Mid-tier integrated Chinese carbon bars

[rlanger]

In the last 6 months or so, maybe a little longer, a slew of fully-integrated carbon bars have appeared on sites like aliexpress.com, that are not super cheap, but more in the US$100+ range.

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?ca ... arbon+bars

I never wanted to take my chances on the super cheap bars, given the horror stories floating around regarding quality. But with an increase in price, one would hope there is also an increase in quality control and overall build quality.

Has anyone been brave enough to try any of these out yet?

[alanyu]

I was living in China. When talking about cheap integrated carbon bars, only "the one", released over one year ago, was reliable at that time. Now the second version is selling @ 1k CNY / 145 USD on taobao. It has been used by some famous Chinese amateurs.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2 ... =16#detail

Farsports has released their new integrated carbon bars recently, which should be also reliable. It looks much nicer than the one, but not that cheap, pre-ordering @ 1.8k CNY / 260USD.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2 ... =16#detail

I suppose they will ship them worldwide if you pay for the shipping.

It's wise to go away from super cheap chinese carbon bars, horrible QC. Here are some examples posted online.
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5180671652?red_tag=2423301400
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/5227288035?red_tag=2470469486

[rlanger]

Great info @alanyu! Thanks.

[Gary71]

The weight for the Farsports seems light. I'd be interested in the 'real' weight if anyone has used them. No photos on cable routing....., has anyone seen these?

[alcatraz]

We have five cheap integrated bars in our group and no failures yet.

A heavy rider had a high speed crash and damaged one of the drops. It didn't break into two pieces. We were kind of impressed that it wasn't more damaged. The trek frame's damage was more severe.

It was the bontrager xxx copies. He'll buy them again.

I have the same bars, and have had two crashes where the bars took some impacts. One superman over the bars (damn dog ran out in front) and one where I tried to go fast around a hairpin bend and lost rear wheel traction. In both occasions I just continued riding afterwards.

Note that bars with internally routed cables are heavier and _weaker_. After the success with the xxx bars and the good looks of the internally routed cables we now have three aero bars in the group too. Those don't look as safe as the xxx bars.

The first generation aero bars had holes drilled in the round tube near the shifters, the newest generation moved the holes closer to the stem to avoid weakening the bars.

The attached picture shows the old model.

[bremerradkurier]

Very few of them seem to weigh less than a Kalloy Uno UL stem combined with one of the better Ali carbon handlebars.

[Hexsense]

I still have Kalloy Uno stem.
But it moved to my commuter bike. I no longer use it on race bike.

While it is light,
Pro Vibe Di2 stem (130g) is clearly stiffer by pushing down the bar with my weight test. This extra stiffness worth the weight for me.
Then Specialized Venge stem (205g) is yet another step stiffer than Pro Vibe stem. They claim it to be stiffer than Zipp SL-Sprint stem, which i feel that both are brutally stiff that i can't tell difference between them anymore. And this level of stiffness is probably very overkill for me, I'm not Sagan nor even a decent sprinter...

Hope all these light integrated bar aren't so flexible. Atleast, match the Pro Vibe level and not the Kalloy Uno level.

[williamg15]

Hey y'all. Resurrecting this thread.

Did anyone mange to get their hands on the new farsports integrated bar? Would be interested in buying them but can only find them on https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2 ... =16#detail, which I am unsure of!

[recoilfx]

I was about to get the Farsports F1 bars, but they quoted me $345 shipped to US. That's much higher than even ordering directly from Taobao. At $345, i opted to get a Chapter2 Mana instead for $407 (which at the time was running a 30% off off the black friday deal). So yeah, i got that instead to match my Chapter2 Tere frameset.

[williamg15]

I did a bit more reserach today. Farsports seem to be quite responisve on Instagram. Saw a reply to someone on there quoting 299E to Europe. Quite expensive, the bars do look nice though.

[cajer]

I'm very curious what the calbe routing options are on the farsports bar also. As I heard they have special spacers to help them integrated with fully integrated aero bikes like the Madone SLR>

[C36]

Hey y'all. Resurrecting this thread.

Did anyone mange to get their hands on the new farsports integrated bar? Would be interested in buying them but can only find them on https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2 ... =16#detail, which I am unsure of!

There is another post about them viewtopic.php?t=159692 with a lab comparison of high end combo (vision, bontrager) and cheaper 4th player.

I placed an order yesterday and delivery time are in the 10-15 days to France. 320$ so 300€ shipment included.

Considering how it behaves on the lab test and all the geometry refinement (all width-length combinations exist, flare, narrow options (down to 36cm at the hoods!), adjustable angle 7-10-13deg) I do not find this « expensive » one of the cheapest non-open-mould option no?


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

[williamg15]

Hey y'all. Resurrecting this thread.

Did anyone mange to get their hands on the new farsports integrated bar? Would be interested in buying them but can only find them on https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?spm=a2 ... =16#detail, which I am unsure of!

There is another post about them viewtopic.php?t=159692 with a lab comparison of high end combo (vision, bontrager) and cheaper 4th player.

I placed an order yesterday and delivery time are in the 10-15 days to France. 320$ so 300€ shipment included.

Considering how it behaves on the lab test and all the geometry refinement (all width-length combinations exist, flare, narrow options (down to 36cm at the hoods!), adjustable angle 7-10-13deg) I do not find this « expensive » one of the cheapest non-open-mould option no?


Envoyé de mon iPhone en utilisant Tapatalk

The 36cm c-c width 120mm length is very appealing, they seem to be the only compnay producing a bar of this width/lenth combination.

[Kurt1980]

Bumping this thread.

I'm looking for something light, fairly stiff and aero, although I can't run full cable integration in my frame. Probably aroubd 36cm at the hoods, and decent flare, so around 40cm at the drops, 110mm stem unless the reach is way longer than 75mm. Tbh, looks factor into this as well, so thinner is better within reason of course.

Is there anything out there that looks good in terms of these requirements?

More generally what's the landscape looking like these days? This is in terms of established brands like:
Farsports
Winspace
The Ones
Maybe Yoeleo and frame manufacturers like Hong fu etc
? Others

Newish brands like Seka?

AliExpress at the more "expensive" end of the spectrum.... anything standout here?

TIA
Kurt

[gravity]

I know a guy who fitted his gravel bike with Ryet hbar. He seems to vouch for its qualities.