John Curtis — Mountain Bike Racer

Review of the Race Face Next Carbon Bar

Introduction

The 2005 Race Face Next flat carbon bar is light and stiff and awesome.

Overview

Being Canadian, I wanted to set my bike up with as many Canadian manufactured parts as I could: Kona frame, and as much Race Face as I could find.

Durability

I’ve been riding with this bar on my hardtail for about a year now and it’s been nothing but fun. I have ridden it in some pretty rough conditions and have not had any real problems.

The only problem I’ve had has been cosmetic; The twist ties that we use to strap on race numbers have rubbed off a bit of the coating on the bar. Very minor, but I thought I’d point that out.

Weight

According to the Race Face documentation, this bar weights 125g, making it one of the lightest bars around. According to Weight Weenies, there are not many bars that are lighter and I bet they would not hold up as well as this one has.

Value

You can get this bar from New Revolution Cycles. At the time I wrote this, it was selling for $64.99. That’s a great price for a bar that is this awesome.

Ease of use

One thing to note is that my Oury grips stay on and don’t slide around. I’ve had some trouble in the past with grips slipping off of other bars during extremely wet and muddy races like the one pictured here at Warda in 2005. I have had no such problems with the Race Face bar.

Ease of installation

There’s not much to say. The anti-crush zone in the middle of the bar gives you a level of comfort that it will be hard to damage by accidentally over-tourquing the bolts. There is no worse sound than that of a carbon tube snapping. I had a defective steerer tube in my Sid World Cup that cracked on me when I was tightening the stem bolts once. Before you get on me about over-tightening, RockShox agreed that there was a problem with the fork and warrantied it for me. Thanks RockShox for taking care of that!

Cool factor

This thing looks unique. Get a matching seat post and you’re all set!

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