Different Handlebar Positions for Downhill Mountain Biking

Video Transcript

"MICKEY DENONCOURT: One of the things that really impacts the way your bike handles is how you have your handle bars set up. So what handlebar set up entails is it entails--well, obviously the width and rise of your handlebars. For downhill applications a wider bar is going to generally be better because it's going to be more stable, you have more leverage over your front wheel so it's less likely that your front wheel's going to wash out from you and hit things. And then, another thing's that's very important is the sweep or rollback on your handlebars, generally what you want to do is you want to start with a sort of the general angle of your bars in line with the angles of your fork and then rotate them slightly forward or slightly back to suit what you want to do. As you roll your handlebars back, generally it sort of gives you a more neutral feel on your wrists that can put you in a more relaxed position and there--puts less weight on the front wheel. For a bike that you need to put more weight on the front wheel because it's really steep--oh, it's slack or something like that, you can roll the bars forward a little bit which changes your overall body position in something with more dropped elbows as something with more raised elbows. And then, probably the biggest thing that you can do to--especially if you're a beginner rider to make your handlebar setup work better is you can make sure that you have you brake lever set up so that to put your wrist at a nice neutral angle in the riding position that you're normally in. You can see that my wrists are pretty much straight--in a straight angle there and then also dial the reach on your brake levers in as close to your handlebars as you can get them. That way you use less force and it's just--you can hold on a little bit better. And also, just use one finger on the brakes as far as you can for the most amount of leverage."