You’ve really got this formula dialed in. Interesting topics, good journalism, and consistent philosophy. The supple life. The implications go beyond cycling.

Ohhh, I love geometry! None of the equations and all of the reality. You say you're just an enthusiast, and I'm enthusiastic to see what you do.

Russ: "Don't Freak out."

I love all these new bar options coming out. I hope more manufacturers start doing riser drop bars. They look a little odd but they're nice for riders who prioritize comfort.

Paste this in google to see the graph:

Fkyeah, bike science! Love it, keep it up Russ!

Handel bars aside, I love that you have a hip yellow couch in front of your washer and dryer. Gotta stay chill while washing those chamois.

Good analysis and in my opinion a proper set up and fitting on a gravel bike is more critical than any other bike fit.

Haha you may not say you know math, but you just experimentally proved how the change in reach from change in bar width is not linear! Nice vid

On my gravel bike I have a 60cm flatbar with bar-ends and I do use a shorter stem than with dropbars. I use Shimano XT brake-levers and shifters with the flat-bar set-up. I was originally using a 46cm flared drop-bar with Ultegra shifters and brake levers. I've found the XT to be far better and quicker and more reliable at shifting up and down when on rough terrain. And you can obviously also do the gear-shifting and braking in a more upright position which is handy on bumpy rough terrain (at least I think so). The XT set-up also allowed me to change the front chainring to a triple XT chainring which is definitely better than the double Ultegra chainring I was originally using. I have a far greater spread of gears and I definitely need them all because the terrain I ride over is quite varied. The front chainring is 44, 34, 24 and the rear cassette is either an 11-speed Ultegra 11-32 (when using my wider 700x43 tire wheelset) or an 11-speed Ultegra 11-25 (when using my commuting 700x32 tire wheelset). I can link to a photo later if interested in seeing the set-up.

Very cool, thanks for experimenting

Thanks for tinkering for our benefit! I have a bar that I love and I don't think I'll swap away from it. It's 46cm wide with a 25° flare of the drops. So it gets pretty wide at the bar ends. When I take the bike indoors, it's not very fun to get through doorways and such. I don't think I'd ever go wider because of this. That said, I've recently ridden a bike with narrower bars and it felt weird. Wonder if a wider bar would make my current one feel weird/worse? Bah, ignorance is bliss, so I'm good.

Puzzling- I’m interested to learn more through your experiments!

What you are measuring here can be easily calculated using the Pythagorean theorem. In practice, the difference is going to be even smaller, since the distance that really matters is that from your shoulder to the handlebar, not from the saddle. A couple centimeters of change in with will have a barely noticeable effect on reach, but will influence other things more significantly.

This is useful info. Thanks!

Great work russ

Time to break out the trigonometry

I have replaced my stock bars with 44cm cowchipper 2 on my Trek 520 (stock was 42 cm race style drop bars) and went to 46 cm Ritchey Venturemax on my trek 920 (stock was 42cm). Both were good upgrades for me but to make the fit feel like you are bolted in to the bike try adding Road TOGS to the drops (not paid promotion). The difference when descending and ascending is really confidence inspiring. Thank You so much for your videos Russ !

I need to try out some wide bars, it might help with numbness as well as control having my bars more shoulder width. Also coming from Mtb it took me quite a while to get used to drops. Nice work!

square root functions for the win!