You may need a reality check, Lynx. Not all marketing is shady or dishonest. Deniz is relaying RF's design and terminology notes - that's just part of the review - he's not telling you RF has reinvented the bar. You also need to recognize progress when you see it. RF's GL tune extends to the Turbine - their new alloy bar - and the custom butting and shaping they're using to tune ride feel is the same thing steel and alloy frame builders have used for decades to tune ride quality of frames. Not marketing bullshit, it's tried and true material design and construction being used to make their bars more comfortable. Marketing just helps them communicate it to the market. You may have a fair comment in asking for weight ranges, however weight is only one metric and not even the most critical one for every rider.
Are you holding all other bar manufacturers to this same standard? OneUp, We Are One, PNW and many more are designing compliance into their bars and getting a lot of acclaim - deservedly so because their bars feel good. None of them state their bars are tuned for a particular rider's weight. Are you holding them to the same standard? Even if they did, there would be all sorts of people asking if the 150-lb rider they had in mind for their 780 x 20mm rise bar was an aggressive rider on an XC/Trail bike or an 'average' rider on an Enduro bike...and does that rider prefer the stiffer or softer side of compliance? At some point, RF's designers will have decided what tune they were after and I have no idea where they landed, but we can all safely assume the 800 x 20mm bar is stiffer than the 780 and 760 because the average rider on 800mm bar is larger than the average rider on a 760, keeping in mind this is a heavy duty trail/enduro bar.
Race Face has stolen a march on all of them anyway - this is a level of specificity of bar tuning we haven't yet seen. I'm not saying there isn't further refinement available here for RF or any other brand to pursue, but it is a step forward. To demand even further splintering of SKUs than RF have already laid out here just means higher prices. I don't recall you or anyone else commenting about how cheap carbon handlebars were getting these days, so pick your poison: are you in the market for a $350 bar tuned for your weight, bike, geo/body position, ride style, and preference, or is today's $210 RF Era bar better than the one you could buy yesterday?
Five years ago, we were all clamoring for brands to please just include wide bars with all bikes so we could decide where they should be cut. Obviously we know that an 800 cut to 770 is going to feel stiffer at the shorter length, but at least more riders would have suitable dimensions from their OE bar. In the aftermarket the needs are a bit different and we can all agree that 35mm bars - esp carbon ones - got too stiff there for a while (esp so in RF's case in the past) but we're seeing progress here now. Let's take a breath and appreciate that before going straight for the pitchforks.
July 9, 2024, 8:03 a.m. - Pete Roggeman
You may need a reality check, Lynx. Not all marketing is shady or dishonest. Deniz is relaying RF's design and terminology notes - that's just part of the review - he's not telling you RF has reinvented the bar. You also need to recognize progress when you see it. RF's GL tune extends to the Turbine - their new alloy bar - and the custom butting and shaping they're using to tune ride feel is the same thing steel and alloy frame builders have used for decades to tune ride quality of frames. Not marketing bullshit, it's tried and true material design and construction being used to make their bars more comfortable. Marketing just helps them communicate it to the market. You may have a fair comment in asking for weight ranges, however weight is only one metric and not even the most critical one for every rider. Are you holding all other bar manufacturers to this same standard? OneUp, We Are One, PNW and many more are designing compliance into their bars and getting a lot of acclaim - deservedly so because their bars feel good. None of them state their bars are tuned for a particular rider's weight. Are you holding them to the same standard? Even if they did, there would be all sorts of people asking if the 150-lb rider they had in mind for their 780 x 20mm rise bar was an aggressive rider on an XC/Trail bike or an 'average' rider on an Enduro bike...and does that rider prefer the stiffer or softer side of compliance? At some point, RF's designers will have decided what tune they were after and I have no idea where they landed, but we can all safely assume the 800 x 20mm bar is stiffer than the 780 and 760 because the average rider on 800mm bar is larger than the average rider on a 760, keeping in mind this is a heavy duty trail/enduro bar. Race Face has stolen a march on all of them anyway - this is a level of specificity of bar tuning we haven't yet seen. I'm not saying there isn't further refinement available here for RF or any other brand to pursue, but it is a step forward. To demand even further splintering of SKUs than RF have already laid out here just means higher prices. I don't recall you or anyone else commenting about how cheap carbon handlebars were getting these days, so pick your poison: are you in the market for a $350 bar tuned for your weight, bike, geo/body position, ride style, and preference, or is today's $210 RF Era bar better than the one you could buy yesterday? Five years ago, we were all clamoring for brands to please just include wide bars with all bikes so we could decide where they should be cut. Obviously we know that an 800 cut to 770 is going to feel stiffer at the shorter length, but at least more riders would have suitable dimensions from their OE bar. In the aftermarket the needs are a bit different and we can all agree that 35mm bars - esp carbon ones - got too stiff there for a while (esp so in RF's case in the past) but we're seeing progress here now. Let's take a breath and appreciate that before going straight for the pitchforks.