6 Best Handlebars for Dirt Jumping in 2024

Our top choices

Our Choice

NS District Bars

We love the NS District handlebars. They're a great price and solely designed for dirt jumping bikes from a wonderful brand.

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Cheapest

Truvativ Hussefelt Handlebar

A strong, durable and simple design from a leading cycling brand.

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Upgrade Pick

Spank Spike Vibrocore

A new handlebar with an impressive amount of innovation. Designed to dampen vibrations and arm pump

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Dirt jumping handlebars are an important component of any DJ setup. The right handlebars can make a big difference in the overall feel and handling of the bike.

Chromoly, steel or an aluminum alloy usually make up the majority of dirt jumper bars. Slopestyle riding includes plenty of hard landings and rough terrain. Your handlebars should be adequately constructed to deal with this.

DJ handlebars and mountain bike bars are very similar. The same overall shape is used in both but the slopestyle version will have a greater rise and differing backsweep/upsweep geometries.

When looking for the best dirt jump bike handlebars, it is important to consider factors like your riding style, the type of terrain, and your personal preferences.

 Photo by porkercon

To describe such a strong handlebar Truvativ used Hussefelt, the name for the stone carried by strongmen in various competitions.

Don't be drawn into thinking that this description means Hussefelt has made a heavy bar. The strength is created through the 6061 aluminum and clever molding. A 31.8mm, oversized clamp region increases the strength of the bar. You can see this section in the center of the images.

I have picked this product to include on the best dirt jumper handlebar list due to its geometry. The 4-degree upsweep and 9-degree backsweep offer a more comfortable ride for street and dirt disciplines.

You will have seen the distinctive bulge by now. It's a great method of increasing strength in the bar. Initially seeing this worried me that the rise would be too much and the width wouldn't be enough for my riding but they've designed it brilliantly.

The width is narrow enough to make the bike good with spins and twitchy but not too wide as to hinder performance.

 Photo by porkercon

 Photo by @slopestyleworldwide

NS bikes are one of the few brands concentrating a lot of their energy on dirt jumping and slopestyle bikes. They're one of my favorite brands and my previous bikes have been littered with their parts.

Since NS has narrowed its customer base they've been able to develop its parts to be super high quality in a few different areas.

NS Proof bars are made with a 7050 alloy, a massive 71mm rise, and a surprising 760mm width. Looking at these bars it's very clear that they've been created for the top freeride mountain bike riders. Coming from the company themselves: “Designed for dirt jumping and pump tracks”.

The geometry has been relaxed and incorporated into a totally custom tubing to reduce fatigue and increase comfort on high front-end dirt jump bikes with suspension.

Many professional NS team riders have chosen to use the NS Proof riser bars on their DJ build. In recent years Sam Pilgrim and Martin Soderstrom have achieved podium finishes with these handlebars.

 Photo by @slopestyleworldwide

 Photo by porkercon

Another NS handlebar for this list of the best dirt jumper bars in 2024. The District is a nicely designed, no-fuss handlebar for park and dirt riders.

Unlike the other NS bars on this list, the Districts are made from a heat-treated 4130 Chromoly with a comfy but uncommon 7-degree backsweep and 4-degree upsweep.

After riding these bars for a couple of years I find them extremely comfortable. The massive size could put a few people off but it worked with the setup I was riding at the time.

To keep the product simple and probably a little cheaper, NS designed this product to have the same diameter all the way along. They are a super cheap product but the diameter was weird to get used to at first.

Unsurprisingly, due to the exaggerated rise, some riders are using these district bars with BMX stems. To help these riders, NS has included shims so you can use this with a mountain bike or BMX stem.

 Photo by porkercon

 Photo by porkercon

With a classic, strong history in the world of mountain bike handlebars, Chromag has been creating tools for the hard-riding crowd for years.

I think these bars use some of the best features from a lot of the other products on this list. They use strong and durable 7050-grade aluminum in their construction; A variable butting construction in the 2024 version and an interesting geometry.

They have used the larger 35mm clamping diameter to fit in with their increased tubing thickness around high-stress areas but this shouldn't be a problem for most dirt jump riders. According to the Chromag website, they have used 7 different butting locations on the OSX bars,

In my opinion, the size of these bars is more targeted toward mountain biking as a whole instead of just dirt jumping, like the NS bars. The rise is much lower than the others and the backsweep/upsweep is very generic.

 Photo by porkercon

 Photo by Spank Indusries

A high-class cycling brand that hasn't sold out and works on all of its products in-house. They keep control over every part of their manufacturing process to minimize defects and maximize quality and fast product releases.

The 35 Vibrocore is a beastly, super wide aluminum bar that's branded at a good price and weight point. You can pick this bar up in three different rise options: 25mm, 40mm, and 60mm. Each of which is a good size for different types of mountain biking and dirt jumping.

