soft "aluminium" bars

[Veloo]

Been meaning to post this for a while.

These are bars I used on my 2007 Giant TCX.
I was selling the bike and giving it a good cleaning years ago. Upon disassembly of the cockpit, I found the bars had been deformed by the stem.

I was shocked. I use my Park TW-1 and TW-2 for all my builds.
Was glad this didn't fail on me while riding.

I was 99% sure I was within the 5 Nm max torque as indicated on the same brand stem.
I even called Park to confirm I was using their wrenches properly. They confirmed it and when I told them what was going on, they said it's not rare that some bars are made of a soft metal that can deform like this.
Since this bar was toast, I decided to see if I could reproduce this since there was still some 31.8 real estate to do so. Thus the 2nd impression you see to the right of the original centred one.

Was a bit ticked off that I had to run out and get replacement bar and stem to sell off the bike but it was a relatively cheap life lesson.

[Black Dog]

It's not so much that they are soft but it is more likely that they have a very thin wall thickness. Still not cool. The next time we ride I will have to inspect your bars for my own safety. :p

[Veloo]

Just please ensure the bars are perfectly centred when you tighten the stem faceplate and that the hand rest portion of the brake hoods are angled perfectly on the horizontal plane.
I'm anal that way...

[eBAUMANN]

2 red flags:
1 - they say "racing" on them
2 - they say "super over" on them

Thus leading my to believe these bars were produced by a Chinese soda can company.

In all seriousness though...that's pathetic.

[Brian Cdn]

Danny,

Agreed with Black Dog.. I'll check your bars before we ride. For both our safety.. unless you have a great dental plan.. :D

Can't remember, are you using a stem that has a 2 or 4 bolt face plate.
I've seen damage like this from 2 bolt plates.

B

[Veloo]

I got them from a guy that managed a local amateur team so I knew they were legit.
Both stem and bar are ITM. I still have them in the basement.

I did a search on the problem and actually found someone who posted the same deformation on the same bars.

[Veloo]

I check all my new bars now when doing an install. I'm paranoid that way.
So far, so good.

This stem is 4 bolt.

Only 2 bolt I ever had was on the 2005 Giant TCR C2. Easton EA50. That had no issues.

Danny,

Agreed with Black Dog.. I'll check your bars before we ride. For both our safety.. unless you have a great dental plan.. :D

Can't remember, are you using a stem that has a 2 or 4 bolt face plate.
I've seen damage like this from 2 bolt plates.

B

[Veloo]

Yup, mine are the 330's.

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12540986

[foo_fighter]

The torque specs are for the stem not the bars. Sometimes having a torque wrench actually makes you over torque since you go up to the indicated torque vs having just enough torque to prevent slipping. That said, bars shouldn't deform like that.

[11.4]

A couple things here. First, before the advent of carbon bars, alloy bars got lighter and lighter. They started using heat treated alloys and the tubing wall thickness got to be paper-thin. Lots of cracks, crumplings, etc., just like you experienced here. The European regulators toughened up the standards on bars, resulting in tougher alloys, greater wall thickness, and more consistent roundness. Newer alloy bars are heavier but quite sturdy.

One of the problems people ran into was that bars were far from round and simply making them fit a round stem cutout was enough to deform them like this.

Another problem was that removable face plates can impose damaging forces on a bar even without overtorquing. If the spacing on the face plate isn't pretty much dead even top and bottom and side to side, one corner or one side can deform the bar. You have to get everything tightened up gently, measure with feeler gauges or similar to make sure it's really even, and then tighten up and remeasure for safety. Removable face plates are not the friends of light bars, whether alloy or carbon.

Another point to consider is that even if you do everything right in the installation, you can simply apply quite a transient load to your bars while climbing or sprinting. I've seen steel track bars bent 45 degrees at the stem (I'm sorry to say I've actually done it myself). Those transients exceed pretty much any standard for bar loading. It's not uncommon to heave the bars to correct your line or respond to a bump during a sprint and find afterwards that the bars (or stem) developed a crack. Stems would be cracking a lot more except that they tend to clamp to carbon at both ends these days, and the carbon gives enough to let the stem survive intact. In short, bars deserve a bit more TLC than they usually get. Carbon paste helps keep torque levels low while assembling, and always disassemble and check after any crash. And don't buy crazy light -- super light bars and fork steers can deform very easily and the nature of carbon is that it isn't designed to handle the deformation imposed by a stem. Once you crack the resin, it's just a pile of fabric and will degrade rapidly.

[Ken Robb]

I'm glad that I never went to 31.8 bars on any of my bikes. Most of them have heat-treated Nitto bars in Nitto stems. I never raced and have always been too big/heavy to worry about a few ounces difference in components.
I understand that real racers need every advantage and they probably check their bikes thoroughly before every race. If a rider isn't going to be that diligent about inspection/maintenance ultralight parts may not be a good option.

[eBAUMANN]

I got them from a guy that managed a local amateur team so I knew they were legit.
Both stem and bar are ITM. I still have them in the basement.

