New handlebar, or new handlebar and new stem.....carbon?

daniel_b

Chaps,

in due course I shall be swapping most of the groupset from my Highway One to my Felt, which includes 10 spd 105, and a rather nice FSA Carbon pro team crankset.

I've changed the bars on the Felt already from a rather wide 47cm pair to a 42cm pair, but supercheap, as in £6.25 Deda ones, but do the job.

The bars on the Marin are wider than I might like, so was thinking of moving the bars, and brake/gear shifters over from the Felt lock stock and barrel.

Which would leave a 42cm opening for a new handlebar for the Felt.... :idea:

Full carbon would be nice, but it appears the cheapest out there are £100, and more likely to be £135 - I did like the look of the K wing I must confess.

Had a look on crc, and found these 2 options:

FSA Carbon pro stem, not full carbon, but carbon wrap, and ditto for the bar below.
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=12546
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=11584

What do you reckon?

This looked quite good value too:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=8172

The FSA pair come to £80 together, or would I be better spending more and going for a full carbon handlebar only such as the USE, or even just get a normal cheaper handlebar and stopping at that?

Would appreciate your opinions and experiences.

Any recommendations?

Cheers

Dan

gkerr4

sorry - no actual experience of carbon bars - but I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/ProductDetail.a ... 20XL%20Bar

will be the finishing touch to my S-Works Roubaix when I have re-built the finances!

navier_stokes

To me, carbon wrap is utterly pointless...

Either get a decent alloy or a full carbon bar.

timoid.

There's fork all benefit to having carbon bars. No need. Use your money for other things.

gkerr4

Timoid. wrote:

There's fork all benefit to having carbon bars. No need. Use your money for other things.

what if you have bought "all the other things" - is it OK then?




like I said - these are gorgeous - im not buying for a peformance benefit - they just look great and will be a perfect finishing touch to my 'project' bike. the design is great - the handhold area's are well thought out and beautifully delivered.

richardjallen

Carbon wrap sounds like a gimmick. I have had a carbon flat bar on my Mill Valley but I could not really tell any difference to the original alloy one. Personally I am not sure I would bother with a carbon bar or stem. They appear to be no more than expensive and I would put the money elsewhere.

redddraggon

Don't get carbon bars unless you are adding the finishing touches to a Prince, with red label Record, and Bora Ultras (you get the drift)

andrewgturnbull

Timoid. wrote:

There's fork all benefit to having carbon bars. No need. Use your money for other things.

Hi there.

I'd like to see some more imagination going into the shape of carbon bars, after all they can mold them however they like.

Personally I'd forget the wing shape, but add in wrist-shaped dips in the bars on either side of the stem. That way you'd be nice and comfy when you're in the 'holding the sti cables aero tuck position'.

Plus I'm sure integrated stem/bars is the way of the future - why have two components when you can have one?

If manufacturers are just going to use carbon in tubes then they're missing the advantages.

Cheers, Andy

ps Having said all that I do own a set of standard-shaped Bontrager carbon bars... and one of those ITM carbon-wrapped stems too!

proto

navier_stokes wrote:

To me, carbon wrap is utterly pointless...

Either get a decent alloy or a full carbon bar.

Wot 'e said. Check out the weights too before you splash out on carbon stuff, it's very often heavier than aluminium.

aracer

I'll 4th or 5th that - all alloy front end on my bike which otherwise has a good smattering of carbon on it. Carbon bars and stems simply aren't worth the money unless you've got cash to burn, or particularly feel the need for a wing shape you can't get in alu - the lightest stems are actually alu not carbon.

heavymental

Go second hand and get the K-Wings if you like them. I have a pair that I picked up for £50 and they're very comfortable and look good too of course! I also have a Time Monolink carbon stem that I picked up for £50 too. Full carbon cockpit for £100 isn't bad I don't think. Looks great and pretty damn light aswell.

daniel_b

Thanks all for your replies.

I think I have written off the carbon wrap idea :?

I am tempted by some K wing bars though, and especially as I have found some for under £100 delivered.

Heavymental, what width did you go for, and do you have any pics of them fitted you could post or e-mail to me please?

