Flat bars - how wide are yours

[Ajax Bay]

May I take the occasion to say that this British habit of measuring stuff in mm when the continent uses cm is wrong: mm is only for the really wee stuff

At the risk of taking this thread OT, I recommend this article by the late Pat Naughtin on the merits of mm v cm. You can read the first 4 pages and the last 4, to get the gist.
From the article, I believe the strongest point is
"By preferring the millimetre, people have to work with only three length units: millimetres, metres, and kilometres and anyone who uses those three length units simply doesn't bother with any of the others. This matches our already established practices of having only three units for mass: grams, kilograms, and tonnes; and only three units for capacity: millilitres, litres, and cubic metres."
I didn't know that France had fun with this, still ". . . if you choose centimetres as your small unit . . . the nation of France as an example where they are still struggling with the confusion and expense (in both training and practice) of having two decimal points in building drawing numbers; an example is a building dimension of 1200 millimetres as 1.20.0 meaning 1 metre 20 centimetres and 0 millimetres."
There's lots of "wee stuff" in bicycles which need millimetric precision, taking as immediate examples: seat posts, bar and tube dimensions, BBs, axle length.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

You sure?

I visited the Cinelli stand at Spin.

Some wonderful bike frames.

And this interesting thing.

http://cinelli.it/en/prodotti/hobootleg-en/

All the geometry is listed in mm.

100 % sure: after all I was brought up with the decimal system, I remember clearly when it was introduced in the UK, suddenly B&Q was listing stuff in, like "1050 mm" instead of "1.05 m" like I would have done.
I am 1.60 m tall, not 1600 mm
The website you link to has probably assumed British people would read the English version.
Ah, we also use the full stop to denote one thousand, not the comma, as in 1.000 km.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

There's lots of "wee stuff" in bicycles which need millimetric precision, taking as immediate examples: seat posts, bar and tube dimensions, BBs, axle length.

Yes, I did not say we don't use mm on the continent, it's just that we don't write down a meter in mm, we would express the mm as in a part of the cm, unless the stuff measured is less than a cm.
Clear?

 

[psmiffy]

1.000 km.

That's 1.0kkm

 

[Ajax Bay]

100 % sure: after all I was brought up with the decimal system, I remember clearly when it was introduced in the UK, suddenly B&Q was listing stuff in, like "1050 mm" instead of "1.05 m" like I would have done.
I am 1.60 m tall, not 1600 mm
The website you link to has probably assumed British people would read the English version.
Ah, we also use the full stop to denote one thousand, not the comma, as in 1.000 km.

Pat - all your text uses metres and millimetres. There's not a centimetre in sight. And the decimal point in 1.000km is just that: a decimal point. The 000 after the decimal point is not in mm, it's in thousands of a metre if I can split hairs which are an even smaller amount.

 

[Ajax Bay]

1.000km is a kilometre (edit: in UK US and elsewhere)
1,000km is a thousand times as long.
Edit see also: how-the-world-separates-its-decimals

 

[Pat "5mph"]

This matches our already established practices of having only three units for mass: grams, kilograms, and tonnes;

He's forgotten the "ettogrammo", 100 grams: you buy your salami by the etto, and stuff

 

[Pat "5mph"]

1.000km is a kilometre.
1,000km is a thousand times as long.

No: 1km is one km - 1.000km is one thousand km
here

We better stop this ot, though.

 

[Con]

Wow this thread went off topic

 

[Pat "5mph"]

Wow this thread went off topic

By miles
I'll get my coat

 

[damj]

Mine are 720mm from the outside of the bar ends - Im thinking about cutting a couple of inches off - simply because i think they are too wide - not because I can find a reason to do it - i did 4000km with them like that last year - didnt really work out if there was a downside

I read this post this morning, just finally got round to measuring my bars. Oddly enough mine are exactly the same size however, this is because I have Ergon GP20, grips. On buying them I spoke with a colleague who suggested I cut them down by an inch or so, reducing the appearance/size. Ive dismissed this at the time. Only recently coming back to idea. If I get time in the morning I might get my hacksaw out ha ha

 

[psmiffy]

Nibble away at them till you feel good.

This was my original plan - it is still a good one - but never felt bad enough that I got around to implement it - I will try 50mm (50,000µm) in the morning - at least then I might be able to get it through my front door

Ergon GP20, grips.

ditto Ergon grips

 

[psmiffy]

I am 1.60 m tall, not 1600 mm

8.57hands - a proper show pony

 

[damj]

This was my original plan - it is still a good one - but never felt bad enough that I got around to implement it - I will try 50mm (50,000µm) in the morning - at least then I might be able to get it through my front door



ditto Ergon grips

Had a go this morning, 35cm off each side. Ergons back on. No noticeable different in my eyes. I'll have a ride out later on. My bars aren't flat, and begin to taper, as most do, so don't want run out of space for shifters/ brakes.

 

[Blue Hills]

stupid question - is there any good reason why so many bars taper? It can make fixing stuff to them a right fag.