[Closed] While riding, what usually happens when a carbon handle bar breaks?

Dunno, been in the bike trade for a long time, and bought one of Easton's first type (pre CNT) of flat carbon bars, still using it every ride with no problems, and not come across any other breakages either.

I had one go crunch and a crack appeared, didn't actually snap but I stopped using it.

Not experienced it myself but a friend was going uphill, stood up to pedal and next second they were on the deck as their carbon bar had completely broken. Having said that I still use a carbon bar....

Think the means of failure will be directly tied to construction method/material. Some road drop bars are made from the pieces bonded together, where as others are one piece, so in this case you have two jobs and no continuous run of fibre.

funkydunc - that looks like a 'not enough steerer' problem to me, or just simply incorrectly tightened stem.

I have 3 bikes with carbon bars, one set of bars are 14 years old and are still being used (Easton monkeylite risers, admittedly on a commuter rather than MTB duties these days). Never had any snap.

I did snap a set of aluminium Truvativ bars on an MTB. They went with no warning at all, lucky it wasn't on landing a jump or at high speed.

Seen a guy getting his bars replaced at Vallejuha, IIRC his face was a bit bleedy but he was keen to get back on the hill. Fitting ham fistedness was the consensus for the failure.

Before my old XC bike was stolen I had some Easton Monkeylite's, they'd been thoroughly abused and dropped numerous times, so much the edges had started to fray...I really really hope they failed eventually, preferably while the thief was in front of a bus/truck.

They typically make a bad noise and then some crack appears, or just fail and a bit shear off. Course that happens to alu too.
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this happened to a friend
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/108267992033991783465/albums/6038423177610771233/6038423296021334258?pid=6038423296021334258&oid=108267992033991783465

basically his sic bars snapped at the start of Llandegla sending him fist first into the dirt and dislocating his shoulder.

i swapped my carbon eastons out for the alloy versions after this,

Your friend went for a sit down at the side of the trail? 😆

I've broken one set of carbon bars, but that was from the bike landing (without me on it) from a 3 metre drop - the brake lever dug in to the ground and twisted the bars in half. Conducting a post mortem though, it looked as if I'd over-tightened the brake lever clamp, crushing the bar slightly at that point.
Good carbon doesn't just snap under normal riding conditions, only if you crush it or whack it on something.

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Whacked my Ritchey drops into the side of a car at 20 mph. Forks snapped mid blade on both side, but the bars are fine. I thought they'd go at the clamp, but no, just rotated. Broke my wrist though, so tough enough!

i swapped my carbon eastons out for the alloy versions after this,

basically his sic bars snapped at the start of Llandegla sending him fist first into the dirt and dislocating his shoulder.

do you mean sixc bars? <cancels planned sixc purchase>

The EWS Rotorua video has a guy crashing on an off camber section, picks his bike up and it would appear his enve bar has snapped at the brake clamp from the impact of the bike hitting the ground, which also puts me off.

Windsurfing masts have been made from carbon tubes for c25 years, when you rig your sale you basically preload the mast with massive pressure to bend the tip to c45 degrees. Then you go out sailing and force all sorts of other pressures through them. They break occasionally but if you knew the amount of force these things take you’d have no worries about a set of handlebars.

Wall thickness is slightly higher on a windsurfing mast though I suspect.

Every now and again I do think "wonder what would happen if my bars broke now", but not in a genuinely being bothered sort of way.

I once had a carbon bar snap on my ss. No notice, just a loud noise and I was picking myself up from the floor.

I had a very large crash in the Alps and my Easton Carbon DH bars snapped, I [i]think[/i] after I exited the bike and a bar end dug into the ground, but I'm not totally sure TBH. Either way, it snapped straight of, by the brake lever and was not a clean break, as there was a bit of a shard exposed.

It was the left side that broke and I landed left shoulder first and id a fair bit of damage.

Easten Haven snapped clean of no warning, just done a Cutgate ladbower loop & enjoyed the return loop back over cutgate & descent back to langsett, no issues.
Get home & clean the bike, dry it of & hop on for a little lark & bang, clean of, Easten rep said I'd over tightened the clamp however the failure as 7mm away from the clamp, even used micrometer to show no crush, binned Easten & went to another manufacturer.

FWIW I folded an alu bar so fast and hard it might as well have snapped completely, the result was the same (dislocated shoulder and wrist)

I think the right word for what happened to the steel bars I broke might be "tore", they ended up barely one piece. Dislocated same shoulder 🙄

@yorky- compression damage wouldn't neccesarily show a permanent deformation, your micrometer test is meaningless. You'd expect carbon to fail right on the point of compression but it's not necesarily the case.

Not saying it [i]was [/i]overcompression btw. Just that the things you think disprove it, don't.