cutting bars down

[rodslovechild]

wet behind the ears on this, i take it people used to cut them down to make bar spins easier? do most people still cut them down or is it not very common anymore? cheers

[pickle]

fashion and personal taste i believe mate, although the latest trend with the kids seem to be wide bars so all down to what you feel better with mate.

personally i can't/don't bar spin so it don't make a blind bit of diference with me.........i just ride em and if they feel good then leave em, if they feel to wide trim a little bit at a time till they feel good??

[Steve Shindig]

25-26 inches is pretty stable I find.  Kids with their 29's make me laugh.

[TwoBobRob]

Best thing you can do is just bowl up to your bike and grab hold of the bars. Then look down at the postion your hands are on the grips. This is more often than not your natural postion. If you find you're hugging the donuts (or brake levers if you don't have the donuts), then you can afford to have 3/4 or an inch off each end. If you find you're hanging off the end of your grips, then you can be pretty sure you need a wider set of bars.....   

[xchainxofxstrengthx]

i cut mine i dont get on with wider bars, had a go on Rarmans bike last saturday and couldnt get on with it, lovely bike though.

[zed4130]

personal taste, i like em at about 26-27 inches , but generaly dont bother cutting them these days, no time, plus if they feel ok i go with it 

[rodslovechild]

they do feel quite wide for me so i reckon ill take the bowl up to my bike route lol

then out with the old hacksaw!

[TwoBobRob]

Electical tape is around 3/4" wide. Wrap some of that around the bar to give you a good guide to follow with the saw   

[rodslovechild]

im a sparks so i dont think ill have too much trouble finding that 

be just like glanding a cable......

[TwoBobRob]

 


Oh, one other thing. Don't cut the bars so short that you have to mount the brake levers down on the bend of the bars, it can be a right pain in the arse to get the levers feeling nice again - they often need a bit of a bend to get a decent pull on them. Best to leave em somewhere near on straight bar if you can.

[rodslovechild]

ill bear that in mind, cheers matey, give me summat to do while im not at work due to food poisoning!! anyone know any good remedies?

[perry]

i think mine are at about 26"

whenever i think of people using wide bars i think of will longdens race style ( mtb ) he has his quite narrow for an elbow out position , when people try and pas they have to go past the elbow  

[TwoBobRob]

For food poisoning?

Yeah.  Eat absolutely nothing (and I do mean nothing), and neck as much water as you can bear.

Eating nothing also means no hot drinks or owt. Nowt but water.

It's difficult, but it works.   

[rodslovechild]

i cant even keep water down at the moment! someone said eat the hottest curry you can bear as it kills off the bacteria, which apparently was how curry was invented, they used it to store meat in to stop it going off before the days of fridges, what du reckon? works in theory i suppose..........

[TwoBobRob]

I have no clue about that, sorry bud.

All I know is I got food poisoning one time while I was on holiday, and I was lucky enough to be with a doctor at the time. She told me what I told you, and I was pretty good after 2 days....

Still, if you fancy a curry....... 

[rodslovechild]

i fancy summat, i havent eaten for 2 days, just water! desperate times call for desperate measures!

[welsh denny]

forget the hacksaw, get a tube cutter for a coupla quid from your local cheap shop. nice clean cuts.

[lodge]

forget the hacksaw, get a tube cutter for a coupla quid from your local cheap shop. nice clean cuts.

I thought the same untill i tried on my S&M xlt's, the cutter which was a good quality one could barely mark the steel, in fact it was a bit of a nightmare with a full size hacksaw, i was tempted to get my 9" angle grinder at them.

I have used tube cutters on other bars and had no probs must be the S&M quality eh.

[darkersomeday]

all that hack-sawing and tube cutting shite is for the lightweights,

i use my own bile

[TwoBobRob]

I hear Chuck Norris only needs to look at his bars and they shrink with fear to the correct size.

[rodslovechild]

  at chuck norris!

well are tube cutters not made for cutting copper pipes so should struggle with anythin else?

[SaMAlex]

People used to say that narrow bars were better for barspins but it was just to justify the fashion of narrow bars. Now kids are saying the same thing for wide bars. Just have them how they feel right to you.


Oh, when cutting down your bars, make sure you dont cut the same side twice.
I mean ... come on. You would have to be a right idiot to do that! 


(It was ages ago. I cut one side down, then de-bured it and cleaned it all up. Then when I went to do the "other side" I cut the one I had just done cos it looked all nice and new  )

[perry]

 

you couldnt even make it up

im glad the very narrow days are gone , putting levers below the crossbar 

[SaMAlex]

I heard about someone else who was cutting down his bars while they were on his bike. He got a mate to sit on the bike and hold the bars at 90 deg Xed. He cut down one side and turned round to put the offcut on the bench. He came back to the bike and turned the bars 180 and cut the other side. What he didnt know was that while his back was turned, his mate had already turned the bars 180, so what he had done was turn them back again, and then cut the same side again! 

[perry]

yeah yeah , what your trying to say is you bought another set of bars and did it again 

i did once have some hoffman jumping bars that were an inch shorter on the left because without a lever my hand naturally goes for the bend so i had an excess of bar not doing anything 

helped with x up stuff though