i just bought soma 456 track drops in 44cm. compared to my nitto noodle 39cm its a good difference, more then i expected. i love the bars, but i guess from my previous bars it will have some getting used to of how wide they really are.

so my question is, is 44cm too wide to where it looks weird and goofy for you guys? its all personal preference i know, but i guess if i could do it again, i would have chosen a 42 instead. I probably will keep them, but i want the opinions of others who have maybe had 44cm wide bars of their own. pics are encouraged!

i know there are benefits to wider bars such as comfort, stability, steering, and breathing.



thanks
Justin

the bars, with a potential brake lever (still deciding)

Way too wide for me.

I usually ride drop bars that correspond to my shoulder width, which is about 40cm.

yea i was doing some research and they say pick bars that are the width of your shoulders/a little wider. i compared them to my shoulders just by physically fitting them up and to my surprise they seem to be just right. at first i was just worried about aesthetics but now with more research ive found that 44 is still not that wide in general terms, and that they are actually pretty spot on to my specs recommended to me.

well aesthetics are important, but it shouldn't compromise fit. If it fits, then ride it. There is something about my anatomy that doesn't like my arms flaring out. I was taught to hold the bars straight out and there should be no angle (which is not an etched rule by any means) and it was always spot on for me. Or if you wanted to be precise, measure joint-to-joint and that's how wide the bar should be.

I can't ride bikes with handlebars smaller than 42cm anymore. 44's feel amazing to me. It really just depends on your size.

44 or 46 (Noodles) for me please and thanks. I'm not big, but my shoulders are wide and fairly "open" so big bars work for me. I'd race on 44's for a better tuck, but I like the stability of the 46's for rough roads, downhills, fast corners, emergency maneuvers, and off-road. Real wide bars on the mountain bike, even better there.

The bigger the rider the wider the bars.Sor instance, If you're 6'2" + then 44cm should be just fine. If you're a hobbit, then it's too darn wide.

It seems to me hobbits need the wide bars because they are stocky themselves I'm not exactly hobbit length, (178 cm), but I prefer very narrow bars since I'm a lanky skinny sort of dude. Until I started rowing I was bit like a cat, if my head fit through somewhere the rest would be no problem

Traditionally the narrower your track bars the smaller the gap you could squeeze through on the velodrome.

I think there fine but then again I ride 46's.

Anything that's very different from what you're used to using/seeing will feel weird at first. Just like a different pair of shoes, or when you've been driving a rental car on vacation and come home to your usual car... feels weird, right? Ride them for a while.

ha, i must be a freak, since i have two bikes with 48cm nitto noodles. i'm a pretty big guy, so it's not that freaky, and these are on my 27" frame, so really only the wheels are proportionally small. I wanted to get a wide set originally, because i was going to pull my twins on a tandem trail-a-bike and needed as much leverage as possible. The other set I got on a great deal, so i couldn't pass it up.

that said, i recently decided to try a set of the Nitto B115 at 45cm, which i thought was going to be small, but they feel great. I believe 45 or 46 is my ideal.

here's my 48's on my very tall Raleigh Marathon:

Justin, I'm pretty sure those 456 bars are 46cm, not 44. They're very wide. I thought that wide bars made sense for me because I ride 63cm frames and am 6'. But apparently my shoulders aren't very wide. I've found ~42cm to be my sweet spot.

i looked for stamping and the only numbers i found were "09L" "456" and "440" i assumed that read as 44.0. who knows lol. also im shipping your package out right now!

I'm only 5'9" but I have wide shoulders and actually feel uncomfortable with anything narrower than 44cm, and prefer 46cm. They make climbing out of the saddle far more stable and controllable, and I don't believe that they appreciably increase the aerodynamic drag on downhills consider that I am the largest frontal impact. My mountain bikes using drop bars always start with 46cm and have the drops bent outward another 1.5" on each side, and I've been thinking about doing the same for my fixie bars.

39cm bars scare the crap out of me make me feel like I am riding one of those "college" fixies with 18" bars, and I won't even hand them down, they go straight into the dumpster....

Heh, my Bianchi came to me with 39cm bars, and I wondered why it took so long to feel comfortable steering it. (Not in a "pain" sense, but feeling really nervous taking one hand off.) I borrowed a friend's bike with 44cm bars for a while, and I'm thinking some 42cm randonneur bars are in my future.

- Scott

Seems like a waste of bars that some smaller people could use. My girlfriend uses 38s and they can be a pain to find.

Everything has a use. Not everyone is shaped or made the same way!