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Submitted by Reverse news on 29 April 2020 - 4:32pm
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Reverse Team rider Finn Tennant contacted us with some of his insights from testing different handlebars and
the effect they had on riding position and the ability to maintain posture.
If you look at alot of the top riders on the World Cup like Danny Hart and Finn Illes, they have this dialled
- they're fairly upright and  have an unbreakable posture no matter how rough it is.
However, the key factor is not rise, it's in fact backsweep.
Is Finn on to something ? Read on and make your own mind up!

All words by Finn Tennant.

This all started years ago when I was watching AMA Nationals and trying to
figure out how the moto athletes had so much core strength. I came to the
conclusion that, after training of course, this was all a matter of posture
and body position. Wind forwards to an awesome week in Morzine last year
with Reverse Owners Peter and Heike, where I had to chance to use the Reverse Taper
grips to test bar sweep. I found the more backsweep I had in my bars the
better my posture and the stronger my back and core felt.

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The most extreme setup I tried was bars with a fairly standard 9° of backsweep and the Taper grips the wrong way around,
coming to 10.5° in total I think. Which felt good but I wanted a little more of that strong feel with thinner grips.

The E-series Element Ergo bar and Vink grips combo I am now riding gives me that strong posture and responsive feel.
he added backsweep allows my shoulders to sit in a position that helps me engage, or contract,
some of the smaller muscles around my shoulder blades (scapular muscles) that I struggle to do with straighter bars.
This means my shoulder blades are lower and closer together allowing my chest to stick up a little further as well.
he feeling in my core and my posture both become closer to when I perform a front squat in the gym with these bars.
Which is a strong and stable pose, in my opinion this results in better balance, stability and strength on the bike.
Another way of looking at it is that those bars create the strong posture of wider 800mm bars for instance without having to
compromise on playful and responsive handling or making your bars difficult to get through tight trees.
Try it yourself, next time you sit on your bike, move you're hands closer together and then further out by relaxing and pulling
your shoulder blades together. In terms of the bars construction, the middle of the line diameter is plenty stiff enough for my riding.
Combined with the Reverse Black-One stem and carbon Mega frame my cockpit feels ultra responsive
(a lot better than my previous non-Reverse set up last year).
I need to go to somewhere with long tracks post lockdown to tell you about how my hands hold up using this set up!

Thanks Finn. We're looking forward to more testing this summer with different bar backsweeps on DH and Enduro trails to put your theory to the test.......

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