"Easton EC-90 Carbon"

My big beef about these bars is that you can't clamp aero bars to them or they might break. I have Kestrel EMS Pro on my TCR road bike. The Kestrels are one of the few carbon drop bars designed to accept aero bars.

The Easton round bend bar, or , for that matter, any aluminum round bend bar. I did just recently get a set on Deda Synapsi carbon integrated bars. They are nice. Too expensive though.

Round bend bars rule.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Schmolke carbon bar. You can clamp anything you want onto it, it ends up being about $450, though. They make it according to your weight and riding style, and whether or nor you use aerobars. They also make a really cool set of aerobars, as well. Both the drop bars and aerobars come in well below what the nearest competitor comes in.

Second (distant second) is the Kestrel EMS drop bar. It is responsibly light, but aluminium bars come well within the weight of the Kestrel, and I did have a pair break.

I have the EC-90 as well. I also like the shape of that bar. I don'treally care about the aerobar issue since they are on my road bike, but I admit it would be nice if one could use them. It would just make the product more versatile. I have two issues with this bar.

1) The largest sice isn't all that large. I believe it is a 44cm. I like 'em a tad bigger.

2) This is my big issue. These bars are very soft and flexy. Me no likey.

When I get around to it, I'm going to try out a Syntace drop bar. Ves had a set on his new roadbike, and they looked great and felt really stiff. I love Syntace stuff.

"I did have a pair break. '

Bunnyman, do you mean the Kestrel's broke? Ouch. That's something I don't want to hear since I've either got, depending on my mood, a pair of Profile Jammer GT's or small size Syntace C2's bolted to them. I was under the impression the Kestrels were bombproof.

Correct. This was an isolated incident, as the clip-on was an experimental model that I had put on.

With any carbon bar, I recommend the following:

1) Round the endges of ANY clamping surface. This prevents any sharp edges going into the carbon.

2) Use a torque wrench and get the clip-on torqued to spec. This is EXTREMELY important, as the slightly loose clamp can gouge the carbon, making it extremely vulnerable to breakage. Think of a toothless hacksaw blade.

3) Wider clamps work better. This spreads the load. Syntace C-2/streamliners (as they have the same clamp) have a nice, wide clamp.

4) A piece of Kevlar would not be a bad idea going between the clamp and the bar. I would laminate the piece of kevlar with a thin layer of epoxy. One layer of bi-direction kevlar would be suffiecient, and laminating the single layer would be something like a Spinskins kevlar chainstay guard. Finding a flexible kevlar chainstay guard and cutting it up would suffice.

I will say that the Kestrel bar breaking was my fault. Upon examination of the bar, there were many, many layers of carbon fibre. This bar is almost good enough for anybody, I just was probably ham-fisted.

Let me restate the following: if you really have the jones for a carbon bar, the Kestrel would be the second-best value behind the Schmolke. If you don't want to spend the $$$ on a Schmolke, then get a Kestrel.