I’ve decided to replace my bars. The ones I’ve got fitted have been cut down to just under 600mm wide. This is great for my style of riding but fitting the controls on can be a bit of a pain. The left side is no problem as there’s just the brake and the grip to fit in. The difficulty is with the right hand side. The bars I have are for 38.5mm clamps but the section where it clamps is too wide so does not allow me to move the gear shifter far enough inboard. I have replaced the shifter I was using with a second-hand XTR one I recently picked up. This one is better quality than the newer one I am replacing. It has a polished alloy, split band and this will not go on far enough to allow it to be tightened properly, so the brake lever and grip are about 10 mm offset compared to the left. It’s not a big difference but I do notice it.

So if I’m going to buy a new set of bars, I’ll probably go for ones around 650mm wide. Hopefully the additional 5 or so cm will be as comfortable and fitting and adjusting the controls simpler. I may even have the space to narrow them a bit if the 38.5 section is not too wide. I’ve seen a couple of sets of used bars on e-bay which are fairly cheap so I may try a bit of experimentation to get the ideal width and rise.

UPDATE: I got a couple of sets of bars through the post and fitted them. One set was straight and I fitted them and tried them out on a run. The other ones had a slight sweep back and rise (about 5mm) which is not much but they felt so much better than the straight bars so I decided to go with them. I could also fit the controls quite far inboard so I have cut about 5cm off each side as I much prefer my bars to be narrow. They now measure about 58cm which is as narrow as any of the three bars I have used. I probably have spent a bit more than I needed to get the right bars to suit but I guess it will have been worth it as there was no way to find out without trying.