First ride on 660mm wide handlebar

So I finally got out for a ride after cutting my handlebar down from 685mm to 660mm. It felt good. 685 always felt just a bit too wide to me. I'm going to leave it at 660 for a while. I need to get several rides under my chamois in varying terrain to form a thorough impression. So far, so good. I did graze one tree trunk on a tight, technical section, I should note.

I'm always tweaking my bike setup. Along with the debut of my 660mm handlebar, my ride featured my first-ever singletrack experience on Crank Brothers Egg Beaters pedals. I've been using these pedals on my road/commuter bike for a few years now, but never on mtb. I found them slightly more difficult to clip into than my SPDs. Once clipped in, they felt no more or less solid than SPDs. One thing I didn't like was that when I went to clip in and missed, sometimes my foot would just roll forward right off of the pedal. Even when I "miss" on my SPDs, my entire foot never rolls forward off of the pedal platform. But, maybe this is just a matter of getting used to clipping in to the Egg Beaters on the trail.

I also tried out some new grips on this ride. Ergon GA1's. They're described as all-mountain grips, but I've heard good things about them from cross-country oriented riders like myself. They felt fine, but maybe just a little on the large side. That said, I bought the large size. They also come in small, but I haven't yet wrapped my hands around a pair of smalls. I bought the large size because, at 5' 9", (ahem) my hands and feet are a little on the large size. They don't have the ergonomic "wings" that is the signature of the Ergon lineup,  but they are shaped to fit the hand, not just a straight cylinder. The lack of wings meant that I did not unintentionally rotate the grip on the handlebar while applying the death grip on technical sections. The wings provide additional leverage that often caused me to turn the grips on the bar - not good. Even when properly torqued, I still ended up rotating the grips unintentionally in the heat of the moment.