Having recently picked up a new road bike, my older road bike I use to commute on feels off now. The biggest difference I feel is in the handlebars. The new bikes bars initially felt massively thick to me, but now I find I really prefer them as I have large hands (I'm 6'5"). My hands are a little too big for most XL sized gloves when skiing for example.
The new bike has whatever is stock on a 2012 trek madone 5.2, from what I can tell they are 46cm wide and are called the "Bontrager Race Blade VR-C, 31.8mm" but I can't find these in the bontrager catalog, they are alloy not carbon.
I have 3t prima ergo bars on my older bike. Is the easy solution to use thicker bar tape? Wrap a cork tape underneath the gel tape I have on them now? The brake levers feel and look about the same size to me (dura-ace 7700 on old, ultegra 6700 on new), it all seems to be size of the tubes under the tape as far as I can tell.
I realize this is worthless without pictures but I don't have very good shots of either cockpit, just side photo's.
new:
old:
Otherwise, are there any budget priced alloy bars that are similar to what came on my madone?