Enve Minnaarbar - Greg Minnaar Replica 808-millimeter Carbon DH Handlebar

 The test I want to see is where they smash the bar with a rock in between each test, and do a comparatively wide steel bar. Crash survivability. Haha

 Yeah they proved that it was strong and I would love to have one, but i still wanna see it break.

 It's partly cos I'm heavy as fxck (19 stone. Don't know what that is in American?). Partly cos I tend to destroy components even if I'm not riding that hard. But mostly cos a mash it up test, ain't a mash it up test... Till it's mashed up!

 Test it Mythbusters Style.

 What? With shottys and dynamite n that? Capital idea @suspended-productions. On a practical note, the thing that annoys me about this handle bar test we always see on these films, is it assumes the only pressure on the bar is directly up and down. I cant remember seeing one where they turn the bar in the stem slightly. I'm sure I'm about to be pulled up on this and sent a link to such a film, but until then I'm feeling like a smart arse. BOOM!

 Have you seen the niner RDO fork test, now that's how you show off carbons strength.

 I would like to know what that weight they are testing with equates to in the real world. The test looks good but does it really prove anything?

 Like Mythbusters without the climax. Test it till it breaks, and the Renthal one too. I want to know which is stronger!

 As be,ow, from MTBR. What's a popular, 345g aluminum bar?

"We tested a popular Brand A aluminum bar at 345 grams and a Brand B carbon bar from a competitor that was 785 wide and 225 grams. The Brand A aluminum bar at nearly 100 grams heavier bent to unrideable proportions after 40 or so drops. The Brand B competitor’s carbon bar broke at 32” or after 5 drops and never made max height."

 @honourablegeorge I would guess probably the Renthal Fatbar we see them testing in the beginning of the video. As for the carbon one, I'm positively certain they are talking about a RF SixC bar.

 Loved this powderturns.

 @powderturns your comment is sooo cheap

(it costs me a lot to say that)

 There is always going to be a top tier price range for any sporting product it's the same with any industry. You can go out and buy a ridiculously expensive hockey stick or skateboard or anything because the top of the line products will always be expensive. You want the best you gotta pay.

 I dont mind when people compare to other products so you get an idea if its relatively good value or not, but agree complaining just about cost is a little boring.

 That is some expensive testing! Two guys dropping a bar for hours! No wonder ENVE stuff costs what it costs.

 i don't mind a discourse on value, but opening up the review on any new product is alternatingly infuriating or tedious. if it's high end people invariably whine it's too much (with responses of "get a new job", etc), and who can afford these things (duh: lots of people obviously, or the product wouldn't get made or company goes bankrupt) and if its low end people rip the spec to shit or bitch about the graphics/color scheme.

anyway, maybe the solution is to neg prop all the stupid comments about price, but leave the illuminating conversations regarding value alone...

 enough of this replica-bullshit !

 lol, why you wanna ban it, just deal with it

 You are wrong, @MDRipper. The buyers are the complete controllers of the cost. Price elasticity is the balance between the number of products sold and the price they were sold at. If a chocolate bar was priced at $8, you may sell two or three in a day, and so you would gain $24 -the money you put in= a very low profit. If the choc bars were priced at $2, you would sell far more and, even though they cost less, you would sell far more.

So, the consumer controls the market. Even if it's not us directly telling them how much we want to pay, we most definately control the market.

 powderturns - I agree with you, it is incredibly annoying to see short comments containing whining about how expensive are some of the bikes or components presented in reviews or press releases. It is pointless because it is people buying those that actualy vote if the product should or should not be there. However... to some extent, you are missing the point of comment boards which are useful for people running sites and people advertising on them. Commenters tend to come back and check if someone had answered to their comment. This way they might check out some commercial blinking on the side strip or eventually read the whole article All comments are good in that way but at the same time they are all useless on their own, regardless of the content and that includes your comment. Only when combined and viewed as a whole they can present some common attitude of a small group of customers that commenters are.

Take it as it comes, it just happens

 I will offer one caveat- most of the comments whining about price are from kids who's allowance wont cover it. This info is useless to marketers.

 I'm 15, I work hard at two jobs so that I can buy in phrases for my bike. Don't think kids get money from their parents to buy kit. Or that we get cheap stuff because we can't afford other stuff.

 I did too, I'm not stuck up, I come from very humble beginnings. I worked an entire summer to pay for my first real bmx. I now am 30 and have a good job, I like buying bike parts. I couldn't when I was a kid. There is plenty I good entry level stuff now and you kids are lucky because MTn bikes were shitty in the 90's. For those of us who can swing it there is high end stuff available and that does not make it over priced. Some of it is, don't get me wrong, but a high price tag alone does not make it a rip off.

 I was just saying that we aren't all buying standard stuff and relying on our parents giving us pocket money. also, I agree that there aren't many over priced mtb items in the market. some things are, but a minority.

 You are right, and I should apologize. I always worked hard for my money and still do. I know there are lots of kids who have that same ethic. Looking around the DH races where I live though there are for sure some kids way better off than I was.

 its the same here with me. you see 9 year olds with bikes that cost far more than they could have earned, assuming they are abiding the law. I don't deny that there are a lot of spoilt kids out there, but the majority of us either ride cheapy bikes or save hard for better kit.

