# Why don't people use bar ends anymore?



## glorth2 (Jun 4, 2004)

It seems that everyone is using riser bars these days and noone using riser bars uses ends. I've been using a flat bar since the beginning and I regularly use my ends. I don't get it. Thanks.


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## icodeit (Mar 31, 2005)

Personally, I don't find on most of the riser bars enough room for all the shifter and brake levers, my hands and bar ends.

Bar ends shrink the usable bar lenght a little to much for my big hands. I would like to have bar ends, and I plan on trying them again sometime soon.


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## glorth2 (Jun 4, 2004)

Gotcha. Didn't think about the available space thing.


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## Call_me_Clyde (Oct 27, 2004)

*For me, two reasons*

1) I got busted by the fashion police for having bar ends on a riser bar. Kick me for being stupid, but I just don't get it. Riser bars and bar ends serve two distincly different purposes for me as a rider. The riser bar gives me a slightly upright position, and has minimal effect on climbing ability. Bar ends help position me so that I climb better.

2) I now have a bike that climbs well enough on the trails I ride that I don't need them any more.

Clyde


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## Squash (Jul 20, 2003)

*I don't use them due to a combination...*



mrgorth said:


> It seems that everyone is using riser bars these days and noone using riser bars uses ends. I've been using a flat bar since the beginning and I regularly use my ends. I don't get it. Thanks.


of factors, two to be specific. I like a riser bar for the more upright position. The factors involved are, the length that I cut my bar to for the tight technical that I like to ride doesn't leave enough room for them along with shifters and brake levers, and they get hung up on all sorts of stuff, trees, vines, and brush, while I'm riding. I don't think I'd use them even if I did have room on the bar, I've just gotten hung up in brush so many times with bar ends that I stopped using them (even with a flat bar) and learned to live without them. I could give a rats behind about fashion, they just don't work for my purposes is all.

So, bottom line? If I don't use bar ends that's an additional 3/4 to 1" (depending on clamp width of the bar end) that I can take off my bar width and still have room for the rest of it, and I don't get hung up in tight sections near as much.

Good Dirt


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## JBone (Jul 22, 2004)

I need bar ends on my SS for climbing, no question about it. Hauling Clyde plus bike up a hill wrecks my triceps, and I find barends make a big difference. They're on a riser as well, just so the fashionistas can scowl their disapproval.


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## frankenbike (Mar 17, 2004)

I still use bar ends. Great for climbing and multi hand positions.

Who knows why they have fallen out of favor.

Maybe too many mtn bikers have low self esteem and don't want a bike that looks like a restaurant worker's commuter bike with the bar ends pointed straight up.  _"Good lord, I can't look like a workerbee, I am real biker on my Ti Litespeed" _


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## hrhitter (Dec 20, 2004)

I use them and don't care what people think. They give me more places to put my hands and they help me with climbing.


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## Ken in KC (Jan 12, 2004)

*They hurt me...*



mrgorth said:


> It seems that everyone is using riser bars these days and noone using riser bars uses ends. I've been using a flat bar since the beginning and I regularly use my ends. I don't get it. Thanks.


Well, they don't, but when they catch a tree and I slam in to the ground it hurts. It only took me 4-5 times to figure out that I'd rather not do this and I took them off.

Ken


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## frankenbike (Mar 17, 2004)

I see the tree hooking point being brought up often when the bar end topic comes up.

I am not asking this to be argumenative, but rather to clear up my own ignorance 

Wouldn't bars that are just as wide without the bar ends, still be prone to hitting a tree? I only ask this because bar ends don't add width and they are pointed inwards. When I have clipped trees, it's been on bars without my bar ends. The issue was my bars were way too wide or the trails I was riding. I mounted 570mm wide bars with bar ends and I have never clipped anything. So perhaps it's an issue of bar width?


