I'm building a new bike. Medium 18, 5.5 inches of travel intended for trail riding. I have the choice of a 640mm or 670mm carbon riser bar. I'm 5'10" and weigh 165lbs.

Which of the 2 would you recommend?

670 with alu ends

+1

670mm

Really? Why that wide?

Well...I said "alu ends" so you can cut the bar down to whatever you want. You can still do it with carbon bars with masking tape and a fine tooth blade though.

Oh, I see. Well, the 2 choices of bar are both full carbon and I don't want to cut them. I don't use bar ends so I can put my grips all the way to the end. Therefore, I'm probably going 640mm.

Wide bars rock.

I came from a BMX background and I was used to narrow bars. When I got into MTBs, I immediately sawed my handlebars down to about 600mm. Over the years I've begun to leave them alone where most of the stock bars I have are around 640mm.

A mate of mine kept raving on about wide bars and I've dismissed it, until one time a high rise bar I ordered arrived and it was really wide at 680mm. So I decided to leave it alone as I could always cut it later on.

Now it's my fav handle bar... it just feels right for some reason.

.

I'm still kicking myself in the brownie for cutting my EA70 down to 25.5

Do you use bar ends? Because the bar ends alone account for a good 20mm on each side.

Are you serious? Umm...I'm between bar ends at the moment.

Wide.

670 is wide?

I used to have narrower bars. Then I got some 710s and I was in love. The bike felt more stable through almost everything. Plus it was cool that they were lighter then my narrower bars to. Get the 670s. You'll like them.