I Don't Know Man: Keefer and the 661 Bend

your not wrong...but my guess is one of them comes with a check! haha

The extra 2mm width increases comfortability in tip in and zone 2 cornering, really frees up the chassis

Yes, I agree that just 2mm of width does make a difference so it's a close design, but it's different. 

Really like your insight on width and comfortability in the tip or whatever you said

I also believe this is close to the stock Yamaha bend.

The only real negative I found is using lock on grips adds .5mm to each side, be cautious if you are sensitive to bar width as you might get violent headshake. Vet riders take note.

That was my first thought too but it is a few mm taller than "YZ High", more sweep too but that often varies based on where it's measured.

The clamping width is damn near an inch wider, so it must have something to do with flex 🤔 

same but different...

Don't the triple clamps determine that width?

I'm confused. 

I don't understand the grievance here.

I bought the 661 because something taller than my Mcgrath bend sounded good. I like it. I prefer to run Renthal products. I don't really care what rider they give credit to on their website. 

I don't think anyone's YZ bends have been updated for a long time. The SX bend was closest to modern YZ bars.

It was different enough for Eli to change brands after a long time with Pro Taper. A lot of bars are pretty close on paper but feel much different in your hands. I don't see how this is any different. Keefer has said from the beginning it was close to one of the Renthal bends as well. I'm not really sure this was thread worthy lol

sounds reasonable, he used to run pro taper exlusively and changed sponsors and he wanted a similar bar

Look it...

Think it was done because Pro Taper was/is hard to get?????

Don't the Yamahas come with YZ High Pro Taper bars? 

It’s a Renthal, not a Pro Taper. 

1/2 mm is such a hooge diff. 2mm? Grand canyon! Most comfortable bars are found on beach cruiser.

Same here, but that seems the only major difference. 

It's also very interesting how he went from always, always recommending PT handlebars to people and that changed when a certain high profile industry person went from PT to Renthal. 

What strikes me is the Huge difference in the listed ' Clamping Area '

91mm Less in the Renthals as against the Pro Tapers, with the rest of the dimensions being so very minimal in difference, means that the length of the tapered section of the bars, and the angle / length of the , shall we say, secondary / upright section of the bars, would produce quite a different 'feel' / Flex to the bars, them both being non cross braced.

That's my ' take ' on this. That clamping area difference between the two, is Massive - I'm surprised by the difference in that dimension. Do most of the Pro Tapers, have such a long section of horizontal?

You've got it backwards. Eli Tomac developed the 661 for Kris Keefer

I'm assuming the point of the OP is that Renthal was supposed to put a link to the Pro Taper bar on their 661 landing page. 

Because private sector companies aren't allowed to compete, or do marketing. We only need one source for any given product and shouldn't hurt people's feelings with deceptive marketing around Kris Keefer.

At least that's my understanding. Yet to be clarified. 

Yep, the 661 is essentially a 12mm taller version of the 821-McGrath.  Same bend and sweep otherwise.

I think what changed it was not being able to rely on PT anymore. The dealers here stopped carrying PT products entirely because of how shitty they are to deal with after they were bought by Turn 14 or whatever its called.

When Tucker Rocky got consumed by Turn 14, Pro Taper distribution was disrupted for over a year. ODI stepped in to fill the OEM orders to Yamaha and Kawasaki. The YZ's on the floor here are ODI's and the base is wide like the Pro Taper's

Chill down dude

A few things at play here:

Measurement Technique: The measures of all these dimensions seems to different slightly by bar company, so I wouldn't take those number to be an exact comparison.  

Manufacturing Tolerances: We're talking about a bent, tapered, tube of aluminum here. I bet the bending is consistent bar to bar for the most part, and most importantly right to left. But I wouldn't be surprised if the final numbers had tolerances of +/- 1mm or more. And unless they're cutting that total width after the bending, That's the value that will vary the most as 4 bends on different angles make up that number. 

Clamping Area: this number has always baffled me. 

Clamping Area: as mentioned by others, triple clamps determine the width of the clamping area. A KTM (also Husky, GasGas, Beta, Triumph Stark) have the smallest width with a hole to hole dimension  of 90 mm. So the bar mount total clamping width is something like 122 mm left to right (including the width of the bar clamps themselves). Honda is on the other end of the spectrum with a width of 106 mm, which would require a clamping area of 138 mm, or 13 mm larger than the 125 claimed by Renthal, which clearly isn't right. So something about their measurements of that is off.

Flex: This is always a fun one and typically gets me down votes for bringing reality into the conversation... Some test riders will claim they can feel the tiniest of changes, but seem to forget that there are manufacturing tolerances, incorrect numbers bar to bar, clamping width differences by brand, variation in all sorts of other variables that I touched on above. 

Flex/compliance/stiffness/whatever you want to call it is massively important and a very real thing that can be felt. But at some point the difference in flex between two things (that's what you're actually feeling and comparing) is so miniscule or even unknown due to the other unknowns (tolerances, weld variation, bolt torque, friction, etc.). It's simply impossible to feel, or can vary one way or the other and it's impossible to know. But that won't stop them from telling you they can feel it!