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## TobyNobody (Mar 17, 2004)

*bar width != trail width*



frankenbike said:


> I see the tree hooking point being brought up often when the bar end topic comes up.
> 
> I am not asking this to be argumenative, but rather to clear up my own ignorance
> 
> Wouldn't bars that are just as wide without the bar ends, still be prone to hitting a tree? I only ask this because bar ends don't add width and they are pointed inwards. When I have clipped trees, it's been on bars without my bar ends. The issue was my bars were way too wide or the trails I was riding. I mounted 570mm wide bars with bar ends and I have never clipped anything. So perhaps it's an issue of bar width?


I agree with you. I don't think in most cases that people are riding trails that are exactly the width of their bars and an extra one inch will make the trails impossible - like the clearance between a subway car and the walls of the tunnel. When you are just 'bushwacking' (riding without a real trail) the bar ends tend to corral dozens of (thorny) saplings to drag against your knuckles. I like them, though. Although I took mine off a few years ago when risers became cool and I havn't gotten around to replacing them.


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## eokerholm (Apr 9, 2005)

frankenbike said:


> I see the tree hooking point being brought up often when the bar end topic comes up.
> 
> I am not asking this to be argumenative, but rather to clear up my own ignorance
> 
> Wouldn't bars that are just as wide without the bar ends, still be prone to hitting a tree? I only ask this because bar ends don't add width and they are pointed inwards. When I have clipped trees, it's been on bars without my bar ends. The issue was my bars were way too wide or the trails I was riding. I mounted 570mm wide bars with bar ends and I have never clipped anything. So perhaps it's an issue of bar width?


I had the minis on my Enduro, but after not clipping, but hooking a few trees, they came off. I was able to shave 1" off each end of the bar itself.

Do they provide more positions for your hands...yep.
Help ya climb...yep
Help hang the bike in the garage...yep
Help keep your hands from slipping if wet....yep

hook the $hit out of a tree and slam your knuckles....Hell Yep!

We're clydes, let some 140 lbs mtbiker scoff or try to make fun....
I'm big enough, that people don't say anything! haha.
Hell, I used to ride with the reflectors on my spokes, just to piss people off! (But I do ride a lot at night, but now have safety vests and blinkies).


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## Thumbie (Feb 13, 2004)

My barends help me climb the steep stuff, and protect my hands from brush and trees. You just need the right shape of barend.

Barends are just one of too many things we've lost from mountainbiking due to "fashion". Barends, Thumbshifters, Flat handlebars with more than 5 deg bend, Rollercam brakes (are V-brakes on thier way out?), 20 tooth inner chainrings, Biopace chainrings (great for non racers)... the list goes on. One could argue anyone of these things dies out due to some technical advancement, but the primary driving force was that they fell out of fasion.

My Ti hardtail sports a 15 degree flat bar with custom 9speed thumbshifters, capped of with curved (don't snag trees) Titec 130 gram Magnesium Barends. I also have a 20tooth inner ring. I have retrofitted several casual riders bikes with old Biopace rings - they can ALL clinb hills they used to have to walk up (the Biopace rings replaced the same size or smaler round rings).


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## Goddy (Nov 3, 2003)

Yes I still use bar ends, I used them on a riser bar on my bike and now on a flat bar with my new. I tried riding without them and hated it, I use them all the time on climbs and when I am go for road rides. I've only once had a problem with them hooking on a tree, I was going down a rocky section, my wheel jumped to the side and the bar end hooked arounda small tree, needles to say I was thrown quite a ways.


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## MTB-5O (Mar 11, 2005)

*I use them......*

Have a pair of Control Tech Stumpy Stix on mine.

They do help me climb, however; most importantly they give me additional hand positions while riding which helps with CTS.

And as eokerholm said....

"We're clydes, let some 140 lbs mtbiker scoff or try to make fun...."

Gordi


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## evasive (Feb 18, 2005)

Exactly my point. I started using them as soon as they appeared purely for multiple hand positions. I like the knock-on benefits for climbing, but to me that's never been the primary argument. Changing stem angles would be a better way of elevating rider position. That's the one disadvantage to the modern headset/stem IMO. The old quill stems were easy to adjust over a fair range. I blame riser bars on BMX/MX influence on FR and DH.


