Bars - explain/recommend.

fat bloke

The bars on my race bike are a traditional deep drop, and even though they're carbon, I have to say I prefer the shallow drop style bars (alloy) that I have on my training bike. So I fancy changing my race bike bars to something similar.

It's confusing enough though, especially shopping on-line. There are bars that look shallow and some are called "aero" and some of them are "compact", and others are "ergo". More of them are shallow and curved while more still have the curvy bit flattened out so your hand is grabbing a flat section of bar on the drops, if you know what I mean.

The bang per buck for Carbon over Alloy is a bit mad as well, price differential is hard to justify for a seemingly slight weight saving...

Anyway, would someone care to de-muddy the waters for me, or recommend me a set of bars?

happytramp

Hmmm, the curved bars with the flat part in the drops are the 'ergo' bars. You'll probably find these less comfortable than the 'compact' one which have a shallow drop and usually quite a short forward reach. 'Aero' bars usually refer to the bars used by time-trialist's but I suppose they could also refer to the carbon bars with the flattened 'wing' shaped tops. You should probably go for something like the 'compact' ones

Carpenter

How much you want for your old one,s

AstraMonti

What's your budget? Zipp do some great short and shallow but are expensive.

fat bloke

Carpenter wrote: »

How much you want for your old one,s

AstraMonti wrote: »

What's your budget? Zipp do some great short and shallow but are expensive.

Well I had a quick look at bars in cyclesuperstore and the choice was 275 euro carbons or 80 euro alloys, and to be perfectly honest if you took the stickers off I'd be hard pressed to tell you which one was which!

They quoted another 45 quid to fit as well, but being able to sell my old ones would definitely affect my budget in a positive direction!

@Carpenter - I'll keep you in mind when I make the change. FYI they're 44 and described thusly:

"DEVOX UHC-Nano Ultra Hybrid Composite Carbon Fiber Monocoque Handlebar with 3K finish and Ergonomic Drop, 185 grams"

That's bloody light:eek:

See here: http://2009.feltracing.com/09-catalog-unitedkingdom/road/performance-road/09-f1-sl.aspx

happytramp

fat bloke wrote: »

They quoted another 45 quid to fit as well, but being able to sell my old ones would definitely affect my budget in a positive direction!

Yikes, is it just me or does that seem incredibly expensive to swap some bars? Bearing in mind, with a shorter drop/reach it's unlikely the cables will need to be changed.

fat bloke

happytramp wrote: »

Yikes, is it just me or does that seem incredibly expensive to swap some bars? Bearing in mind, with a shorter drop/reach it's unlikely the cables will need to be changed.

Absolutely yeah. I just asked and was told that was their standard charge.

Certainly if I was handing over 275 quid for their diamond-encrusted Cinelli's then I'd be expecting a fairly serious downward negotiation on that quote...

happytramp

fat bloke wrote: »

Certainly if I was handing over 275 quid for their diamond-encrusted Cinelli's then I'd be expecting a fairly serious downward negotiation on that quote...

And some fresh bar tape.

doozerie

I'm gonna be lazy and link to this recent thread which may answer some of your questions.
I'll be less lazy for a moment - here is one of the links I posted in that thread which goes through various handlebar geometries. It seems to be reasonably current given some of the models it specifically mentions.

As for carbon versus alloy, it's a personal thing but I'm not sold on carbon for handlebars - too expensive and too fragile for me. And as for 45euro to swap handlebars, that seems very high to me. Running the cables and fitting handlebar tape is certainly fiddly but a shop should be well used to doing that and it shouldn't take them long at all - the last bike fitter I spoke to said he usually has a selection of handlebars to swap over to for people he is fitting, and he says it only takes him a few minutes to swap from one to the other since he is so used to it.

dvntie

Have to say a big thanks to doozerie here
After advice received I changed my bars from 42 standard to a narrower 40 and the difference is massive. I never knew 2cm could make so much of a difference

smacl

Also picked up some very useful advice from doozerie on this thread and moved from ergo to compact bars, which I love.

fat bloke wrote: »

Well I had a quick look at bars in cyclesuperstore and the choice was 275 euro carbons or 80 euro alloys, and to be perfectly honest if you took the stickers off I'd be hard pressed to tell you which one was which!

They quoted another 45 quid to fit as well, but being able to sell my old ones would definitely affect my budget in a positive direction!

