Bar ends

mongoosed

Hi folks,i was reading a review in WMB mag today and the bike had bar ends,got me wondering,why does no one use them anymore?i always thought they made climbing a bit easier when i biked years ago,but you don't see them anymore.

supersonic

Fashion police have killed them.

Furbes

I don't think i've had a Bike Without them ! I use the Kona for commuting aswell , so the extra Positions come in handy .

Banned!

theyre crap.

GHill

The riser bar took away some of their advantage, for the rest of the story see Sonic's post

jamieh5463

I think they make a bike look better, well they make my bike look better anyway!. Bar ends are only really for XC/trail riding so it might just be DHers or freeriders you're seeing.

Pajiii

Nothing wrong with barends, they are quite handy and offer a different riding position for when you want to get out of the saddle and give it some up the long steep hills on some of the fireroads. Its personal preference and I dont really care if they make my bike look better or not.

snotty badger

Thinking about putting some on my commuter, just so I can vary my hand position.

Are barends and riser bars allowed?

dave_hill

Jesus_Christ wrote:

theyre crap.

Explain please?

Bar ends allow your wrists to flex in their natural plane and offer more leverage when climbing.

And if anyone says "but you'll snap your bars" I'll come round to your house and kick your cat. Utter cobblers.

They don't look right on risers though...

dave_hill

GHill wrote:

The riser bar took away some of their advantage

Not really. Riser bars are just flat bars, er, with a rise...

Banned!

dave_hill wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

theyre crap.

Explain please?

Bar ends allow your wrists to flex in their natural plane and offer more leverage when climbing

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

dav1

I think its more that the alternate hand and wrist position allows you to move your body into a more efficient pedalling position on the bike comfortably.

Finbar Saunders

I'm just adding some to my MTB that is flat-barred. I've been riding road bikes for years and when I got my first MTB in December the first thing I noticed when I got out of the saddle for a climb was that my hands were in the wrong place! The equivalent on a road bike is climbing out of the saddle with your hands on the tops. It's much more comfortable climbing out of the saddle with your hands on the hoods or in the drops. So bar ends are going onto my MTB no matter what anyone thinks! It's mainly going to be used for XC.

geordiefreerider

The reason I dont use them is I caught one on a thin tree while bombing through woods and it instantly hooked the handle bar round and chucked me off, but I think there good if you ride open cross country or do a lot of road work involving climbs.

stevieboy

Jesus_Christ wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

theyre crap.

Explain please?

Bar ends allow your wrists to flex in their natural plane and offer more leverage when climbing

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

Based on experience and body mechanics, bar ends allow the more powerful biceps to be used to pull on the bars rather than the weaker triceps.

And you say you dont need leverage to climb. Ok, try this - I challange you to ride up a steep climb with your thumb and fore finger wrapped around the grip only for steering control. By steep I mean steeper than steps steep. If you make it ok at a decent speed you're either:

A) too good for the rest of us

or

you really are Jesus Christ

Banned!

if i tried riding like that then i would fall off because i would be unbalanced, not because i didnt have enough leverage. youre confusing the two.

Northwind

JC, you really can use leverage to climb better- pulling the bar up when pushing down the pedal on the same side gives a big power boost, sort of like the roadie sway. Give it a crack... It's possible to do even without bar ends, though a bit tricky, you can turn your hands and grip the end of the grips. Give it a crack next time you're on a boring tarmac climb, knock up a few gears and gun it.

geordiefreerider wrote:

The reason I dont use them is I caught one on a thin tree while bombing through woods and it instantly hooked the handle bar round and chucked me off, but I think there good if you ride open cross country or do a lot of road work involving climbs.

TBH if you hook a bar end, you would probably have crashed anyway when the handlebar hit the tree. The best answer is to not hit trees

geordiefreerider

Not true at all i have clipped trees and branches loads of times without bar ends and not come off, any rider worth his salt will tell you the same thing if he's ridden fast through dense forest !

djvagabon

stevieboy wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

theyre crap.

Explain please?

Bar ends allow your wrists to flex in their natural plane and offer more leverage when climbing

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

Based on experience and body mechanics, bar ends allow the more powerful biceps to be used to pull on the bars rather than the weaker triceps.

And you say you dont need leverage to climb. Ok, try this - I challange you to ride up a steep climb with your thumb and fore finger wrapped around the grip only for steering control. By steep I mean steeper than steps steep. If you make it ok at a decent speed you're either:

A) too good for the rest of us

or

you really are Jesus Christ

The bicep is not a stronger muscle group then the tricep. The bicep is quite a small muscle compared to the tricep. Bi meaning 2 and Tri meaning 3. I'm a personal trainer and the tricep is capable of pulling much greater weight then the bicep

Northwind

geordiefreerider wrote:

Not true at all i have clipped trees and branches loads of times without bar ends and not come off, any rider worth his salt will tell you the same thing if he's ridden fast through dense forest !

You can't hook up a bar end unless you're doing more than just clipping the tree... Well, not quite true, some bar ends are completely square but most curve inwards for ergonomics, meaning that to hook them on a branch, you need to catch it with a good few inches of bar. And that's going to take the steam out of your stride, bar ends or no.

Riders worth their salt shouldn't be hitting so many trees But because I'm not worth my salt, I do have fair experience of hitting trees And I''m old enough to remember when bar ends were mandatory W

batch78

I use them, on risers, they are useful when climbing, when riding hard and fast for long periods and to provide an extra hand position on epic all dayers.

