I have not tried both variants, but I saw a photo once of all three sizes lined up together. I can't say with any certainty, but it appears that the bends were 100% identical and the only difference was the length of the straight ends. This unfortunately confirms your concern that reach is affected.
Edit: Here's the photo
For what it's worth, I have the mediums too. I think the narrowness is spot on for me in terms of comfort, but the widest ones would probably match the townie look better. You can see how much room I have left after the grips and before the bends with the mediums. There's just enough room for levers but fitting a bell up there could get tight. I have a large bell (mounted sideways to the stem in the photo) and it was too large to mount to the bars in between the grip and the bend. Not physically too large, but I felt like my hands would have been cramped. Largest bars probably would have allowed that better.
