Dirt Drop Bars For Touring

Typical flat bars measure 58 60 cm wide.

Dirt drop bars for touring.

With its massive 45 flare the alpkit love mud bomber is definitely more in the dirt drop style. Drop or road style handlebars from nitto of tokyo and soma fabrications are made with function ergonomics and durability in mind. This difference comes in handy if you spend a lot of time weaving through tight traffic while commuting in a busy city. Compared to many of the radically flared dirt drop handlebars on the market these keep your brake levers in a more vertical orientation rather than angling them outward so the lever position is more akin to a traditional non flared drop bar.

Surly disc trucker is a pure bred drop bar touring bike that can take you from one end of the world to the other if there s a road to travel on. Drop bars offer a lower and narrower body position which puts you in a more aero position. Nitto rm 013 ht dirt drop heat treated handlebars flared 48cm width 26mm clamp. Handlebars with multiple hand locations allow you to switch it up giving your muscles and joints a much needed break on a long ride.

I recently did a side by side comparison and was surprised to see just how different these bars are. The rm 013 is 26 0mm and the rm 014 is 31 8 mm. Drops can fit through more narrow spots in traffic standard drop bars measure around 40 46 cm in width. Nitto dirt drop the bars actually have a very slight rise from the clamp area to the ramps.

There s an aero advantage to fitting drop bars to your bike. The bike touring news store stocks two different versions of the nitto dirt drop handlebar. The idea is that you can ride with your hands on the hoods for comfort and you can get into the drops for rough stuff and still maintain control. In the hoods or drops you can tuck your elbows in and reduce your body s frontal area.

Given you don t move that fast on a touring bike this feature is most useful for whenever you re riding into headwinds. These are the medium width version. The basic tenant of using dirt drops is that unlike traditional drop bars you want the brake hoods to be at least the same height as the saddle preferably higher. The main difference between the two or so i thought is the diameter of the bar at the stem clamp sleeve.