short short bars
 

just now on broadway i saw a guy on an orange track frame with SHORT straight bars. i mean really short. they couldn't have been wider than 8" (his hands were right at the ends.) he seemed to be okay while going straight but my question is what's it like when you have to make an emergency turn.

there's a guy in ATL with really short bars and ergonomic plastic bar ends -- sort of look like an airplane wing cross-section.

twitchy as hell, yea?

from what i know, short-short bars make bike polo easier.

I was running a pair of flat bars cut down to 10" recently for a few weeks. Just wide enough to get an Oury grip on either end.

They definitely look cool, and are surprisingly easy to get around with. I never felt that I would lose control of the bars, and made plenty of 'emergency turns' weaving in and out of Chicago traffic. If anything, the steering feels a litte more 'quick'.

They're nice n' narrow, so I had far more confidence going into tight squeezes than with track drops. Trackstands were almost as easy as with the drops, and I was able to skip and skid with them as well (I ran a front brake with 'em, though).

But... I took them off. During longer rides my wrists would start to hurt, and I figured it would be pretty stupid to get Carpal Tunnel from a pair of novelty bars. I'll keep 'em around for a bit of fun now and then, but I can't see them being a long-term solution.

Maybe they were polo bars: http://www.boxwoodbicyclepolo.com/polo6.jpg

You know what they say about the size of a mans bar....

my mtb ss has short bars (hacksawed) with bar ends. i love the steering on it. and it's fun as all getout.

it is twitchy, but i never feel like i'm gonna lose control. emergency turns and everything. played dodge the tourists on the opening day of "The Gates" up in CP.

of course, i want to go from ss to fix, but it'd mean getting new wheels. maybe this spring.

Argh. The bars are NARROW, not short.

Any other nits that need pickin'?

plonk

the thread title was a joke, as in short shorts, but in any case NARROW would imply that the bar is thin. taken off the stem, the bar is short or long. but yeah, thanks anyway. :rolleyes:

Call it what you want short stuff...it's still not going to impress the ladies.
Enjoy

my friend josh in brooklyn (who not long ago moved there from atlanta) rode his bike (a french track bike, can't remember what kind) with some shorties/narrows whatever the hell you want to call them. they were probably 7 or 8 inches across. he delivered food with them, hung bags to them and rode. i thought he was crazy, but he said he liked 'em. i think he has since taken them off.

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ight=polo+bars

Check the bars in post #6 of this thread.

handlebars too short
will not impress the ladies
short things never do

Enjoy

ah yes, those are the ones.

My Roomate tells me of Really Short/Narrow Track
Bars where it basically starts the curve as soon
as it comes out of the stem
Has anyone seen such a set of bars and if so would
you know where i might be able to purchase them?
Thanks

Is this an appropriate place for a "thickness-not-length" comment?

thickness or shortness
there's always room for haikus
stick to the subject

Enjoy

My understanding is that girth is more important...

Beaten down by a haiku...

curses.

were they bigger than a babies arm?


Anyway, I rode my friends bike that was set up with really short bars, I can see how you would develope all new muscles that way. It was fun, but difficult to skid with those and I felt a little shakey. I like my bullhorns and will stick with those.... unless we can get a bike polo team going in philly? Who's in?

http://nycvelo.com/bike.jpg

anybody?

im in for bike polo....and this bars are ridonculous

Surely thou dost Jest! How can one steer with those?Those bars look like the drop section of a pair road bars , I see no center bulge.

thread is getting strange
posts about length, girth, and bulge
It's the grip that's key

Enjoy