I'm in a period of swapping components on my bike to make it more enjoyable, so I've firstly focused on the contact points(pedals, dropper, offset saddle clamp, saddle, grips and now riser bar)
As the Drop Best offset saddle clamp has done wonders to the slack rear, I don't want to spoil that advantage which is why I have some questions on riser bars. My bike has the stock bar with 20mm rise(I'm only changing the rise, the other numbers will stay the same) and even though it sort of works, I also feel it is too low.
How do you know how much rise you need without physically trying another bar(I have no option to try any other bars btw so I have to purchase to try something else)? For me balance is important so as my only experience is with the stock bar I don't really know if more rise will shift my weight backward in the climbs, just countering what I've already done with the offset saddle clamp. Obviously I want the benefits in the downs, but I'm curious how it affects the weight balance during climbs.
So far my gut tell me 35mm rise might be best for balance, but it is just an assumption for now as I have not tested this myself. Will 50mm be too much, I literally don't know.
I'm looking at the OneUp V2 bars, and they are an expense so it would be nice if I only had to buy it once not needing to sell a wrong choice.
You can get a feel for the bars and buy yourself some wiggle-room if you have a bit of extra uncut steerer tube at the top of your fork.
I'm on a 20mm rise bar and was going to go to a 35mm rise bar when I got my trailbike. Instead, I had them leave the steerer a little long so I could put an extra 10mm of spacers under my stem. I still feel a little like I'd like to go higher but it definitely revealed that 35mm is not quite high enough. I could of course adjust the height of my stem from there to dial it in a bit more, too.
It's worth looking at how much steerer you have available and how high your stem stack is. If you're not slammed all the way and cut short to accommodate only that then you have a little extra wiggle room to play with. It's not an identical adjustment but it can get you pretty close to knowing what a certain bar height will feel like.
My fork was obviously pre-cut from factory so I have no room there. That said, putting more spacers under the stem will automatically change reach(the fork is at an angle) and will automatically put my weight further back where I don't want it for climbing purposes.
Even though you can rotate the handlebars forward/backward to physically alter some angles as well, I am in this thread trying to focus at only the rise straight up and down to keep things simple.
And no, I don't have other forks with more steerer available or any other parts I can try. I have to buy components to try, so no mods or tests can be done without a purchase.
So, I just need to convey my goal of focusing at the straight up and down alteration of a change in handlebar rise.
If you are not willing to or can't move your stem up/down on your steerer tube and you can't try another handlebar, you can't really 'test' other options.
I wanted to maximize the reach on my bike and was looking for a handlebar rise I could ride with the stem 'slammed' to the head tube. I took my stock setup and moved it up the steerer tube until I couldn't properly weight the front wheel on the common steep climbs in my area; if the climbs were more mellow I likely would have gone higher. That was +15mm of spacers under the stem, so I swapped my stock 25mm rise bar for a 40mm one, slammed it, and cut the steerer with 5-10mm of steerer tube extra in case I wanted it higher.
I've tried very hard to convey the message that I would like to avoid testing just because to me personally that simply means buying more than I need only having to sell what I ended up not needing. I know shops exist, so I know I can buy things.
So, I'm trying to find information on how to evaluate what the most appropriate next step would be if you only have tested one handlebar.
I also stated to the other guy above you that the more spacers you add under the stem, the closer the handlebar moves towards you(because it's moving at the angle of your steerer tube/fork), decreasing your reach. I also have no need in decreasing my reach as well as I have installed this:
https://www.fairbicycle.com/mountain
The Drop Best Offset Saddle Clamp which creates a 2 degree offset of the seat, meaning I having indirectly a shorter reach while sitting in the saddle compared to stock, so if I moved the cockpit backwards it would affect this even further, which means it is not what I want nor what I need.