I did a search on the problem and actually found someone who posted the same deformation on the same bars.

a friend used ITM "wing shape" bars on his cx bike...they snapped off on one side at the clamp.

avoid.

[bcroslin]

After seeing numerous aluminum road bars fail due to sweat corrosion I won't chance riding them here in FL. $100 more for carbon to not end up in the ER seems like a good investment to me.

[Ralph]

I've been riding two different 26 MM Ritchey WCS Classic aluminum bars for about 10 years. These are very light bars...about 200 grams. I use them with Ritchey WCS stems. No sign of any distortion in the clamp area. Yours must have been very low quality to begin with.

Each year in late fall, when I take the bar tape off, the bars are white covered in salt. Soft bar tape holds sweat, and when it dries, leaves salt behind. So I clean them up good. Retape. No sign of corrosion yet.

I do this because once I went a couple years on another brand of bars, similar to the Ritchey's without replacing tape, and when I did replace the tape....there was some corrosion. So threw them away. Not bars fault....mine for not keeping fresh tape on them.

I wouldn't put all light aluminum bars in same category. But do agree.....you have to keep the salt off them. And check the clamp area. BTW....You have to inspect carbon bars just as often. They fail also....sometimes without warning.

[11.4]

a friend used ITM "wing shape" bars on his cx bike...they snapped off on one side at the clamp.

avoid.

Those bars and ones like it are pretty notorious. The forming they undergo both thins the metal in localized spots near the stem clamp area and also hardens the alloy.

There are a lot of bars from around 2000 to 2010 or so that I'd avoid.

[11.4]

After seeing numerous aluminum road bars fail due to sweat corrosion I won't chance riding them here in FL. $100 more for carbon to not end up in the ER seems like a good investment to me.

This is thankfully an issue that only affects a few regions in the country. I won't ride steel road bikes any longer because I'll rust out just about any point on the frame. Aluminum bar and stem corrosion (both can be affected) are issues, but I found that picking the right equipment avoided the issue. I always had stem corrosion and ultimately cracking with Ritchey and Deda stems, but when I went to Thomson X4's, they weren't necessarily elegant but they lasted. Super strong and overbuilt. When it came to bars, I saw just as much corrosion on Nittos and old Cinellis. Once again, there were a few thin-walled heat-treated bars that were particularly susceptible, mostly because they crimped immediately and the crimps were where the corrosion started. However, newer alloy bars like the current 3T Ergonovas and Rotundos are much thicker, reinforced at the stem clamp area, and are pretty durable. I'll strip everything down each fall to check for corrosion -- it can weaken the stem clamp area, the lever clamp area, and can even begin corrosion generally under the bar tape if you're so disposed to acid perspiration. I used to have problems but no longer. I don't think there's a need to buy carbon, but I wouldn't buy ten to fifteen year old bars.

[ultraman6970]

Ultra never had a problem with ITM bars, in a matter of fact ITM stuff is not characterized for being ultra light. all their stuff is in the heavy size.

Surprise me, never seen something like this ever.

For the record the 5 newtons of torque is a lot of torque. Way too much IMO, better safe than sorry made them put those numbers?

BTW that you have a torque wrench doenst mean is not calibrated right.

[11.4]

For the record the 5 newtons of torque is a lot of torque. Way too much IMO, better safe than sorry made them put those numbers?

BTW that you have a torque wrench doenst mean is not calibrated right.

And anyway, carbon paste and less torque is always safer.

[Fatty]

Had some ITM super over something , showed the same kind of crush marks.

[ultraman6970]

Thats the point 11.4... use carbon paste even with aluminum, tight the thing with the 2 fingers technique, kind'a jump of the handlebar with the hands over the brifters, so you simulate seconds of full weight over them. If the handlebar doesnt move, good to go.

Dont take wrong the comment but many times it is a thing of experience and not being anal with the instructions, there is a reason manufacturers give you a torque but you have to think at the same time that the torque they spec is in case you have an accident and they have to cover their butts even if the part crack following their specs.

You can lower torque like a half using carbon paste.

Honestly, never seen an aluminum handlebar f-ed up like the one in the picture, seen installation marks but this case is insane. Wonder if the stem or the handlebar are off specs. Even there is a chance that super over stem and handlebar need to matched, but i do have a super over stem and never had a problem either.

Interesting problem. OP.. can you measure the diameter of that stem and handlebar?

[Veloo]

Both bars and stem are indeed 31.8 but that's measured with a plastic vernier caliper.
This is the only incident of deformation I've ever experienced and back in my high school days, I torqued the hell outta my old 26.0 bars which included other ITMs, Cinelli, Modolo, etc.
The ones I got to replace this were some Forza's from a LBS that sells Ridleys. I did a double check when I installed those and not a scratch.
My newer stuff has been the EA50 and Ritchey Classics which have been deformation free as well. I've taken those to the 5Nm max just out of curiosity and nothing broke.

Must've been a bad batch of 330's or something. I feel bad for the guy in the Bike Radar forum having gone through 3 and even ruining his wheel and fork.