Carbon Handlebar

The primary reason many pro's do not use carbon handlebars is because of the potential for failure after a bike has gone down. Bars take a good bit of the trama. If there is any visible damage I would loose the bars immediately regardless of your mileage.

Q1: Do you want to find out?
Q2: It could become an issue in 1/100 of a second possibly resulting in physical harm. It's possible you would be replacing the bars along with your front row of teeth.
Q3: Refer back to the example that many pro's do not use carbon bars. If anyone needs to squeeze incremental value out of a product it would be that demographic. Fyi, my sponsor visited the Specialized plant in Ca and indicated it was surprising how many employess pop out their zertz. To what end I dunno, but if that's the case I have to ask to what end did they serve in the 1st place.

I would ride with a lot of carbon parts - bars, stems, seatposts, seats w/carbon rails and first generation FSA carbon crankarms are NOT on that list.

Happy trails.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by rnelson17 [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I just bought a 2006 Specialized Roubaix Expert Triple. It currently has an FSA K-wing carbon non-compact handlebar that has a crack about 1-inch long starting at the right end of the handlebar where the cap goes in. This was a known issue when I purchased the bike. It isn't an issue now just because the location is not where I will put my hands.

My 1st question is: Will this crack creep up the bar?

My 2nd question is: If yes, should I ride with it until it becomes an issue or should I replace now?

and my 3rd and final question is: If/When I do replace it, is carbon handlebars worth the extra money (on a full carbon frame bike with zertz inserts)?

Keep in mind that I ride for exercise (20-40 miles per week with the occasional century). no racing.

Thanks very much!

1.) If you don't leverage the fracture, it probably won't travel. (That means not riding in the drops and being EXTRA careful not to allow the bars to contact anything - i.e. a PITA.)

2.) What is your tolerance for risk and desire for compromise? The advantage of drop bars is to have many ride positions. Staying up top or on the hoods will limit the function of your equipment. An altercation of any kind has a high(er) risk for not riding away. I'd replace now.

3.) "Worth" is relative and subjective. Some alu bars are lighter than some carbon bars. Some carbon bars ore less expensive than some alu bars .... application vs. expectations.

Have a Ritchey WCS /Fizik carbon cockpit on one bike with more than 8,000 miles on it and the exact same configuration in alu on another bike. Both have served me well without issue.

rnelson17 said:

I just bought a 2006 Specialized Roubaix Expert Triple. It currently has an FSA K-wing carbon non-compact handlebar that has a crack about 1-inch long starting at the right end of the handlebar where the cap goes in. This was a known issue when I purchased the bike. It isn't an issue now just because the location is not where I will put my hands.
My 1st question is: Will this crack creep up the bar?
My 2nd question is: If yes, should I ride with it until it becomes an issue or should I replace now?
and my 3rd and final question is: If/When I do replace it, is carbon handlebars worth the extra money (on a full carbon frame bike with zertz inserts)?

Keep in mind that I ride for exercise (20-40 miles per week with the occasional century). no racing.
Thanks very much!

I hope you got a discount for agreeing to buy a trashed handlebar. Replace it now. Replacing it is much cheaper than the cost to repair the potential damage to your corpus from having handlebars fail while riding. This is something that shouldn't even be questioned. It is possible to repair CF, but I'll bet that replacement cost will be less expensive or nearly equal to repair costs.

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. I'm going to replace it with an aluminum bar. I'm looking at the FSA wing pro compact bar. Thoughts on this bar?