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And do they match ?
Just wondering what bar and stem combo everyone is using and if you are bothered that they match or not ?
Was considering the knuckleball carbon bar but watched a video on here where a set of carbons had snapped and someone had commented that their knuckleball had done the same thing.
Renthal fatbar lite 10mm rise, could do with a little more rise and width tbh. Held by a Renthal duo 50mm, never really set out for them to match but the stem came up for a good price when I was looking.
Chromag Ranger stem with Chromag OSX bars.
Bloody lovely and the shape of the bars is spot on for me!
30mm renthal fatbar lite and 50mm duo stem.
Match ? Well they fit together but they're not a pre-defined manufacturer or colour scheme.
Admittedly they're black on all bikes, but that's only because they came like that when purchased.
I have Whyte bars of the same style on both, but no idea what stems, nor do i care.
Renthal Fatbar lite 30mm rise, Renthal Apex stem in unfashionable 70mm length.
Matching but purely by accident as both were bought at different times, for different bikes, then combined.
easton flat wide bar (alu), some easton alu stem. They only match because I needed a zero deg. rise stem in 70mm and the easton one was heavliy discounted.
It's all a horror of mismatch.
Renthal FBL 10mm and Pro Koryak 60mm on the MTB
EA70 monkey bar 20mm rise on the HoD with an EA70 60mm stem that, crucially, has different graphics on it. The new ones are much more tasteful but both were cheap.
Most of our stems are 35mm El Guapo Corto's from On One. Bars seem to be a mixture of carbon S Works, Knuckleball, Easton and Burgtec
Hope black stem, Enve bars on one bike. Hope & Renthal alu on the other.
No real desire for them to match 🙂
I'd prefer the Renthals to be black if I'm being fussy.
Knuckleball 777mm which hasn't snapped yet.
Just swapped a crankbrothers stem to a ragley one
No parts on my MTB match, they all do on roadbike. Not sure why my brain makes me do that
RaceFace SixC 800mm with a Joystick Builder 35 50mm stem, can't remember a time I've ever had matching bars and stems on any bike, MTB or road.
Never had any issues with my Knuckleballs and they had a hard life.
Cheers all.
Do you know if there have been many cases of the knuckleball snapping
Wazoo has 35mm El Guapo Corto and 747mm "chewy" On One Knuckleballs, simply because they were both a nice price last summer (~£55 total IIRC).
Using a torque wrench when fitting might help. Any bars I've seen busted seem to be right by the stem area!
We have four of the hard ones, not had a problem with any.
was using a spank spike stem and spike vibrocore bar but I rounded one of my bolts and had to take a hack saw to it. Not drilled the rest of it out yet so using a RSP freeride stem which is quite nice.
Hope 35 in black mated to some rediculously cheap easton carbon bars with 40mm rise and 750mm wide
Matching bars/stem is as daft as matching tyres.
renthal fatbar and apex stem. have them on 2 bikes. yes I wanted my bars stem to match. when i got another bike i wanted both bikes to match. both bikes also have gold details. yes im a bit of a bike tart.
Nobeerinthefridge - MemberMatching bars/stem is as daft as matching tyres.
They do on 2 of my bikes, but I am daft.
Syntace stem & Enve bars on one, Renthal and Hope on the other.
Tempted to swap out the Enves for Renthals as I think the shape of them is slightly better
Renthal bar and stem. Although should really get a little more rise.
Matching bars/stem is as daft as matching tyres.
As in it matters, even though it shouldn't?
Yes, I concur.
750mm Whyte low rise bars on 50mm Renthal Apex stem
760mm Raceface Aefect bars on 40mm Raceface Aefect stem
750mm Bontrager bars on 70mm Whyte stem
Only one bike matches. 2 will most definitely kill me in the most spectacular OTB style crash.
As in it matters, even though it shouldn't?Yes, I concur.
Santa Cruz carbon bars with Burgtec stem, Mary front, spesh slaughter rear.
#nowtmatching
New Ultimate stem (and seatpost), Mt Zoom bars.
Semi matching! Road bikes all have Bontrager bar and stem!
Syntace Megaforce 40mm stem, Reverse Components carbon DH bars @ 790mm.
Bike 1 - Carbon Cycles 50mm + Nukeproof Sam Hill bars
Bike 2 - Specialized 65mm + Specialized bars
Bike 3 - Spank Spike direct mount + Spank Spoon bars
Race face Atlas bars, 35 x 785 and a Hope 50mm stem. On a TR Scout (140mm fork).
I only mention fork height as I use a 10mm rise bar if I have 160mm forks.
Race face atlas 35 800mm bar and atlas 35 50mm stem. Got the same setup on both my bikes.
Easton Havoc DH Carbon in 800mm flavour.
