Originally Posted by
PhattTyre
My current bar is a Nitto Dove Bar, which is comfortable, but has too much back sweep for me (angle is fine, but the bars come back too far). I'm looking for a not too wide, angled bar without a lot of back sweep. I've thought about Mary bars, but they'd be too wide. Right now I'm looking at the Bontrager Satellite Trekking bar. It's wider than I want, but looks as though I could cut it down.
What other options might I have? What do you use and how do you like it?
I run Moustache bars on my commuter. While they have a lot of backsweep that end up even more angled than the bars you're currently using, like others have said, they sweep forward first, so it might be ideal for your situation. With your hands up front, on the outside of the bend, you can get whatever angle you prefer.
I would definitely second the Soma Sparrow bars. I have these on another bike and they are fantastic. Only thing is, wherever you put your hands, you are basically leaning or putting pressure on the same areas. So even though you can widen or tighten your grip on them, they don't provide as much variety of hand placement to deal with sore spots as moustache or drop bars.
Then there's these:
http://www.jitensha.com/eng/flatbar05.html
I haven't tried them but they seem to be exactly what you're looking for.
Another route would be to check out some of the more severely angled mtn bike bars--there are flat bars and risers out there with at least a 15 deg angle, if not more. Not a flat bar, but nowhere near even Mary bar angles. The Soma Arc bar would fit this description as well.