Carbon Fiber Handlebar

There aren’t too many bike parts that aren’t available in carbon fiber these days.  I’ve generally looked at carbon fiber parts as being for racers and weight-weenies.  I’ll probably never race and still have dozens of pounds to lose off my butt before I start nit-picking my bike for ounces.  However; I was talking to a cycling friend recently about hand comfort and he suggested that a carbon fiber bar is very comfortable and provides a degree of shock absorption – thus making the ride a bit easier on ones hands and wrists. Most of my rides are on rural and small town roads and there are many cracks and bumps everywhere I ride. I decided to put this theory to the test.

I found a reasonably priced carbon fiber bar on eBay and clicked purchase.  This was not a name brand bar, rather a Chinese part.  There is a lot of talk about these products in the forums.  Like everything, lots of disinformation. For my purposes, I believe these products are acceptable and certainly fit my wallet (where the name brand products often do not). A few weeks later, the box was in my hands.

The first thing to note, the box didn’t weigh anything.  After removing the bar from the box, I found that the tiny amount of weight that I had felt was cardboard!  The bar was incredibly light!!  It didn’t quite float but almost.

I installed the bar without bar tape and went for a ride.  The result was VERY interesting!  For the first ten miles I had to keep looking at my front tire as I thought I had a puncture.  You know how that feels?  The tire is losing pressure and it is absorbing a lot of the harshness of the road, right?  Well, I did not have a puncture – the tire was fine.  It finally occurred to me that this was the bar working.  The bike still handled/performed as it always had but some of the harshness of the road was being absorbed and was not being transmitted to my hands.  I loved it!

Obviously, the cracks and bumps are still felt. The difference is very subtle, it is that just a reduced bit of harshness or sharpness – the carbon fiber bar at work!!  Keep in mind, I still had not even wrapped the bar with tape.

I now have about a hundred miles with the new bar and really like it!  In addition to the feel, it also has a flatter “aero” top as well as the flattened top at the bend. Both of these positions are very comfortable with this bar.  It’ll be really swell when I finally get it taped!