Carbon or Alum Bars/Stem

crashoveroid

Hi All

I have been reading different post here for the last while and im trying figure out what every one prefers to ride and why?

Thanks
Crash

Raam

I have alu bars and stem, with carbon wrap for bling effect. I just don't trust carbon stem/bars, although I am happy to ride a carbon frame for some reason.

ROK ON

I have a carbon stem. But got it as it was only one available at 90mm when I needed it.

Don't notice any difference between it and previous alu stems that I had, whereas I do notice the difference on my carbon versus alu road bikes.

ednwireland

i'd be worried about crushing a carbon bar / seatpost when fitting, especially as most carbon stems seem to be alloy wrapped in carbon (i dont have a bike torque wrench ..... yet)

TinyExplosions

I have carbon bars, and they're fine -wouldn't have any reservations about them.

Went for an Alu stem, as they tend to be lighter than carbon ones (unless you go crazy expensive), as you can get the strength with less material

Raam

TinyExplosions wrote: »

I have carbon bars, and they're fine -wouldn't have any reservations about them.

Went for an Alu stem, as they tend to be lighter than carbon ones (unless you go crazy expensive), as you can get the strength with less material

fine cos they haven't snapped yet. You're on borrowed time, Tiny.

crashoveroid

Raam wrote: »

fine cos they haven't snapped yet. You're on borrowed time, Tiny.

I Agree once bitten and all that

Quigs Snr

Had Easton EC90 Carbon Bar and Stem, have swapped for Pro Vibe stem (alu with carbon wrap) and Deda Newton bars. Saw a carbon bar snap in a race and the injuries were horrific. I was also warned away from them by a prominent Irish cyclist. You can wheel out all the stats in the world about Alu breaking easier etc... but I am just not taking any risk I don't have to !

Carbon for show bikes, Aluminium for go bikes. Most protour riders are on aluminium bars and stems.

That being said if I was building a bling bling weight weenie bike that was just going to be ridden on a few leisure rides and not endure Irish winters and racing on potholed roads, I wouldn't have a problem with Carbon.

Raam

What about seat posts? On my race bike, I have a carbon one. The one on the spesh looks like carbon, but I've no idea if it's just wrapped or not.

blorg

I have carbon bars on my good bike. I was skeptical about them initially but suspect they may play a role in vibration damping, particularly in the drops. They are also massively stiff compared to lightweight alloy bars I have used.

As to the breaking, light alloys snap as well; Tom has direct experience of this.

I did replace one pair of carbon bars after crashing badly on them- involved the bike skidding along the ground on the end of the bar. It did seem damaged at the end where the plugs go in, you could sort of compress it there. Don't know if an alloy bar would have fared any better though.

I use this cheap torque wrench (always) for fitting them.

As Tiny says aluminium stems are actually lighter than carbon for whatever reason.

TinyExplosions

There you go, if Mr 'I know crashes' Blorg like em, they're fine

Murph100

I guess the direction of stress on a seat post is generally along its length so very little risk, any broken 'post' I've seen has usually failed at the saddle clamp, ie the alloy parts, unlike a stem or handlebar where its clamped over a small contact area and then twisted with a fair amount of leverage.

I had a good look at Cavs bike during the TOI, the stem was like a bloody carbon girder with 'PROTOTYPE' scribbled on it, doubt it was light but certainly a vote of confidence for carbon stems strengthwise anyway.

Raam wrote: »

What about seat posts? On my race bike, I have a carbon one. The one on the spesh looks like carbon, but I've no idea if it's just wrapped or not.

Tackleberry

From painful experience any carbon wrapped components are far more dangerous than full carbon - my seatpost developed metal fatigue that may have been noticed if it wasn't for the flawless carbon shell surrounding it. After three years it snapped at the worst time possible and fcuked me up.

On the other hand, my full carbon handlebars and stem are still going strong - they got a bad impact during the crash but survived it very well - ironically to me the crash was proof of the strength of carbon over metal!

dave2pvd

I used a Zipp CF bar and stem for the last two years.



I'm pretty sure that stem is lighter than just about any aluminium/aluminum one; 135g for the 100mm.

Anyway, two full seasons of abuse and they held up fine. My teammates mostly ran the same set-up. No bars or stem broke/spontaneously exploded.

FWIW, I would never own a CF frame/components without a 1/4" torque wrench.

