My partner’s bike might be built up with carbon bars. She’s got a set of Egron grips on her old bike that we’d like to transfer across. I was wondering whether this ought to be done due to the clamp design. I suppose the brake levers and shifters are clamped to carbon bars but they do have a much broader clamping area and can be nipped up without much force. What’s the current thinking on clamp-held grips on carbon bars. Perhaps I’m being overly paranoid, but I do seem to be somewhat nervous around carbon.

I don’t have any evidence to base this on … but my thoughts are that carbon is a lot tougher than a lot of people think it is. I suppose that if a grip was massively overtightened then it could cause a weakness in the bar. However, I would have thought that the force needed to clamp a grip in place should not cause this to happen.

My feelings are that bar manufacturers would not run the risk of using an unsafe material if there was a chance that ‘normal’ use (i.e. attaching grips and shifters) would ruin them.

it’s not the clamping force that would normally be the problem it will be the edge of the clamping surface – needs to be nicely radiused.

If it has a square edge don’t attach it to carbon.

What exacly do you mean by square edged? The clamps on the Ergons, like the clamps on the shifters an break levers (and just about any other clamp I suppose) is essentially an open ring where the bolt nips the ends together. I assume that they’re reasonably smooth, I just find myself suprisingly nervous of carbon – more so as the bikes for my partner. If I was putting it together for myself I’d probably be more blaise.

Most people overtighten absolutely everything, so that’s definately part of it.

Quality bars will be designed with locking grips in mind and will either be suitable, or will tell you they’re not. Every carbon bar I’ve had has been designed to work with lock-ons.

my three sets of carbon bars all work with ergon grips and I dont even use a torque wrench.
yes overly worried it wil be fine as I have done ot for a few years now

the circular edge that runs around the bar. this should be smooth edged not square edged.

HTH

Oh dear, it looks like I’ve been worrying unnecessarily anyway. The FSA Pro Carbon bars that come with the Scandal rolling chassis package actually appear to be aluminium and carbon wrap! 😳

Just tighten everything till you hear a crack.