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Is the whole ‘reducing trail buzz’ true or false? Or is a lot of it bar dependent?
i have the Carbon Fatbar lites from my old bike but looks wise the gold highlights just don’t suit my bike. Of course looks shouldn’t really be a deciding factor but hey.
The new fatbar alloy now comes in black and looks much nicer (IMO) so thinking of getting a set instead of using my carbon set. The bike already has alloy bars and it doesn’t feel any more ‘buzzy’ than my last one with Carbon bars!
It can be but as you say it's bar/construction dependent. My Enves didn't do much of anything, they were just rock solid. My Crank Bros bars are bendy like rubber and definitely seem to take out a lot of that "buzz" and noise.
(but I reckon different people mean different things when they talk about it)
Bar dependant, depends on the construction, you can make carbon fibre bars stiffer or more flexible than aluminium, and and not all alloy bars are equal.
Alloy isn't naturally that resilient plus it has to be over-engineered because it has a finite fatigue limit - if you tried to make a flexible alloy bar it would eventually break at some point due to fatigue. With carbon, the thickness and layup can be 'tuned' to suit rider weight, desired stiffness plus 'damping'. If you want less buzz, far more effective to ride high volume tyres at lower pressures.
I bet there aren't many who could tell the difference between alloy and carbon bars in a blind test. What with gloves, grips, tyres, suspension etc. all moving with every bump and vibration.
Obviously, some will come along and say they can, but I don't believe them however much evidence they try to provide!! 😀
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"I bet there aren’t many who could tell the difference between alloy and carbon bars in a blind test."
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It'd depend on the bars. Stiff ones like my Enves, I reckon no, they just felt like bars. Something like my Crank Bros, for sure you'd feel it- I could pick them out of a lineup of carbon bars never mind carbon or alloy.
I bet there aren’t many who could tell the difference between alloy and carbon bars in a blind test
The first ride on a new set of carbon bars after a few years of Renthal, it was immediately obvious, in the same way that rear suspension is obvious after years of riding a HT.
😁 I'm saying nothing