Oh, and friends don't let friends buy cheap CF. Broken bones can ensue.

blorg

dave2pvd wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that stem is lighter than just about any aluminium/aluminum one; 135g for the 100mm.

The lightest plain aluminium stems from mainstream manufacturers (e.g. FSA OS-99, Rotor S2, Syntace F99) are just under 100g for 90mm. 100 mm only adds a couple of grams. FSA also makes a carbon OS-99 but it is a fair bit heavier than the alu version, as well as being more expensive.

Zipp has very light handlebars certainly.

niceonetom

Tackleberry wrote: »

From painful experience any carbon wrapped components are far more dangerous than full carbon - my seatpost developed metal fatigue that may have been noticed if it wasn't for the flawless carbon shell surrounding it. After three years it snapped at the worst time possible and fcuked me up.

On the other hand, my full carbon handlebars and stem are still going strong - they got a bad impact during the crash but survived it very well - ironically to me the crash was proof of the strength of carbon over metal!

Your crash certain gave me some carbon doubt. Hope you're fully recovered by new, yeah? I totally missed the important detail that your seatpost was carbon wrapped not full carbon, and I know that your photos of the aftermath were impressive/gruesome enough to inspire one boardie to go out and replace a carbon seatpost with a Ti one. Not me though.

I'm a little shocked that you have so much faith in your carbon cockpit (/beavis); you may think that everything is hunkydorry but it's notoriously difficult to spot a carbon failure before it happens, and the conventional (if expensive) wisdom is to replace anything that has had a serious impact.

I've had an alu bars fail on me. I, miraculously, got away with nothing more than a bit of a bruise, but if I'd been pushing down rather than pulling up on the side that failed I'd have been getting reconstructive face surgery if I'd been in traffic or a fast moving bunch it could have been worse again. For that reason alone I'm content to stay with alu, because failure are rarer and more predictable.

Replacing bars is expensive. Dentists are expensive. With carbon you're going to be spending one way or the other.

Quigs Snr

dave2pvd wrote: »

I used a Zipp CF bar and stem for the last two years.

I'm pretty sure that stem is lighter than just about any aluminium/aluminum one; 135g for the 100mm.

Pro PLT in 110mm Aluminium 120 grams for 45 Euro (about double that for the carbon wrapped version which is 110 grams). Best bang for buck out there although their Alu bars whilst beautifully shaped and super cheap are quite porky at 265g - compared to the Deda Newtons at 205g). Using the Pro vibe and the newtons, I have a cockpit weight of around 315g for a cost of approx 150 euro. Not the very lightest for sure, but not far off for a fraction of the cost.

I reckon Carbon stems are a false economy, fine for the bling bling, but for the true weight weenie I think the ones Blorg mentioned are the way to go. Not sure about those Scandium ones though...Now that I think of it I still have a set of small 40cm wing shaped carbon bars that I must put up on adverts.

Loving those zipp cages dave2pvd, have the same ones myself. I am afraid though that you may be banned from the forum for contravening one of the Euro rules regarding riding a Bianchi with non-campagnolo components.

Quigs Snr

One comment I should make is that I am a big fat hypocrite. Most of us who wouldn't use the carbon stems are, because I will bet that most of us will have our aluminium stem bolted onto a carbon steerer....

dave2pvd

blorg wrote: »

The lightest plain aluminium stems from mainstream manufacturers (e.g. FSA OS-99, Rotor S2, Syntace F99) are just under 100g for 90mm. 100 mm only adds a couple of grams. FSA also makes a carbon OS-99 but it is a fair bit heavier than the alu version, as well as being more expensive.

Zipp has very light handlebars certainly.

I stand corrected. Good to know.

dave2pvd

Quigs Snr wrote: »

Pro PLT in 110mm Aluminium 120 grams for 45 Euro (about double that for the carbon wrapped version which is 110 grams). Best bang for buck out there although their Alu bars whilst beautifully shaped and super cheap are quite porky at 265g - compared to the Deda Newtons at 205g). Using the Pro vibe and the newtons, I have a cockpit weight of around 315g for a cost of approx 150 euro. Not the very lightest for sure, but not far off for a fraction of the cost.

I reckon Carbon stems are a false economy, fine for the bling bling, but for the true weight weenie I think the ones Blorg mentioned are the way to go. Not sure about those Scandium ones though...Now that I think of it I still have a set of small 40cm wing shaped carbon bars that I must put up on adverts.

