I still use bar ends and find them especially useful for climbing. It's good
to give your hands a different riding position to keep them from fatiguing.
If you are riding tight eastern singletrack keep the bars cropped flush with
the bar ends. You don't want to snag a tree on a tight corner. Plugs are a
good thing too. If you check out professional x-country racers, you'll find
that almost all use flat bars and bar ends. They must know something. Wide
riser bars make sense on downhill rigs.


"Paladin" wrote in message
...

"Shawn" wrote in message
...
(Pete Cresswell) wrote:
I think I've figured out how wide I want my bars and right now there's
about
1.5" of bar sticking out from each bar end.

I'm going to trim the bars with a pipe cutter. Should I leave, say,
1/4"
sticking out past the bar ends or cut them flush?

I guess this is an engineering question about the collapsability of the
bar
tubing under the load of pulling on the bar ends when climbing.

Flush. Never heard of problems with the end of the bar crushing. Don't
know about carbon fiber bars (Mmm chewy).
And think of the weight savings.;-)

Shawn

I'd recommend some aluminum plugs made for that purpose, (and yes, they're
out there) so that you don't crush the bar with the torque of setting the
bar -ends or from reefing on them. Or just forget the whole 90's notion
of bar ends altogether.... ;~D

paladin