Originally Posted by
beeballman
So I am looking at upgrading my current Oval Alum handle bars to something more aero. Almost everything on my Fuji has been upgraded. I am looking at the Easton SL70 Aero Carbon or The Zipp SR70 Aero Carbon, but I also found The Bontrager Aero VR-CF Road Bar, the later looks promising just a little heavier than the first two choices but also 1/3 the price because they are not carbon. Leaning to the Bontrager because it has room to mount my Quad Lock mount. Thoughts? Are Carbon bars worth the money?
GCN did a comparison of carbon vs Al bars a while back - the conclusion (albeit with a pretty small sample) was that Al could take the big hits better, but that CF had vastly greater fatigue resistance IMO fatigue- and corrosion resistance trump absolute strength every time for this application. I would think that if you hit the ground hard enough to break CF bars, having to replace bars is pretty low on your list of problems.