My elbows are killing me....

[SadieKate]

What I can't believe is that riding with the standard 170mm(is that right?) handlebars woud be too narrow for a woman, even a wide shouldered woman like me. Do lots of men have this problem? Seems like they would with many having even wider shoulders.

Uh, 170mm is your crank length. Road bars generally run 38cm measured ctr to ctr for fairly narrow shoulders to 46 or 48. I ride a 40cm (c-to-c). My broad-shouldered hubby rides a 44 or 46. Bar width is very critical to your comfiness. The trend today is to run wide bars. Keeps your chest open, more stable steering, better wrist and arm angles, etc. Sheldon Brown has probably expounded on this at length but I havn't looked. I do know that I recently swapped my vintage 38s for a 40 and am waaaay happier.

[nuthatch]

Uh, 170mm is your crank length. Road bars generally run 38cm measured ctr to ctr for fairly narrow shoulders to 46 or 48. I ride a 40cm (c-to-c). My broad-shouldered hubby rides a 44 or 46. Bar width is very critical to your comfiness. The trend today is to run wide bars. Keeps your chest open, more stable steering, better wrist and arm angles, etc. Sheldon Brown has probably expounded on this at length but I havn't looked. I do know that I recently swapped my vintage 38s for a 40 and am waaaay happier.

Whoops, my ignorance has humiliated me - I realized later that 170 was kind of WIIIIIDE! My hybrid is measuring 50 from the center of where my palm is on each bar end and my road bike is measuring 40. On my hybrid I feel like moving my hands in all the time - on my road bike, I don't know where I want to move my hands! Could the handlebar being too wide create the same sort of discomfort? Would actually measuring my shoulder width tell me something - and from what point to what point would I measure my shoulders?