Hi Timer, thank you for the question. We officially launched the Flexx MTB bar in Oct. 2017. It was a project that started in 2015 and looking back, we always felt that weight would be a limiting factor for us. Weight was more of a hot topic then, maybe more so than now? Fast forward 5 years, and we found riders are more apt to add weight, if it provides performance or comfort. Although carbon is more expensive and temperamental in production we were able to source US made carbon tubing to our specs and test different lay ups. A full alloy version would require significant up front mold costs to produce a tapered wall tube and not knowing how the bar would sell the composite offered us more control with decreased development costs. However, with a couple years of sales history, we feel it now makes sense to release a full alloy version. We're hoping to keep the weight gain as minimal as possible and bring the price point down as well. The bar will be a combo of 7075 and 7050 alloy components.
Feb. 25, 2020, 8:09 a.m. - fasstchris
Hi Timer, thank you for the question. We officially launched the Flexx MTB bar in Oct. 2017. It was a project that started in 2015 and looking back, we always felt that weight would be a limiting factor for us. Weight was more of a hot topic then, maybe more so than now? Fast forward 5 years, and we found riders are more apt to add weight, if it provides performance or comfort. Although carbon is more expensive and temperamental in production we were able to source US made carbon tubing to our specs and test different lay ups. A full alloy version would require significant up front mold costs to produce a tapered wall tube and not knowing how the bar would sell the composite offered us more control with decreased development costs. However, with a couple years of sales history, we feel it now makes sense to release a full alloy version. We're hoping to keep the weight gain as minimal as possible and bring the price point down as well. The bar will be a combo of 7075 and 7050 alloy components.