Originally Posted by dddd

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But note that the French "death" stems were seemingly always paired with handlebars just 34-37cm wide between the ends.
That's significant, because when describing lifespan vs. applied load, something like a 10% reduction in peak stress can easily equate to a 1000% increase in fatigue life.....
So, you have an exponential (i.e., L-squared) relationship to not only the bar flex that the rider feels, but also to the "work energy" that is being absorbed into the poor stem. Thus, a potentially even much shorter stem lifespan in greater than inverse logarithmic proportion to any increased handlebar width.....