Originally Posted by
mrvile
I looked a little closer at the bars I'm using now and they have a ~24mm OD across the entire bar with a shim in the center to fit in the stem. I still can't tell how much the shim adds to the diameter but I figure if I'm determined enough I can get a 26mm bar into the stem. Anyway the brake lever clamps to the 24mm part and doesn't fit around the shimmed part of the handlebar, so I'm pretty sure it'll fit the narrower part of the Eighthinch bars.
Buying bars without knowing what size the clamp you want to fit them into is a bad idea. Cramming a 26mm bar into a 25.4mm clamp is a terrible, jackass idea. Youre not a jackass are you? Then get some Vernier calipers and measure everything properly. It makes a huge difference to be able to know exactly what size your bike components are.
Plastic ones are about 2 bucks. They work fine for everything bike related and will measure accurately to a tenth of a millimeter and higher.
http://www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/...-vernier/BEU07