I've ridden with the front brake on the right hand side the entire time I've been riding. I set up all my bikes the same so I don't mess up. My husband is a motorcyclist and he set all my bikes up like that from the beginning. Works good for me - it is probably whatever you get used to.

I have ridden with pretty narrow bars cause my shoulders are kind of tiny. But I do have short bar ends on my mountain bike. It is a good place to rest the hands and change hand positions when climbing or just riding along. I tried risers bars once and kept crashing my bike. I don't know if it was because I wasn't used to so much leverage or what it did to my bike but after a valiant try of about 3 weeks, I took that stupid riser bar off and went back to my flat bar. Maybe you can find someone who has a riser bar you can borrow before you go and buy a new one.