So while riding a friends bike with a fl and tall bars I noticed it felt really good and started wondering if I had 2 identical bikes with the only difference was that one had a FL and the other a TL stem and the bars were proportionate so that they were the same height above the frame on both setups, if that would change the feel of how the bike handles or not. I decided to find out .. heres what I did. Current rig is a 49mm enduro stem with credence 9.25 bars. My stem sits directly on the bearing wedge so the effective rise above the bearings is 34mm. If I add the height of the bars (234.95mm) it gives me a total bar rise of 268.95mm from the top of the bearing.
So I found a 49mm fl stem with an 8mm rise. Add the height of a 10" bar (254mm) and you get 262mm.. add a 6.95 (7)mm spacer and it gives the same BAR rise of 268.95 as on my TL setup.
Essentially both bars rise the same height from the ground and have the same reach.
My discovery is that it DOES feel different! I can't explain why (bars are almost identical geo 11/3/28.5 and 11/1.5/30) first thing I noticed is that when spinning it literally does feel like you're lifting your bike from lower. When hopping it took a good 10 hops over a ledge to find the balance point where i was actually in.control of the bike and could predict exactly where every part would be throughout the jump.
Does anyone have any solid input on how this works or am I really just imagining things? I do kind of prefer it but I'll have to say I was surprised at how unfamiliar everything felt. I frequently change bars so I'm familiar with how different widths and geos affect riding but this was something I had not experienced before.