I like the fact that Spank created this product to fix an issue rather than just adding a new item to the market.

Trail vibrations are the main cause of arm pump and fatigue. Vibrations in the range of 5 - 50 hertz are the most common for dirt jumping. Although your forks will absorb a lot, there's a significant amount of vibration that's transferred straight into your forearms.

All slopestyle handlebars reduce some vibrations but they also have a resonant frequency where the trail vibrations will be exaggerated and further harm your arms. This normally happens between 12 - 25hz.

Rather than trying to battle the amount of vibration, Spank has developed the Vibrocore technology to increase the resonant frequency of their bars into much higher ranges. You're much less likely to experience these frequencies on the jumps. In simple terms, this technology reduces the arm pump!

These improvements are achieved through strategic placements of foam inside the bar tubing. Coupled with tapered wall thickness in high-stress areas and a complex tubing design, Spank has made one of the most comfortable dirt jumping handlebars while also keeping them extremely light.

I recommend these bars as the upgrade pick for most mountain bikers and dirt jumpers. As well as the features I've mentioned above, Spank makes this bar 820mm wide, giving riders a massive choice of cut-down widths. You can see in these images how many printed options there are for setup changes.

Spank Spike Vibrocore Handlebar Install and Review | Can These Bars Eliminate Arm Pump ???

 Photo by Sram

The Descendant handlebar offers a variety of options including DH specs and carbon options, as well as specific cranksets with the same name. Stiffness, toughness, dependability, and comfort are the hallmarks of a good DJ bike. All aspects Truvativ has worked hard to achieve with these bars, making it a popular choice among riders.

Truvativ is a successful cycling company with a fair number of successful mountain bike bars under its belt. They've used this experience to bring a proven shape, width, materials, and manufacturing techniques to this product.

As is expected, there are a few downsides to the Descendant bar. Unlike most other products on this list, Truvativ has opted to use a 7050 alloy instead of the regular 6061 choices. Descendant bars have a very minimal rise, which isn't always the best for slopestyle bikes.

Price is also something to consider before purchasing these handlebars. You'll be paying over $200 for this option when you can buy practically the same product in the Chromag Fubars for much less.

On a brighter note, you can expect super precise steering with a confident feel while hitting berms or turns, and jumps. Researching this product you will see that this product comes in a multitude of options. If you have the money to purchase the Descendant bar you'll be able to get something very specific to your needs.

How Wide Should my Dirt Jumper Handlebars be?

Most mountain bike brands manufacture their bars with cut-down prints. These are small marks near each end of the bars that show how far you should cut the bars to achieve the desired width.

You should experiment with different-sized bars and then cut yours down accordingly. Narrower handlebars will give you a twitchier feel but will make it less comfortable at higher speeds. On the other hand, wide bars will make spinning tricks harder.

How Much Rise Should my Bars Have?

Again, this is a personal preference decision. Dirt jumpers normally have more rise than mountain bikes but the setup of your frame will alter how each handlebar feels so one decision may not be right for every bike.

A lot of DJ riders have handlebars with a rise of around 30mm.

Downhill riders tend to have lower rise as it gives a better feeling in the berms and rails whereas higher rise bars are better for hops and jumps.

What is Handlebar Upsweep, Rise and Backsweep?

To make handlebars more comfortable, brands started bending their bars upwards and backward, hence the terms upsweep and backsweep.

Upsweep is normally pretty constant at around 5 degrees and backsweep varies between 5 and 9 degrees. There's not much difference but it's definitely noticeable.

Rise is probably the most important metric. It's the millimeter distance the bars rise from the stem. The number can vary massively depending on your riding style.

What are Cut Marks and Reference Marks on Handlebars?

Cut marks are added to either end of a handlebar. They are often accompanied by specific widths, denoting where you can cut the bars to achieve a certain width.

You need to cut either side by the same amount so handlebar manufacturers added the marks to ensure riders weren't ruining the widths.

What is the Bar Diameter Where the Brakes are Placed?

All bars are 22.2mm at the brake location.

Why Should You Trust us?

I'm Michael, the author of this post. I've been riding BMX and dirt jump bikes for over a decade now. Like many riders, I couldn't stick to just one discipline so I have lots of experience in many areas of cycling.

Building and maintaining my own dirt jump bike from the base of a Mongoose Fireball in the early 2010s, I learned a lot about which mountain bike parts worked well on a dirt jumper. Dirt jumping is a small discipline so not a lot of brands create specific parts for them.

I have owned and tested most of the products on this list. When testing the products they were installed on a generic DJ bike and ridden on-street spots, dirt jumps, and often BMX parks.

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