Yeah, not the word I wanted to use in regard to the clamp. I was thinking of leverage as "influence over" not its more scientific meaning. I understand that the bars act like a lever on the rest of the column meaning that the longer it is, the easier it's going to be to flex it. It's like trying to break a pencil in half that's only 3 inches long versus one that is 6 inches long. The 6 inch one isn't going to be as rigid, will flex, and you'll have an easier time snapping it (not saying the bars are snapping, just making a quick example that the pencil will flex a lot easier.) Or like how like using a jack with a very short lever is going to be much harder to pump down to use. It's also somewhat of the same idea as gaining more power from a hammer by holding it at the bottom and using its overall length. I just thought that maybe instead of looking at it as an extra .5 inches, I should really be looking at it as 33 percent more clamp, but perhaps I really would need a few extra inches at that point, i.e. something not practical. This makes sense, but I wanted to be sure because like I said, you'd think a clamp that's even shorter than 3 inches wouldn't be clamping to enough of the fork and bars because it's only holding on to the very ends, and being that they were the very ends, (like holding the pencil when trying to bend it) would cause more flex as less material is anchored down - like wide bars without gussets vs wide bars with (even small) gussets on the inner end.
(Bold to clarify this is the biggest factor in what I'm basing the thread off of)