Renthal Apex 33mm reach.
Both 35mm clamp.
They don't match colour-wise but work really well.
Cheap road bike has matching manufacturer own brand stem, bars and seatpost.
New road bike has an Easton stem, FSA bars and Radial Cycles seat post.
Stumpjumper FSR has matching KCNC stem, bars and seatpost
Inbred has Specialized bar and stem taken off the Inbred, and an Identiti seatpost.
Normally comes down to cost, by which I mean how cheap can I get stuff for.
Although in the case of the FSR I fancied spending a bit on some nice components.
Cheers all
Do you think a Hard Knuckleball would be ok for a 17.5 stone clumsy rider.
I like Easton bars. I have Haven Carbon and Haven Alu. Not really fussed about the stems
Santa Cruz carbon bars with Burgtec stem, Mary front, spesh slaughter rear.#nowtmatching
😡
Burns! Burns it does!
Hope AM Stem 50mm
Spank Spike vibracore bars 800mm
2.8 DHF front
2.8 High Roller II rear
😉
Another Chromag user here, with a 50mm Ranger stem and 780 Cutlass Carbon bar, has displaced the Easton Haven/Havoc Carbon combo that used to be my favourite, the stem is gorgeous (though my inner weight weenie cried putting a 190g stem on my T130!) and feels nice and stiff and the bars are by far the most comfortable I've used, the shape is bang on and they have a wonderfully damped feel, but don't feel flexy at all. Got both on crazy deals, so I ended up getting both for way less than the bar normally is on its own to top it all off! 😀
Renthal fatbar carbon 35mm @ 780mm wide, with renthal apex 50mm stem
It's a combo that I am used to and I've run renthal bars in the lasts 6 bikes
Ragley Stubbing stem with Nukeproof bars - Solaris
Chromag stem (I think) with RSP EGO carbon bars - Meta AM
Renthal Fatbar Lite and Duo stem on my Alpitude and Liteville.
Renthal Fatbar and RaceFace stem on the Hummingbird.
Crank bros cobalt 780mm flat bars in black, and a white truvativ T40 stem 75mm. The bars were stock but feel just right and the stem was £12.99 when Rutland were clearing them off. Yep, I'm a cheapskate.
joystick builder stem 35mm and renthal fat bat lite at 740mm (31.8mm)
i want to try some 800mm bars though
Easton haven stem, NS carbon bars - no idea of the model and to be honest I'm not impressed with the quality of manufacture (carbon dust internally when new and you can see creases on the inside (with a touch) and visible blemishes in the carbon on the outside. But, the position and width is good and they look good and haven't snapped.
RF Atlas 50mm x RF Sixc 760mm (enduro bike)
Enve MTN 70mm x Easton Haven Carbon 750mm (trail bike)
Specialized 60mm x Specialized Carbon lo riser 750mm (electric trail bike)
Thomson 70mm x Easton Haven Carbon 750mm (fat bike)
Pivot Phoenix 90mm x Pivot Phoenix Carbon 740mm (xc bike)
If they match it's because it was specced that way by the bike mfr
Thomson stem and carbon bar on my SS Niner, Thomson stem and carbon bar on my cx race bike Crux pro, 3T stem and Thomson carbon bar on my roadie then Easton stem and riser bars on my older ti 26er and Ritchey bar and stem on my winter/road/cx bike.
Mismatching on all my bikes...
Hardtail - 40mm Chromag HiFi V2 stem with 30mm rise Answer 780 Pro Taper DH bars
Demo - Easton direct mount stem with 15mm rise Answer 780 Pro Taper DH bars
DJ bike - 50mm Thomson X4 with Spank vibrocore's cut to 760mm wide
The Pro Taper bars are my favourite bars - the shape is good and they have enough flex to feel good.
My SixC bars were so stiff and were horrid to ride.
Fat bike has a carbon cycles and a specialized bar that was in the shed from who knows when, full sus has carbon renthals, but they're abit high really, mated to a 50mm Thomson stem
On-One OG bars on 3 bikes - I find the shape and width spot on (actually TBH another 20-30mm would be perfect!) with whatever 31.8 stems I could find in the right length and cheap!
On my DMR Bolt I have matching DMR Stem and DMR Wingbars. But they were cheap and ex-display 😉
750mm Thomson carbon trail bar, 50mm blue Raceface Alas stem
Although i do fancy experimenting and trying a bar with more rise
a bit of a theme going on here, or maybe I just lack imagination:
601 = Syntace Megaforce 2 30mm stem; Syntace Vector carbon 780mm bars 20mm rise, 8deg backsweep
301 = Syntace Megaforce 2 30mm stem; Syntace Vector carbon 760mm bars 10mm rise, 8deg backsweep (it's just a bit lower to accommodate for 29er on the front)
P7 = Syntace Megaforce 2 30mm stem, Syntace Vector carbon 780mm bars 20mm rise, 8deg backsweep
Renthal Fatbars 760mm low rise
Renthal Duo 50mm
I like my parts to match and not be overdone with graphics.
