carbon fiber handlebars
- Thread starter alex001
- Start date
pound for pound it´s also still the dearest ... and for what ?
reality check : ritchey ali bar 75 euros , ritchey Carbon Fiber bar 230·60 euros . ( its about 20 grams lighter at 198 )
nuff said .
My argument is that when you fall off Ali bends and CF breaks causeing a long walk home ( the same holds for carbon shifter / brake levers , pedal cranks . Ali will still need to be replaced but you can ride to the shop - also it´s very easy to crack carbon by overtightening ; got your torque wrench ready ?
Not forks by the way : an impact hard enough to break carbon will bugger steel and ali , makeing for the long walk home what ever .
Yesterday I found the hard way a a "catastrophic failure" means on a carbon handlebar. I had a Specialized S-Works carbon handle bar that I always tighten with a tork wrench. Well, as I got out of the saddle to power up a hill, the right handlebar suddenly broke and I had a nasty spill. The difference between carbon and other components is the suddenness in the breakage. No warning, no slow bending. Just like glass breaking, one moment it is perfectly stiff, and the next it very suddenly completely shatters. Very scary.
Ibryce7,
I broke a Campy Record aluminum crank arm in two. No warning. My crank had an internal crack that propogated over some amount of time. The crack would have been detectable using Zyglo or Magnaflux, but no one does that to their components unless something is suspected. I had no cause to suspect anything was amiss.
Several friends have broken aluminum bars, also without warning.
I do agree with you that the catastrophic failure mode of carbon fiber is shorter than steel or aluminum, generally speaking.
I hope you were not seriously injured and you heal quickly.
I broke a Campy Record aluminum crank arm in two. No warning. My crank had an internal crack that propogated over some amount of time. The crack would have been detectable using Zyglo or Magnaflux, but no one does that to their components unless something is suspected. I had no cause to suspect anything was amiss.
Several friends have broken aluminum bars, also without warning.
I do agree with you that the catastrophic failure mode of carbon fiber is shorter than steel or aluminum, generally speaking.
I hope you were not seriously injured and you heal quickly.
Ive yet to experience a failure of a carbon bar - that said, I don't know if the FSA bars are any better than the rest of them out there. When I was experimenting with different bar widths I used the FSA bar with the same shape but in aluminum and the ride difference was night and day much nicer with the carbon bars but I'd be damned if I was shelling out that much money just to have a nicer ride for a month of so of testing different bar widths for comfort and powermeter approval...
