Putting this here seeing as i’m not a premier user so can’t comment on the original story but I feel it’s comment that probably warrants consideration.
Now Easton are saying their new bars with their new standard are stronger, stiffer and lighter yet they’re much bigger than previous incantations. Now unless they’ve found some new wonder material that has a lower specific density than what they were making them out of before surely this means that the material they’re using has to be inherently thinner walled to loose this weight. Especially considering there’s more surface area to cover considering they’re actually greater in diameter and wider in width. So the next question on that basis has to be, whilst they may be stronger, etc, are Easton sacrificing versatility e.g. impact resistance to get this improved strength, etc?
As for want of a better way to put it. It seems very reminiscent of the early/mid 90’s when frame manufacturers discovered they could make significantly lighter, stronger alloy frames using massively oversized tubes. Though the problem was the alloy was so thin on many of the tubes, downtubes especially, that if you dropper your bikes sideways on a sharp rock you seriously risked damaging it as there simply wasn’t enough material there to cope with an off axis impact.
Now would anyone care to explain to me how Easton can overcome this? Or failing that let this just be somewhere to bitch about them introducing a new standard. Come on who the **** actually needs bars that are wider than 750mm anyway? Surely it just becomes counter productive once you start going significantly wider than the span of your shoulders.