Alpkit/Sonder/Love Mud 35mm stem and 780mm riser bar on the nearly finished Sherpa. Bars feel nice, although not ridden properly yet. Bargain basement prices for decent kit, like most Alpkit stuff.
Wow Ecky...you have expensive taste in stems and bars, but I like the subtle graphic style of that syntace stuff. As someone else mention, I really wish the renthal stuff was just plain black...not a fan of the black/gold scheme
Five - Fatbars and black Hope AM/FR 35mm stem.
P7 - very short Renthal Apex and matt black Chromag OSX
Both combos look and feel great.
Five - Renthal Fat and Joystick Builder
I think it looks ok, but came with the bike (2nd hand), haven't felt the need to change. That said the torx stem bolts were made of cheese! They got swapped for hex bolts.
To be fair, there wasn't much thought went into the initial purchase, as it was what came with the bike, but I was sufficiently impressed with the Syntace stuff to buy some more for later builds.expensive taste in stems and bars
Specialized alloy high rise cut to 740mm (graphics removed) and Hope AM/FR 35mm stem (31.8mm clamp)
Raceface SixC carbon low rise 800mm bars and Raceface Atlas 50mm stem (35mm clamp)
I really like the SixC bars width and shape and damping - they just don't fit through the trees on my local singletrack otherwise I'd have them on both. I prefer the steering feel with the 50mm stem vs the 35mm stem but I find the reach too long on the hardtail without the super short stem.
Raceface SixC carbon bars 20mm rise/35 clamp/800mm wide (could ideally be 25mm shorter)
Raceface Turbine 50mm stem 35 clamp
If you were building up a bike what dia bars/stem clamp would you go for? 35mm (easily memorable) or ... what the other size is?
Easton Haven aluminium bar with a Joystick Builder stem.
Kona Velocity 135mm x 0° stem, X-Lite Xpert 600mm flat bar and X-Lite Enduro bar ends.
Rental fat bar lite 10mm rise and a 60mm Thomson X4 stem, with Yeti grip, on all 4 of my bikes!
.
800mm wide Renthal Fatbar 30mm rise. Black Hope 35mm stem. Both 35mm clamp size. Looks great, but fits/ feels perfect. Tempted by the carbon bar but STILL have a slight distrust of carbon...
Thomson 70mm 0 deg plus Thomson trail bars - 29er xc hardtail
Crupi i-beam 60mm plus s&m chrome cruiser bars - bmx cruiser
Got a Thomson X4 0° 70mm stem on the way (to match seatpost). With Renthal Fatbar Lite, 740mm, 20mm rise, I think.
I'd quite like black bars to go with the rest of the bike, but I'd need to spend getting on for £100 to get anything better/as good as the Renthals, and would probably be in carbon.........
Norco Sight: Thomson 50mm stem, Renthal Fatbar Carbon 780mm
Spesh Stumpjumper: Hope 35mm stem, Renthal Fatbar Carbon 780mm
I like my Renthal bars, me.
Using a torque wrench when fitting might help. Any bars I've seen busted seem to be right by the stem area!
This is true, but that point is also where the highest bending moment is so is a likely point of failure regardless.
Anyway, all my bars and stems have the same clamp size. I'm kind of glad we don't still use traditional sizes where there was a small difference between road and MTB clamp diameters, (tricky for chucking parts together for a pub bike) and some manufacturers used a clamp diameter on road that was I think 0.1mm different from what most used...
Re. size to go for, I remember Renthal saying basically that the 31.8mm was stronger, stiffer and lighter than the standard (er can't remember cos there were so many different ones before 31.8 came in), but the 35mm was not any stronger than the 31.8mm (in their bars at least,) but I think was a bit stiffer (and possibly a touch heavier) - I got the impression they were making 35mm cos people wanted them to look big and strong rather than because there was any real benefit.
I have a habit of breaking bars and stems, ripping face plates off and generally behaving like and angry chimp on PCP. my jones bars with thomson stem seem to be holding up ok, although I replaced the bolts with heavier duty ones.
on my singlespeed that really gets hammered I've got these.
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huge sweep 785 wide and just enough flex to take the chatter without being a twisty titanium noodle of death
Renthal Fatbar 10mm rise (760) and Raceface Atlas 50mm.
121kg of clumsiness here and my 777 Knuckleballs are great.
Enve 40mm mtn stems and Enve 800mm dh bars on both bikes.