Many stores/sites are blowing out the EC70 Monkeylight XC bar for around $70. This bar is the 04 model before CNT and was approx 130 when I was looking last year. My questions are: Weighing 230 with gear, would they hold up? How much abuse can these take? I ride a Heckler built and used as a light FR with the EA70 now. My fork is the uber plush Mav DUC32.
Many stores/sites are blowing out the EC70 Monkeylight XC bar for around $70. This bar is the 04 model before CNT and was approx 130 when I was looking last year. My questions are: Weighing 230 with gear, would they hold up? How much abuse can these take? I ride a Heckler built and used as a light FR with the EA70 now. My fork is the uber plush Mav DUC32.
So long as you keep the freeriding light and the majority of your rides are XC it should be fine. If you find yourself spending more time hucking, jumping, or looking for ways to bust your medical deductible I would recommend keeping to alloy. That said, as a fellow clyde, I personally keep CF out of my control components. Call me kooky, but I am not a big fan of components capable of catastrophic failure. IF (note big if) I ever ran the cf bars it would be easton dh version.
I've been riding Easton Monkey Lite riser bars for five years now with not one single failure. I trust these bars more than any other carbon, let alone alloy (which I had a Profile bar fail many years ago) riser bars. Now I don't freeride on them (I do use Easton EA70 bars for that), but Easton knows their sh!t better than most companies so all my bikes have Easton bars. I have weighed between 195 (when riding a lot) and 220 (early season) while riding on them just for comparison.
I'd trust my dental work on them!
Also, as a small dispute to the previous post, Carbon bars are actually LESS likely to have catastrophic failures versus alloy. In my eight years of working in shops, I have seen many handlebar failures. Alloy almost always fails catastrophic, just breaks right off, often with little or no warning. Carbon can break this way, but I've seen way more instances where a carbon bar has cracked and the customer said they felt like the bar was "noodly", but didn't completely fail.
So long as you keep the freeriding light and the majority of your rides are XC it should be fine. If you find yourself spending more time hucking, jumping, or looking for ways to bust your medical deductible I would recommend keeping to alloy. That said, as a fellow clyde, I personally keep CF out of my control components. Call me kooky, but I am not a big fan of components capable of catastrophic failure. IF (note big if) I ever ran the cf bars it would be easton dh version.
Aluminium is more prone to catastrophic failure than carbon fiber. So I imagine you'll be swapping everything out for steel or Ti? CF doesn't typically fail catastrophically due to the fact that it's woven in layers with the fibers meshed in different directions.
Catastrophic CF failures (any CF failures for the most part) are a mountain biking urban legend. Everyone knows someone who knows someone who has broken CF, had it snap right off while riding or somehow injured the rider. The funny thing is, there aren't any pictures or videos to back this up. When people break bike parts they take pictures. But there's a strange lack of broken CF parts.
yeah, but who says they need to be replaced? if carbon bars lasted just one year i seriously doubt the companies making them would still be in business, especially with their warranty issues they'd see. if i crashed really hard and noticed gouges or some other issue with the bar, that's one thing. but to replace them each year like clockwork even if nothing is wrong with them, that's crazy talk...
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