More and more riders are making the switch to wider bars these days. Widths in the 29-30+ range are becoming more and more common. Wider grip= additional leverage in turns, making for a highly rail-able experience.
I tried my first pair of 29.5″ bars last year, when I got a bar in from Nemesis Project for review. Since then I had gone back to my tried and true bar, the Race Face Diabolous in a 28″ width. While I liked the Nemesis Jefferson bars quite a bit, they were on the heavy side. I also found that I was having a difficult time in the air- not that it wasn’t easy to jump with the wider grip, but snapping my bars into position for table tops was a bit more difficult. As I prefer to run similar bars on all my bikes, I went back to the 28″s and stuck with them.
This changed when I put the Jefferson Bars back on a Specialized P3 I had built up at the time as her pump track bike. I didn’t realize it, but after being accustomed to the wider 29″ bar, my 28″ wide bars felt sketchy on our local secret DH trails. Incredibly steep grades and high speeds with combined with wicked fast turns had me looking to go back to the wider bars.
Sunline V1 OS Handlebars
Enter the Sunline V1s. At 279g for the 38mm rise bar, they are light enough without being too light. They’ve been around for a while, and have been proven. Half the guys I ride DH with in Knappa run them without complaint. At 745mm wide, they are plenty wide, without being too ridiculous. While 30″s might be a good choice, switching back to a 27″ or 28″ (I’m now back on 28″s on my Black Market Riot) on the DJ bike would just be too weird.
Sunline V1 bars mounted on a Trek Session 88, post Black Rock ride
The verdict
I’m the last one on the bus here, but I love these bars. The sweep feels good, and my bike actually dropped some weight from the Diabolous. Not only that, I’m railing the berms faster than ever. I’m currently runing the 35mm when I’m running a Totem on my Session 88. I have a 2010 Boxxer Team on the way, and will be running the 19mm rise with the Sunline direct mount Boxxer stem to keep my bar height consistent.
Can I do an inverted table with these bars? I haven’t yet, but Guy Marsh runs super wide bars and can invert, so I will just have to learn. ;^)
They retail at about $70, but JensenUSA currently has them on sale for about $60.