Am I correct in thinking fsa measure centre to centre?

Many thanks

Dan

heavymental

Mine are 42cm. I forget how that was measured now. I can check this evening if you can't find out via google. They're a bit fiddly to fit as you have to thread the cables through and as mine were second hand the plastic guide inside the bars was damaged so it was a bit more fiddly than it might have been. They're comfortable though. The flat wing section on the tops is nice and all other positions are comfortable too. They look very blingy too! Alot of people only tape around the drops but I taped further up. I'm glad I did because I think the naked carbon would be very slippery when wet or with certain gloves on.

Only pics I have are those 2 above.

daniel_b

Cheers for that HM, it appears they are measued c2c.

I 'was' rather taken with this on ebay.com http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/FSA-2008-K-Wing-Carbon-Anatomic-Road-Bikes-Handlebar_W0QQitemZ110252383760QQihZ001QQcategoryZ27951QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD2VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em122




But noticed that the angles on the bar look different, and there is no red writing on the bar, only white.

What do you reckon, hooky copy from Taiwan?

The closest I can find is this one from dotbike that does seem to have the same curves and is classed as compact (as is the ebay one), but once again still has red on it.



I was about to buy one too :?

Dan

heavymental

Can't have a look as I'm at work but they could just be a newer model? Mine are not this years model, might even be a couple of years old so they could have changed. Although I guess if you do a google image search and none of the results match the ones on ebay you might be right to question it or steer clear...no pun intended :roll:

daniel_b

Just added some images to the post HM,

I've sent the sellers some questions asking how come the colour is different to that on the FSA website, see if they bother to respond.

IF they are copies, seems weird that they can't be bothered to get the decals right!

Dan

heavymental

Hmm. Well, they look pretty genuine to be honest. I know FSA have used that white/grey colourscheme on other stuff so I wouldn't be surprised. Could always send the link to them and ask if its genuine. Worth a crack but I wouldn't be too suspicious looking at those pics. They look good. The angles do look different to mine though, less of a kink on the drops as you say. I guess thats just a slightly different design.

Monty Dog

I'd only go for carbon bars when you've done absolutely everything else and it's your sunday best bike and you'd barely consider racing the thing - one crash and you need to think about replacing them. My FSA carbon bars are incredibly stiff in comparison to many bars - it can make the ride very harsh. The reason some bars look different is they may be OEM versions, but also look out for obvious fakes - there's a few now and again on fleabay.

aarw

have you looked atthe new 3t stuff?? very very nice.

i had carbon bars before. it wasn't long before i changed back to alu stem and bars...

i'm currently using Deda zero stem with deda newton shallow bars. i think i'll move to the new 3t Ergonova bars, i'm just not as comfortable as i could be in the drops on the newtons.

andrewgturnbull

aarw wrote:

have you looked atthe new 3t stuff?? very very nice.

i had carbon bars before. it wasn't long before i changed back to alu stem and bars...

i'm currently using Deda zero stem with deda newton shallow bars. i think i'll move to the new 3t Ergonova bars, i'm just not as comfortable as i could be in the drops on the newtons.

Hi there.

On the other hand I managed to snap my second set of bars in 6 months this morning. Last time it was aluminium, this time it was an old school set of steel bars on the fixed...

Cheers, Andy

cougie

Blimey - what are you doing to them ? Was it a slow break ? Guess so or you may not be writing this now ?

over-the-hill

This one came on my Wilier

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/images/itm%20vi ... 20stem.jpg

andrewgturnbull

cougie wrote:

Blimey - what are you doing to them ? Was it a slow break ? Guess so or you may not be writing this now ?

Last time it riding the cross bike through the woods, so I guess it took a bit of abuse. ITM told me their bars were only recommended for road use.

This morning I had just stood up and shifted all my weight onto the front wheel so that I could skip-stop the back wheel on the fixed bike... Somehow managed to get a foot down when the bars snapped. Then had to ride about another 4 miles to work with one handlebar, oh and my single brake lever was on the broken bit of bar...

Which was fun.

Cheers, Andy

aracer

If you had no brake lever, how were the skip stops with only half a bar?