Lots of pro's: light, fairly adjustable, intergrated brake levers, low-aero armpads. My one con is the darn extensions are way to long and you can only cut them down a little bit.

Dave in VA

ARe you looking at Integrated or clip-ons?

I have the clipons and love them. Very comfortable and the pads have a low profile which help in getting a little bit lower.

Errrr....how so? You can make them quite a bit shorter on either end IIRC. Anyway, I have the Fliplites on a Syntace Stratos 400 base bar and it's pretty comfy. The only downside is the Hed pads are kind of uncomfortable. Very hard and almost sandpapery after 100 miles on them. I just ordered some CeeGees replacement pads today at www.cee-gees.com.

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Integrated...not a big fan of the clip-on style [sorry i like simplicity..less things to come loose]

ARe you using s-bends or the dog-leg bars?

If you are using the s-bend and you put in the cee gee pads it raises the elbow support pad up slightly which may angle your forearms down and put more pressure on the wrists. the Cee gees seem to sit about 1 cm higher.

I like the Hed pads. I like the fact that they are not too thick.

Send a message to Rappstar he rides those and he is very detail oriented.

To the rescue!

I'd look hard at the Oval bars as well. As you may or may not know, Oval & HED had a relationship that sort of fell apart in the early stages. Anyway, the key differences between the Oval bars and the HED bars.

1) Adustability of extensions -- the HED ones are minimally adjustable as they attach into the clamp. The Oval ones use a traditional "ring" clamp meaning you can adjust the bars as much as you want fore/aft. This is nice since you don't have to worry about cutting your s-bends too short. The pad->bar drop is much greater because of this on the Ovals (perhaps a factor if you are using straight extensions), so this is something to consider. If you are really dialed in on your position, then the adjustability factor is not as important since you'll cut once and forget it. If you can try both and see which is more comfy on your wrists, that'd be ideal.

2) adjustability of pads -- the Oval pads have rotational adjustments (you can rotate the pads so that they cup your forearm differently) and more fore/aft options. The HED ones have only two positions. If you are really sensitive to feel, this may be an advantage for the Ovals.

3) quality of pads -- the HED pads are not very comfy. The Oval ones are much nicer. That being said, it is easy to get some different pads and stick them on your HED bars.

The one downside to both of these bars is that they are quite flexible. They are not good for serious descending or technical riding. They are also prone to cosmetic cracking around the clamping joint. This may make you very uncomfortable to see this little spider web cracks. Especially since there have been reports of failure at this joint.

Also, if you like to run them at a slight incline, as many people do, for comfort, you are now exposing more surface area to the wind as the extensions can not be adjusted independently of the base bar.

They are, however, very light and quite aero since the integration makes things a bit cleaner.

If I were you, though, I'd wait. Lots of new products were shown at Interbike, and with the offseason approaching, I'd wait to see what is available next spring. Easton has some new stuff. The Zipp bars look pretty cool. Bontrager's bars may finally hit the streets in a "real" version like DeBoom rides.

I like my HED bars, but I don't love them. I certainly don't think they are the best bar on the market, but I'm not sure there is anything better. I think you ride what is comfortable. None of the top bars is going to win or cost you a race.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I have the Hed "integrated" and frankly, there is just as much hardware to come loose as with base/clip setups. That's a non-issue unless you are talking about something like the VTs which are truly one-piece welded all the way...then again, those aren't adjustable.

I had the Hed bars and sold them with my aluminum P3. I bought the Oval bars for my P3C and I like them more than the Hed bars. They're more adjustable and they're finished nicer than the HED bars. I haven't had any problems with cracking etc but have experienced minimal flexing when standing up while climbing. I'm in the process of getting the single s-bend aero extensions ($110). Overall, I like the Ovals quite a bit more than the Hed's. FYI, I also had the Easton Attack bars and they were nice but not very adjustable. There are some other nice bars out there but the Ovals are the best that I've found with regard to weight, aerodynamics, looks, and adjustability. You can usually find a pair on ebay for around $500.

Let me know if you find something better. In my opinion the new $2500 Ovals are very ugly.

Thanks for the great info..i guess if i liked the look of the "cow horned" style bars it would open the door a bit...but most none integrated bars look to pieced together [i know i'm anal....]

I've seen some of the newer bars but i just can't justify the cost....used HED bars aren't cheap but at least it's reasonable....500-600US for bars alone would probably get me shot and won't make me any faster....

With that said....who's looking to part with there's so they can get some new fancy ones??? :]

I think if I had to do a bike today and didn't really feel like shelling out $500+ for some of the newer models I would go with the Vision base and some Profile T2s (I like s-bend bars, otherwise I'd stick with Vision clips)...they work together into a very nice package, especially if you add some nice levers like the Visions.

I have the vision base bars and the hed clip-ons and it's a great comfortable/ sleek combo. Plus the price of the individual components is a lot less than the integrated.

If you are a weight weenie then go basebar/clipon with something like the Easton DeltaForce bar and Hed or Oval clipons. This combo only weighs around 500g plus levers. I don't know how most integrated ones end up at 900g...this is just way beyond me. For 145g get Tektro levers and route the cables inside the bar. Just as aero as the integrated, a lot cheaper, and much more flexible. Just my $0.02

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 am ditching the HED 1-piece and going with this set up for 2006 for a new aero position project that requires more adjustability than the HED offers:

To be quite honest, to this point I have not liked my HED aerobars. Had they not cost so much, there's a good chance I would have ditched them by now for something else. I've had a lot of problems finding a comfortable riding position on them. I have the S-bends. I don't like how the extensions come straight out from the armpads (rather than have some offset as in some other bars), or how low the bars are (even after adding a spacer or two to raise them -- I haven't tried the "Cee gees" that one post mentions). The bars are also a lot more narrow than I'm used to (40 cm vs. 42 cm??? -- I'm not the most technical poster on here ;-)) which makes me feel a lot less "in control" when not in the aerobars.

I would have to disagree with the post that said you can only cut the extentions "down a little bit"...I cut mine several inches. I also cut my wife's from both ends (and used a Dremel to bore the inside out a bit to fit the bar-end shifters).