Yikes. I paid bike24 the princely sum of €25 for my new bars, plus a tenner for some fresh bar tape and another tenner for delivery. These weigh 300g, going low end carbon at €159 would save 40g for €134, or high end carbon at €349 would save 170g for €324. So at €3.35 versus €1.90 per gram saved, if you're buying carbon for the weight saving, you really need to go the whole hog.

blorg

The main benefit of carbon bars over lightweight alloy is stiffness. Light alloy bars are very flexy. There is arguably also a benefit in vibration damping. Weight is not the main issue, although you do get a few grams while you're at it. Whether this benefit is worth hundreds of euros is of course up to you.

€45 to swap bars, even presuming it includes bar tape, is very expensive. It's an easy job, buy the bars and a roll of tape and do it yourself. I have changed bars quite a lot and never had to change the cables; you would need a significant change in reach which would feck up your position and require a new stem anyway (at which point you wouldn't need to change the cables anyway.) Changing the drop doesn't affect where the levers are, so doesn't affect cable length either. Many times I have changed them it has also been deep to shallow drop.

fat bloke

A hard day's googling later.

I'm looking at the 3T Ergonova's. They seem to be among the most aggressively compacted bar, with a drop of 123 and a reach of 77.
Now I did read on here someone had commented that sprinting in the drops unless you can hunker down properly your forearms can bang of the tops of the bars, and I have noticed that a bit with the compact bars on my training bike.

So. Then I came across these:
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/cinelli-graphis-xl-shallow-white-road-handlebar/#more

The drop is 125 and the reach is 70. If I'm right then that might solve the above problem. They're still very compact in terms of drop, there's a tiny bit more ceiling height for the forearm issue, but shortening that reach, they're by far the shallowest reach bar that I've found should also help significantly I imagine.

Does anyone here use these bars, or know anything about em? For alloy bars they're up there in price.

fat bloke

Just to compare like with like here.

These:
http://www.syntace.com/index.cfm?pid=3&pk=1838

are the bars on my training bike. They're swept back 6 degress, which you can see from the top, which will affect the reach marginally, but that's probably taken into account in their measurements.

But, they're listed as having a drop of 129 and a reach of 90

Compared to the 3T's 123, 77
and the Cinelli's 125, 70

Curiouser and curiouser...

doozerie

fat bloke wrote:

I'm looking at the 3T Ergonova's. They seem to be among the most aggressively compacted bar, with a drop of 123 and a reach of 77.
Now I did read on here someone had commented that sprinting in the drops unless you can hunker down properly your forearms can bang of the tops of the bars, and I have noticed that a bit with the compact bars on my training bike.

That might have been me, I certainly mentioned it on one thread here relatively recently. I reckoned the "issue" arose from the fact that the transition from the tops to the drops is relatively severe/sudden, perhaps due to the extra width of the ovalised/flattened tops - some bars have a gentle curve/transition by comparison. As a result there may less free space available for your forearms at that junction. Mind you, I've not placed these bars side by side with my other bars to compare directly, so what I'm describing is my impression rather than anything more definitive (i.e. I may have hit this problem for something more simple like the positioning of my hands on the drops at the time).

The reason for my quotes around "issue" though is because I've not found it a real problem in practice. After it happened the first time I've been a little more careful and it hasn't happened again. I don't have to think about it to avoid it happening so it hasn't really caused me any inconvenience. I haven't raced on them though, and it's in that environment that I think it'll really show if it's going to be a problem. Beasty has them on a race bike though, as far as I can remember, so he might have experience of using them in that scenario.

fat bloke

Just took my race bike out of the attic (it's nearly feckin' May!!!!!!!)

and measured my existing bars.

It's hard to measure accurately but I'd estimate as having a drop of up to 150, and reach is about 100+, so they're substantially different to any of the compact geometries.

Would be a big change. Might try and get out for a re-acquaintance spin and see how it feels after a winter on my winter compacts.

doozerie

By the way, I am marshaling at the club league race in Black Bull next Thursday (May 3rd) and I'll likely have the bike with the 3T Ergonova's with me. You are welcome to take a ride on it if you are there - it's a small bike though and might be far too small for you which might not help in assessing whether the bars suit you.

blorg

FWIW I'm very happy with FSA's compact bars in both alloy (on my tourer) and carbon (on both my road bikes.) I think they are very similar in dimensions though to the 3G Ergonovas.