Narrow handlebars??

Gazmania1

Just taken delivery of my new Canyon and have noticed the handlebars are really narrow. It's an XL sized bike and in my experience they normally come with 44 cm bars but this one comes with 42cm. When I had a bike fit a few years ago he said I need 44cm so it's a bit small for me. Can't really see it being a problem but would anyone bother doing anything about it?

ride_whenever

Nah, there's a bit of a trend for narrower bars anyway as it's more aero...

Sprool

Having also just taken delivery of a Canyon CF SL 7 size L, I asked for the standard 42 bars to be replaced by 44's as I prefer a bit wider position. The counter argument to the aero thing is wider bars open up your chest more to breathe in deep gulps of oxygen. Probably more of an issue for me than 1/10 of a sec time gain on a descent.
The bar spec is on the order info when you go through the purchase details - I can't see it being much of a problem but if you'd have asked Canyon they would have swapped them out for you!
I am really pleased with mine, even though its their bottom-of-the-range carbon machine its so streets ahead of my old alu bike in terms of comfort and feel.

thegreatdivide

Open chest thing is a myth. You're meant to breath from your diaphragm so a couple of cm will make zero difference. I ride 40 and 42 cm wide bars and can breath just fine.

ai_1

thegreatdivide wrote:

Open chest thing is a myth. You're meant to breath from your diaphragm so a couple of cm will make zero difference. I ride 40 and 42 cm wide bars and can breath just fine.

What's breathing from your diaphragm got to do with it? Your diaphragm controls inflation of your lungs but requires freedom to move your chest to achieve that. You do restrict ability to breath easily by restricting chest movement. Whether or not the difference between 42 and 44cm bars will be significant for any given person is a different matter.

antfly

It just depends whether you are comfortable or not but if they are too narrow it's more noticeable on the drops than the hoods IME. I have just gone up to 44 after years on a 42 because I use the drops a lot more now on that bike {I already switched on my other bikes}. My wrist position feels better, before I had to turn one wrist inward, and I am more comfortable and I have better control of the bike, especially when sprinting out of the saddle.

giant_man

It's got 4uck all to do with breathing, and 'open chest' idea, whatever that is. Some people just prefer wider bars, like myself.

Stedman

antfly wrote:

It just depends whether you are comfortable or not but if they are too narrow it's more noticeable on the drops than the hoods IME. I have just gone up to 44 after years on a 42 because I use the drops a lot more now on that bike {I already switched on my other bikes}. My wrist position feels better, before I had to turn one wrist inward, and I am more comfortable and I have better control of the bike, especially when sprinting out of the saddle.

For the past six years I have been regularly riding two bikes with different handlebar widths, (both the same shape), the first was 44cm and the second 42cm and it was only through recently taking measurements for a new bike that I discovered there was any difference between the two.

mfin

It's a mix of shoulder width and a bit of personal preference comes in, that's it. The open chest thing does apply a lot more when deciding the width apart of the extensions (of the elbow pads mainly) on a TT bike, some people suffer less than ideal breathing when they are a bit too close when riding in a TT position, but some people are less sensitive to these things.

antfly

Stedman wrote:

antfly wrote:

It just depends whether you are comfortable or not but if they are too narrow it's more noticeable on the drops than the hoods IME. I have just gone up to 44 after years on a 42 because I use the drops a lot more now on that bike {I already switched on my other bikes}. My wrist position feels better, before I had to turn one wrist inward, and I am more comfortable and I have better control of the bike, especially when sprinting out of the saddle.

For the past six years I have been regularly riding two bikes with different handlebar widths, (both the same shape), the first was 44cm and the second 42cm and it was only through recently taking measurements for a new bike that I discovered there was any difference between the two.

In which case you probably fit a 42.

ai_1

I think I find 440mm bars slightly more comfortable but I can happily live with 420mm bars too. My previous 440mm bars left my forearms pretty much parallel in the drops and put my wrists at an ideal angle on the hoods. With my newer 420mm bars I need to tuck in my elbows a tiny bit to keep my wrists happy. It's not a problem at 420mm but I suspect it would start getting uncomfortable if I went any narrower. It's not a like for like comparison because the shape of the bars are different as well as their width. The change of width wasn't the reason for the bar change, I needed more clamp area to take tri-bars and 420mm bars were what was available at the LBS for a good price so I decided to give them a try. Probably 440mm is ideal for me in terms of comfort but 420mm isn't much of a compromise and I've no intention of bothering to change back.

giant man wrote:

It's got 4uck all to do with breathing, and 'open chest' idea, whatever that is. Some people just prefer wider bars, like myself.

So, you're just going to state these pearls of wisdom, no explanation?
There's no reason why you prefer wider bars, you just do? Is that it?
Forgive me but between the lack of any actual rationale and the fact you find the term "open chest" confusing I'm going to go ahead and ignore your opinion.

sloppyschleckonds

Wrong size bars could give you frozen shoulder or similar ailments.