On the image below you will see the product I am talking about, which should clearly demonstrate my saddle being pushed further forward than what is stock. My Pivot Switchblade has a slack STA(from what I have read the actual STA is even slightly slacker than what's stated on their website) so this product is simply a necessity for my riding with lots of tech climbs. Yet another reason why I want to avoid moving my weight backwards when I've already made this investment of the opposite, moving myself forward.
So, pretty please with sugar on top, my only wish now is looking into altering the handlebar rise as it could be beneficial for the downs. My only concern is how the straight up and down change will affect my weight bias for climbs as I haven't tried it myself yet, which is the reason why I do not know if 35mm would be ok or 50mm.
Go as high as you can until cornering feels off, then backtrack a bit.
I understand that you do not want to reduce the reach/TT length of the bike because of your setup. Without changing any of the setup or trying something different, it would be hard to give an exact suggestion of how much more bar rise you could ride.
I'm suggesting you move your stem up to trial how a higher bar feels, knowing that there will be a small reduction in reach/TT length. If you have a 66° head tube angle, 15mm higher on the steerer would be a relatively small decrease of ~6mm horizontally (and ~14mm vertically). Try that out for a ride or two and see if you can still climb your trail network with bars that high. If it works ok, you know you can buy a 35mm rise bar and lower the stem back down the steerer. If not, then stick to your stock setup.
If you can't or don't want to do this, then I guess you could go to your steepest climb and lock out your fork or put on tons of compression damping to simulate a higher front end without sag. If the climbing feels ok, you know you could go somewhat higher (depending on your fork sag and level of lockout). You could also/instead increase your rear sag but that may feel worse on climbs.
Fit and preference are so unique to each individual, it’s going to be hard to get to a single theoretical answer for what you want. Some people with the exact same anthropometrics as you might love your current set-up. Others might want 50mm bars and you might settle on 35mm.
Since you don’t have to ability to ‘test’ based on your current situation, the best you’re likely going to do is trust your gut and pull the trigger.
Do you have any friends who are also interested in trying higher bars? Can you split costs for a ‘test’ bar initially and then hope at least one of you likes it enough to keep it permanently so the other can adjust from there?
Stop overthinking it, if you have room under your stem by a 40mm rise and drop it down if you need
All the videos on youtube are strictly content videos to feed the algorithm, and very often just commercials of products, just stating that handlebars with rise does exist. So even though you can often find things on the internet, it is very often also damn hard as it is in this case.
Then I ask a simple questions on an internet forum and two people try to suggest other things only pulling the focus off target. Then I try to simplify even further because I never wanted this to be a full on geo thread, so I push the focus back to what I am looking for. Then 3 people took offense and decided to click thumbs down when this is a question about something in my life and in relation to my bike, nobody elses. How can you take offence when none of this concerns you and I'm not demanding anyone to change anything in their life now am I...
I value help, I just so often feel internet is a beast on its own when you ask about something concerning your own life, and somehow other people flip it around as-if it's about them.
So if anyone was to be frustrated it would be me when I've clearly narrowed down the request, only to receive even more suggestions of needing to test or just buy things. Just things I already know are possible, which should make it clear I'm looking for something else.
All in all this experience tell the story that the feedback I've gotten really is that forums serve no purpose because you just got to try things. Well, sometimes it is good to have the ability to ask a question, because even though I do actually prefer finding my own answers in life everybody know a little help here and there goes a long way.
I'll just throw money at a shop somewhere and see what turns up.
I'm not trying to definitively solve your "can anyone tell me what will be perfect for my physiology without seeing me ride" problem. No one can. A highly-experienced bike fitter could...but only if they could see you and spend an hour at their hourly rate with you. I'm trying to give you a way to move forward towards a good solution that will give you a little bit of margin-of-error in case it's not perfect.
My fork was not pre-cut from the factory with my complete-bike build. I asked them to leave a little room so I could go up/down with my stem and/or install a bike computer on the top of the steerer tube. They had planned to do that anyway. A few other bike shops I talked to when I was shopping for a bike said they also leave extra steerer on the fork by default and will cut shorter to suit if asked. So your situation wasn't obvious to me.
