Building Biking Commuting: The Handlebar

Selecting the handlebar is something that one will not want to spend too much time on. Although you can choose which ever handlebar you liked, selecting one that suits the purpose give your a better riding experience. If your bike is designed for off-road use, you might want a flat bar, and if your bike is mainly for the paved roads/cyclocross use, you may want a drop bar for the different riding positions. For touring and commuting bikes, it can be dropped, flat bars, or some other variations; the choices are endless. There's also the moustache/mustache handlebars. They are the ones found on traditional commuters, which what I am planning to install on my bike at first. Nitto has the Northroad and RM-016 for $55-$70 shipped, and Velo Orange, Nashbar, and Ebay usually have the aluminum ones for around $20 shipped. Different from flat handlebar that the grips position is perpendicular to the direction your bike is heading, the grips of the mustache bar points to the same direction of where your bike is going. Although mustache handlebar looks good (at least to me), I don't think this is the type I wanted because of the grips location.

Fortunately, other than mustache, there's also the mary bars resembling the On-One Mary bars. The position of the grips is somewhere between the flat and mustache bars (see below for a pic). Below is a list of mary-style handlebars, which I've considered getting:

Manufacturer	Handlebar Name	Price
On-One	Mary	$40
Cinelli	Valencia City	$50
FSA	Metropolis City	$35
SOMA	Sparrow	$32
SOMA	Oxford	$30
Origin8	Spacebar (I, II, OR, OR2)	$20
Surly	Open Bar	$60
Velo Orange	Tourist	$13
Velo Orange	Milano	$13
Nashbar	Comfort MTB	$25
Demension	Arc	$15

I really liked the look of Cinelli Valencia City, but compared to the $12-shipped Origin8 Spacebar OR I got from Wheel and Sprocket's E-Bay store, it's a no-brainer. I feel the width of the Spacebar (610mm) is too wide, so I used my pipe cutter and shorten it by 40mm each side to a total width of 530mm. As a result, the handlebar width corresponds to the width of my shoulder, which equates to better fit. Too bad I don't have a picture of the handlebar before shortening it; 610mm just look weird on the bike.