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## willtsmith_nwi (Jan 1, 1970)

*Depends on the bar end ...*



Ken in KC said:


> Well, they don't, but when they catch a tree and I slam in to the ground it hurts. It only took me 4-5 times to figure out that I'd rather not do this and I took them off.
> 
> Ken


I use big ole L-Bar ends. They effectively protect my hands from smashing against trees. Any object that will hook them would have sent me to the ground anyway.

They need to make those bar ends BIGGER in my opinion. The farther in the bar they go, the more hand real-estate you have, the more your hands are protected when on the grips, and the harder it is to snag objects.

Those little "stubs" people put at the end of their bars ... I don't get those.


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## Ken in KC (Jan 12, 2004)

*That's Not Been My Experience*



frankenbike said:


> I see the tree hooking point being brought up often when the bar end topic comes up.
> 
> I am not asking this to be argumenative, but rather to clear up my own ignorance
> 
> Wouldn't bars that are just as wide without the bar ends, still be prone to hitting a tree? I only ask this because bar ends don't add width and they are pointed inwards. When I have clipped trees, it's been on bars without my bar ends. The issue was my bars were way too wide or the trails I was riding. I mounted 570mm wide bars with bar ends and I have never clipped anything. So perhaps it's an issue of bar width?


I guess I didn't communicate very effectively. I still hit trees with my bars, but I tend to scrape the ends of my bars or my fingers and keep going. I'm not talking about hitting a good sized tree (I make sure to try and avoid those regardless of whether I'm riding bar ends or not).

What I'm talking about are saplings, less than 1" or so in diameter. I don't tend to notice the trunk on these size trees when I'm riding twisty, tight singletrack. When I had bar ends, they would hook these saplings, bend the tree down and I would wind up being tossed to the ground when I finally got to the foilage. Without bar ends, my bars don't capture the sapling between the bar and the bar end and if I'm carrying enough momentum, can twist my bar away from the tree. I lose speed but I don't lose teeth.

Why not cut the bars to match the trail? Because the trails I ride are twisty singletrack that sometimes require I twist my bars and shoulders sideways and be very aware of my pedal position in order to clear some obstacles, mostly trees. I would be riding bars that would be far too narrow to negotiate the rocky, technical ledges that we also have if I cut them down to negotiate the trees easier.

I prefer wider bars for the type of trails and riding that I do. So I won't cut them down. I also catch saplings when I ride with bar ends, so I took them off. I don't really notice who does and who doesn't ride with bar ends in KC, so I couldn't tell you whether they're "cool" or not here.

My daughter rides with bar ends because she feels more comfortable with them on. So in my family, 1/2 of us ride with bar ends.

Ken


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## SeamusCA (Jul 26, 2004)

*Same here.*



hrhitter said:


> I use them and don't care what people think. They give me more places to put my hands and they help me with climbing.


I'm waaay past caring what the Fashion Police say I should or shouldn't throw at MY bike to make it more comfortable for ME. 

Jim <---even worn lycra on the trails at times


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## ken50397 (Mar 23, 2004)

*Bar Ends*

I used to ride with bar ends all the time, but I did have the occasional snag on vines and sticker bushes that my shoulders and hands could easily shrug off, but my bar end (l shaped) would catch and hold on. If I didn't stop immediately I was in trouble.

There there was the issue of width. I like my brakes set up for one finger and when I do that they are in as far as the taper will allow. with them like that bar ends were too confining and now I needed two fingers braking and for the technical areas I ride, it wasn't enough.

One guy who rides with us uses bar ends on his carbon riser for CTS, and another rider has the nips for just changing his hands around. Both of those guys love theirs, but for my personal setup it wasn't good.

As far as fashion goes? I want function first, period. If it happens to look good at the same time, great. I have broken three or four handle bars to finally realize I need a downhill riser bar that had dual supports. It happened to be bright yellow and didn't match, but I don't break bars anymore.

It is like visors on helmets. To me they are useless, but the helmet looks goofy without it. I now use a skateboard/BMX style helmet and love it. The baggies? I wear those for fashion. Seen too many clydes in straight lycra photos to do that again.

So to bar end or not to bar end, do what you like.

Ken.


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