Do you have any spacers above/below your stem? You can use those to help tweak the rise of the bar the last little bit. If you have 20mm of spacers under your stem, you could go a little high with your bar rise guess knowing that you could (for example) get the 50mm bar and take 10mm of stem spacers out to get 98% of the same feel as the 40mm rise bar in the event that the 50mm is that little bit too high. Plus, it'll add a 4.5-ish mm of additional reach forward that might give you more of the forward position you're looking for.
In your first post you asked: "How do you know how much rise you need without physically trying another bar(I have no option to try any other bars btw so I have to purchase to try something else)?" I LITERALLY told you the way I did that. I played with my stem spacers. Other people have told you that, they play with stem spacers. It doesn't give you the perfect exact feel of the only variation being bar height but it gets you close enough to make an educated decision. I don't know what else we can do for you. You asked me how I make coffee (a metaphor). I told you how I make coffee. You asked others how they make coffee. They told you. Now you're complaining about our coffee methods not applying to you?
Have you compensated for grip thickness? What about the additional rise that comes from backsweep/upsweep? Do you know how the rise on the bars you intend to purchase is measured? Some are measured just after the bend (without accounting for the upsweep) and some are measured at the end of the uncut bars (which includes the upsweep as an influence on the measurement). Thicker/thinner socks? If we're talking about PERFECT vertical movement and only vertical movement then you'd better wear the same socks and gloves every ride and never have any wear on your tires. Do you check your fork sag every ride?
We're trying to help you make a best-guess. No one can answer anything definitively.
p.s. If you're trying to move forward further, you might be able to move your saddle a little further forward in the rails. It might only be a couple millimeters but your setup seems to be so dialed that a tiny variation might make a mountain of difference.
You are asking a very specific question relative specifically to you as you point out. We can’t answer because it is very likely we would all have a different answer if this was our question. You clearly know you need higher bars. From the internet, we are never going to be able to tell you if you need 35mm rise or 50mm rise, hence everyone’s suggestions.
Then you get mad when when nobody gives you a singular answer. I think everyone in here has been respectful and generally they are trying to help (some of their reading comprehension may be lacking, but they aren’t trying to be unhelpful). It seems like you just don’t like the reality of the situation (you’re going to have to bite the bullet and buy some bars and they might not be perfect). Don’t get mad at the other users because they can’t get you what you want.
What's in the water lately? Second thread in recent memory where someone asks a question and doesn't like the feedback.
I ride my bikes with the handlebars on the same plane as my seat. If I'm riding somewhere steep, I put a 5mm spacer under the stem - seems to work for me, ymmv. There was also a thread on handlebar height for DH bikes circulating the web recently, I think the average bar height to height percentage was 60%.
Just buy cheaper high-rise bars and go ride your bike and be happy.
This thread is fun 🍿
What are you trying to fix with higher bars that you don't like right now? Also what is the aim of the biking that you do? Are you trying to be the fastest up the hills? Or is it more important to just make it to the top so you can have a blast on the way down?
Lastly you sound like you know roughly what your bike geo is. Do you have any friends that have similar bikes with a much higher stack/bars? Could you go ride those bikes? Failing friends does a local shop have any bikes that have a setup like this?
Schadenfreude = more schadenfreude
I found the sweet spot by measuring handlebar height of a known good setup, then adapting new bikes to that mark (literally a half circle drawn on the outside of my house lol).
Given you might not be there yet, 35 will be sweet 50 also will be sweet. If you wash the front on flat corners with higher bars you'll adapt and learn to weight the front more. It's super subtle.
50 will feel better if you ride steep stuff.
yeah I go off this now, my current bike has a 462mm chainstay, I could put 10 inches of spacer under the stem and be fine lol
having a datum point of a known "good" previous bar height is also a good start, I know if the grip touches my belly button I'm in the ballpark.
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