Loving those zipp cages dave2pvd, have the same ones myself. I am afraid though that you may be banned from the forum for contravening one of the Euro rules regarding riding a Bianchi with non-campagnolo components.

The cages work pretty well, don't they?

You're right about the non-Italian groupset sin. I'll probably burn in hell :eek:

The build was done with economy in mind. Sponsored by Zipp and Bianchi, so those parts were super-cheap. PBK were selling Ultegra groupsets at half nothing back then and the dollar was worth something....:(

I'll never buy Campag. The idea of not having interchangeable wheels does not sit well with my frugal upbringing. SRAM Red/Specialized this year.

According to Zipp, those SL bars are 190g! Holy cr@p, I didn't realise they were that light. Of note, when I disassembled the bike to sell it, the shifter/levers had impacted the bars where they contacted the curve. This, despite the use of a torque wrench on the shifter clamp bolt.

Raam

Quigs Snr wrote: »

One comment I should make is that I am a big fat hypocrite. Most of us who wouldn't use the carbon stems are, because I will bet that most of us will have our aluminium stem bolted onto a carbon steerer....

Does the 3T Pro Funda have an alu shim in there?

Quigs Snr

Can you say what team you are on Dave ? The Bianchi / Zipp thing is ringing a bell with me but I cannot make the connection right now. I would love Campag Record myself, but since I started dabbling in a little racing some practicality has to be taken into consideration and the fact is that if you get a wheel change from neutral service in an Irish race and you are on campag then you are walking to the finish unless your own team car is around at which point you are probably losing time anyway unless they are well up in the cavalcade.

Have Sram Red, Rival and Dura Ace 7800 myself, no problems there, they all work smooth as silk (in fact my Rival grouppo runs a lot better with the 7800 cassette than the SRAM one that came with it for some reason).

RAAM. Yep, the 3T Funda Fork with both my Cervelos comes with an aluminium shim which you glue inside the carbon steerer, I just installed one on my S1. I did not read the instructions when I was putting the R3SL together though and always did wonder what that little metal tube thing and pot of glue in the drawer was about... Only figured it out when I got the new bike, some 18 months and 12,000km later. Must not be all that important !

dave2pvd

Quigs Snr wrote: »

Can you say what team you are on Dave ? The Bianchi / Zipp thing is ringing a bell with me but I cannot make the connection right now.

Quigs,

I'm on a decent-sized team here in the Southeast: Aarons. We're best known for the womens pro team that we ran for several years. We have about 70 members. Mostly we focus on Masters/Elite races. We were fortunate enough to scoop the state championship jerseys in both categories this year. Both GA Cup jerseys also.

Me racing Athens Twilight last year:

el tel

dave2pvd wrote: »

Quigs,

I'm on a decent-sized team here in the Southeast: Aarons. We're best known for the womens pro team that we ran for several years. We have about 70 members. Mostly we focus on Masters/Elite races. We were fortunate enough to scoop the state championship jerseys in both categories this year. Both GA Cup jerseys also.

Are you in the Atlanta area then? I used to go there quite a bit, mostly around GA Tech and out towards Roswell. Never cycled though but would love to, smashing place.

dave2pvd

el tel wrote: »

Are you in the Atlanta area then? I used to go there quite a bit, mostly around GA Tech and out towards Roswell. Never cycled though but would love to, smashing place.

el tel, go here
Don't want to derail this thread any more.

el tel

On the subject of carbon bars (or carbon anything) I was always a sceptic and stuck with steel and alu. Only recently did I go carbon and the bike is full carbon, bars and stem (it took a demonstration of seeing a Scott frame being whacked by a hammer to convince me). Unfortunately I haven't had the chance to ride the bike and the Ritchey Road Wcs EVO bars and AXIS stem are untested and to be honest I have a bit of a mental block as I have visions of them breaking! At best I'm looking for good comfort from them as the alu FSA Wing Pro bars on my other bike are awful.

blorg

I had Ritchey WCS Evolution bars and they were very nice although the ergo bit wasn't quite right for me... now have FSA K-Force Compact which I prefer, I drop the actual bars down to compensate for the shallow drop which makes aero bars work better. I got these second-hand from Tiny, he swears they were never crashed

It's a gentle curve up in the drops and comfortable in a number of positions. It's a very personal thing though. Other bars I get on with very well in terms of the ergo shape would be Bontrager and Pro PLT, the flat bit seems to be just the right length and orientation in the drops.