If you believe they are useless don't use them, its your call, I do suspect however, that excuses are being mad because the real reason is they look wrong on risers.

JC, stand with your hands by your side, if your knuckles naturally point forward firstly your an ape, secondly your correct, you won't benefit from barends.

batch78

The bicep is not a stronger muscle group then the tricep. The bicep is quite a small muscle compared to the tricep. Bi meaning 2 and Tri meaning 3. I'm a personal trainer and the tricep is capable of pulling much greater weight then the bicep

So you can tricep curl a third more than you can bicep curl? I don't think so.

mudslinger

For XC bar-ends are fantastic as they help (certainly for me) on steep climbs & especially long gentle climbs when you want to go quick. I find using the strength in my arms enables me to apply more power through my legs as my body feels more balanced. Newtons laws of physics???

I recently came off when I caught a branch & my first reaction was that they are coming off when I get home. But by the top of the next climb I'd changed my mind.

I admit they make the bike look worse but I'm not such a shallow person as to let that bother me. And as for saying they are crap that is just a stupid comment.

stevieboy

djvagabon wrote:

stevieboy wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

theyre crap.

Explain please?

Bar ends allow your wrists to flex in their natural plane and offer more leverage when climbing

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

Based on experience and body mechanics, bar ends allow the more powerful biceps to be used to pull on the bars rather than the weaker triceps.

And you say you dont need leverage to climb. Ok, try this - I challange you to ride up a steep climb with your thumb and fore finger wrapped around the grip only for steering control. By steep I mean steeper than steps steep. If you make it ok at a decent speed you're either:

A) too good for the rest of us

or

you really are Jesus Christ

The bicep is not a stronger muscle group then the tricep. The bicep is quite a small muscle compared to the tricep. Bi meaning 2 and Tri meaning 3. I'm a personal trainer and the tricep is capable of pulling much greater weight then the bicep

In a gym maybe, but on a bike the bicep has the greater pull, otherwise bar ends would be a waste of time

GHill

dave_hill wrote:

GHill wrote:

The riser bar took away some of their advantage

Not really. Riser bars are just flat bars, er, with a rise...

The rise means your hands are in a better position when climbing up hills out of the saddle. Note the word "some" in my original post.

will3

GHill wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

GHill wrote:

The riser bar took away some of their advantage

Not really. Riser bars are just flat bars, er, with a rise...

The rise means your hands are in a better position when climbing up hills out of the saddle. Note the word "some" in my original post.

How is it actuall different from having a flatbar and a steeper stem? Surely it just gets the grips in the same place in a different way.

Northwind

will3 wrote:

How is it actuall different from having a flatbar and a steeper stem? Surely it just gets the grips in the same place in a different way.

Well, if you assume that leverage is part of the advantage (is it? I don't know) then remember, bar ends went hand in hand with narrow flats. They moved your hands outto the widest position possible on the bars. But, modern risers tend to run considerably wider, therefore duplicating indirectly some of that effect- my hand "width" is about the same on my risers as it was with flats and bar ends.

There's a lot of chat in here about WHY they give an advantage, but I think that's maybe missing the point, the big question is DO they give an advantage. I think they do, my mtb doesn't have them now but my last one did, and my roadbike/rigid mtb will too. I don't miss them at all on the scandal, with its high wide bars, I fitted a set out of curiousity and they feel odd, not useful. But when I got it I briefly experimented with 100mm travel and a 580mm bar, and the absence of bar ends was annoying, I ended up gripping the ends of the bars instead on some climbs. Same bike, different bars and stance, very different feel.

I've never felt its the case that the bar-end hand position is outright better for climbs, but it does give you more choice, and it does vary the muscle use. That's a big enough advantage in itself, sometimes.

I don't think bar ends offer any other advantage than this when just spinning up fire roads... But for faster, more purposeful climbing, they can be nice. They help put you into a more aggressive, front-weighted riding position, and to me it just feels more natural.

I have no idea of the science, what muscles are stronger or whether it's leverage or even just psychology, I just know that on some bikes, bar ends work.

GHill

Northwind wrote:

I have no idea of the science, what muscles are stronger or whether it's leverage or even just psychology, I just know that on some bikes, bar ends work.

That sounds good to me.

dave_hill

Jesus_Christ wrote:

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

Good god man, you do talk some pap. I thought I was full of sh!t but you take the cake sometimes.

So your wrists flex more naturally left to right do they?? You must be a double jointed freak then!!

Answer me this - why is it, when roadies stand on the pedals to climb a hill, they grip the hoods of the brakes? Hmm??

Is it because they're all gay (and I've nothing against gays, some of my best friends are roadies)? Or is it because it puts their hands/wrists/arms in a more natural and efficient position, to maximise leverage and reduce fatigue?

geordiefreerider

dave_hill wrote:

Jesus_Christ wrote:

you dont need leverage to climb. and your wrists move laterally, not something that will help climbing at all.

Is it because they're all gay (and I've nothing against gays, some of my best friends are roadies)?

HA HA funniest thing on this entire thread !!!!

geordiefreerider

There does seem to be a lot of turd spouted on these threads why do people feel to constantly argue over something as stupid as bar ends, I would say yes they help you climb and anyone who says otherwise is a idiot, although I dont use them anymore I know from first hand experience that they work and I remember just being able to alternate your hand position on long rides was a bonus.