but have a similar bar width which suggests there is more to it than any of them using their height or wingspan as a measuring tool for bar width

 Everyone ran wider bars until they faced that rock wall thing in Tasmania a few years ago (i.nextmedia.com.au/Utils/ImageResizer.ashx?n=https%3a%2f%2fi.nextmedia.com.au%2fFeatures%2fTrans_Tas_Beardy_-6411.jpg&c=0) After that, most if not all riders cut their bars down. There are still broken pinkies out there, so I would assume narrow bars are better for the tight trails.

 Stem length may also be related to fork offset. The real offset is stem length - fork offset, then you have to factor in bar sweet and roll too.

 That's what I did with my setup. But then again, I'm an old crusty fart running 51mm fork offset. I find that the 50mm stem calms down the steering and makes it easier to hold consistent arcs in turns. However, I find that it doesn't feel as intuitive as a 40mm stem in steep trails, it's not as snappy and you can feel this in steep sharp corners where you have to drift through. If I had a 42mm fork offset I would probably run a 40mm stem. Something feels wrong about running a longer stem than fork offset...but I haven't tried it.

 I remember Martin Maes saying he preferred the feel of a 40mm stem but the 50mm let him weight the front more to generate more grip.

 Some of their setup is definitely related to terrain. Most of the trails they race on are tight old school European terrain. It's probably easier to set the bikes up for the type of course they normally ride than to keep switching their setup all the time. My guess is if the EDR was based mostly out of north America we'd see wider bars and shorter stems.

 @jeremy3220: That is some strong scientific study right there! Euro MTB is different to American MTB… what ever.

 @jeremy3220: Also they'd have AR15 holders and bottle cages for Big Gulp Mtn Dew cups.

 I've seen interviews with quite a few pros who prefer to size down if they're in-between sizes so the bike responds quicker and stem length could have something to do with that. It's also likely that they've found the longer stem allows them to better weight the front wheel when cornering. With really slack angles and short stems, the bars are pretty far behind the front axle.

 @NZRalphy: y'all just keep getting dumber and dumber every year. That's according to a lot of Ews racers.

 @betsie: well on the surface that sounds logical,
however your lever isnt from your fork steer tube forward to your axle, its actually behind the steering axis to the contact patch... through the trail measurement, where shorter offsets create more trail, and longer offsets create less trail,

 ...and spacer stack

 It doesn’t mean nothing. Much of the bar width and stem length preference is driven by the terrain. Narrower bars are better in tight enduro courses.

 My bad, actual average is 756.3

 @dariodigiulio: nice, brb cutting my bars to 756.3mm so I can become the most average rider of all time

 @sudochuckwalla: You’ll never take the crown from me and my 28.25” wheels.

 If you go too wide you really limit your mobility and actually hurt cornering. Straight line control over the rough is betterthe wider you go though, so it's really a compromise between the two. At least that's what I've personally found after trying different options.

 @justwan-naride: that seems to track with dh vs enduro riders too. I feel like many of the World Cup dh bike checks have wider bars

 I felt the same way as JM going to 800s. Liked the DH stabilty, but couldn't lean the bike enough and crashed/washed the front a lot. Went down to 750s and felt right at home again. Also had some nagging shoulder issues coincidentally after running 800s for half a season. Unsurprisingly I felt better after I cut the bars down. I'm 69" tall and +3.5% on the ape index. 32" Inseam. Distinctly average.

 Henry Crease brought the average down by 4mm.

 @Snowytrail: My bad, actual average is 756.3

 @dariodigiulio: Great now I cut my bars 3mm too short....you are changing lives here Dario please be more careful.

 @pink505: ha ha ha ha

 This was brought up in a wyn TV episode. All riders knew their widths, but they were never sure if it was with or without grips.

 @m3hl: Yeah, I knew I had seen this before and was astonished that they somehow know that it's 755mm but nobody's really sure if that's with or without grips. Since it seems to be quite common on EWS that they chose narrower bars because of tree clearance rather than ergonomics that's quite a deal though. Because I'd guess a bar with counterpunch grips for example turns out easily 2cm wider then what it was cut to. So that's 770 between trees for a 750 bar, quite a huge difference if we see what size differences we are talking about here between riders. Or it's a 750 bar that's actually cut to 730, which I would somehow doubt. Anyway, taking this into account, plus the fact we don't know anything about wingspan, spacers, handlebar roll makes the width information quite pointless. What I might take away from it is that they might run their bars a little narrower than the norm to avoid clipping the bars. That's it mainly.

 I dont have the same width or stem on any of my bikes.

 best comment here, get to it please @dariodigiulio & PB

Also, we were so concerned with what the measurements were - we never thought to ask WHY?

PS. I tried going back to 740mm bars last year after some publicity about EWS racers going narrow, it was absolutely terrifying

 @chakaping: I think you have an extremely low threshold for terror.

 @chakaping: I did my test too. I choose to keep 800 and a short 30 mm stem but tested 78,76 and even 75.
Only 80 and 78 pass my test,really do not like 76 or 75 in my enduro bike. Narrow one´s where a little sketchy to me. I have long arms and big hands,need my brake and shifter wide spacing.

 It’s what their sponsors make

 Deity has written some info about this and carbon at 35 vs 31.8 in aluminum.

 depends on the bar roll, I always run mine in line with the fork

 @arek-hs: Comparing same roll to same roll you get a different reach.

 OneUp sponsored racers

 £ per gram or $ per Oz, Carbon bars make a lot of sense relative to other upgrades

 Average is 41.7 though. Been bouncing back forth between 40 and 33mm. Both feel fine, but bet my lack of skill is why either works.

 @FaahkEet: And I find my state of physical condition to be a huge factor in set up.
Don’t make cockpit changes fresh off the couch!

 www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCi9LzaMm10&ab_channel=RULEZMANSUSPENSION

www.fasstco.com/pages/flexx-handlebar-bends

 Yeah stemlngth without the bar sweeps really doesn’t give any insight. But even the sweep and bar rise numbers are so comically different for what they mean and where they are measured it really is frustrating. Having gone through 7 bars last year and measuring them all I have some very funny pictures

 Histograms. Where are the histograms?

 Can you measure them from a photo? FM that is good

 @NZRalphy: Of course not( well I guess I could if it was worth my time doing so), but I have bikes with 800mm bars and bikes with 740mm widths. I'm pretty damn certain none of these, at least on the men's bikes are 740mm width.

 Or you could do it yourself?!

 Exactly. MTB is so far behind MX in this respect.

www.fasstco.com/pages/flexx-handlebar-bends

Also www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCi9LzaMm10&ab_channel=RULEZMANSUSPENSION

 Agreed!
Without reference to frame size, rider height, leg length, arm length, saddle height (above centre BB), effective reach, effective stack (or grip to ground distance) and steerer length & spacer height ie a total picture of what control dimensions they are trying to achieve this is a useless list of words and numbers.

Could be summed up by:
"A lot of people use OneUp because their 35 mm format is actually rideable, some people run Burgtec and Renthal and some other people run some other bars. Some riders still prefer aluminium to carbon (probably because their brand makes a carbon bar that is as comfortable to ride as a using a steel pry bar as a handle bar. It turns out that making a good carbon bar is harder than it looks!)."