tommasini wrote:There is a strip of grip material adhered there and I could believe that might be considered slightly "soft" (some give) for helping the stem grip the bars. I would suspect this is what the 3t Rep was referring too. No way would they design the carbon to be "soft" there.
Semantics
I never said the carbon was intentionally soft. that would be impossible. that grip bit as you said is a layered on section which is softer than the carbon underneath.
I have had 6 sets of Ergonovas, all of them did this. Recently changed to Zipp contour SL bars...these didnt deform there, they just outright cracked! from only 4nm of torque. I'm no carbon newbie neither so these were installed correctly. one short ride I could see a hair line crack coming from one corner of the faceclamp..took them off to inspect and all four corners were cracked, Badly too! This is using a recently calibrated digital torque wrench too. I sent them back to Wiggle, who sent them off to Zipp...40 days later (yup, thats how fast they deal with issues at Zipp) they emailed to say "can you send us the stem too" WTAF! 40 days and they ask that (fyi, its a zipp sl-OS stem..not that it matters) . I promptly told them to poke it as far as they can up their darkest passage and got a refund
Now on Zipp service course SL-70 ergo alloy bars. Carbon bars can f@%k off