 Nine people who negative propped me, morally irresponsible without ever even buying the bar. I should have received a million positive props for stating the ridiculousness of this bar in the face of an impoverished and war ravaged nation. Now I want to buy one and put it on my bike with the money I was planning to give to Unicef. Heads will roll but at least I'll have a pimp looking bar on my bicycle!

 It's the bar of choice for African dictators. Kinda wondering if the name refers to the Roland TR 808, the drum computer that shaped techno. They should know...

 I am sure it was cut by a "blood diamond saw"... ok when are we getting on Gregs family and their attitude towards apartheid? Trooooll feeeeest!

 Greg and his family are rightly dead against apartheid. He had Mandela painted on his helmet.

 Yea yea, just trolling, making an aXX of myself...

 Troll on, perhaps about Mandela's wife and that necklacing thing. I'll have someone paint a portait of Charles Taylor on my D2, that should be nice.

 I don't know anything about his wife and have no intention to go there. But... I had this thought the other day: what if you made a horror porn? No I know what you think - I don't mean some monster shagging girls before he murders them with some retractable knife hidden in his penis. No... I mean make a porn where you have several girls and an extremely well disguised tranvestite that apparently is the hottest chick. He-she goes around the shag scene and you can't wait until she joins in. You make one or two normal scenes and then in the third one "she" finaly joins in an camera shows "her" only from the waist up being shagged. In the crucial moment the camera goes down... Oh I'd want to see the face of guys wanking, preparing for the climax going nooooo blaaaa fk noooooo! aaaa!

 waki = thc + youporn + pcp

you must stop this now

 I don't and actualy can't take illegal drugs, for instance THC makes me paranoid. I am running on pure mental fk up.

 And carbon doesn't stay permanently bent in this type of deformation situation. POP BANG BOOM It's done.

 Like how they obviously tested the Renthal fatbar there, wouldn't say its a good idea to produce exact data on competitors products. Unless its an independant test house doing it all.

 This is from MTBR": - so tougher than Renthal and I'm guessing RaceFace.

"We tested a popular Brand A aluminum bar at 345 grams and a Brand B carbon bar from a competitor that was 785 wide and 225 grams. The Brand A aluminum bar at nearly 100 grams heavier bent to unrideable proportions after 40 or so drops. The Brand B competitor’s carbon bar broke at 32” or after 5 drops and never made max height."

 i doubt it was raceface, the sixc bars are stronger than atlases and they've only had 7 warranty cases on atlas bars.

 I'm ready to bet 5$ it is a SixC bar they are talking about, specs match pretty darn perfectly. And just because a bar breaks at a certain point it does not make it "weak" or "bad". This is simply a benchmark test as to see how each bar reacts to a specific set of variables.

 Accepted it this spring; after a serious gouge through the right hand grip and into the carbon, I still have yet to break them... Or my face (thank god). ENVE makes good stuff.

 Shhh....don't tell the S.Africans......the regular enve Dh bar...................is now made in Tiawan too

 We don't care (ignore the flag next to my name)

 Some Enve stuff is made in Taiwan but I believe they are in the process of scaling up production in the states and moving everything back, if they haven't done it already.

 That would be awesome.ive already got my enve rims(us made)'and bars(came on a boat). I like supporting US made products where I can...and since I make American made products,I know it matters.I think everyone should try and support companies in there own countries if it makes sense. I just don't understand not caring about it.

 "It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy...What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom."

-Adam Smith, father of Economics

 Or the Rat Hat from the clothing department

 Damn it! I sat for 5 minutes trying to think of a Rat Boy accessory

 You also have to take into account that the fork will absorb almost all of the impact plus riders naturally soak up hits with just their arms, so really this test is pretty damn accurate.

 Sounds logical!

 Because of the physics involved. 16lbs on each side of the bar, dropped from a height of 44 inches, at a certain velocity, is much more than just 16lbs of applied force on each side when it hits the ground.

 My question was more in regard to the poundage. I would think it would be more.

 Its stopping completely in one moment. Even if your chest hit one side of the handlebar in a wreck, your flesh still will give it an inch or so of deceleration. LIke Giny said, greater weight stopped slower means less force. Now, wrecking and hitting a rock is a different story...

 Thank you. Cheers!

 Well, there is a spring pad at the bottom of the drop to allow for a small bit of deceleration in the test...

 Alex-Mtl; if thats the case, then 200lb would be alot more aswell? And if it was the hard hit and the fork was to bottom out, it would simulate this same test?

so only having 32lb, doesn't test the same as a 200lb person holding on?

 At the end of the day, Greg hasn't broken one after a WC season. Thats about the best test there is, and good enough for me

 Think about your body position as you ride, do you really have 200lbs on your bars? The majority of your weight is on your pedals when you're riding. On top of that as @Gingymp said, this test does not take into account that the fork will absorb a huge part of the impact, as well as your arms doing some part of the work also.

 Makes sense.

 When you jump and land on the front wheel. Much your weight is transferred to the bars.

 I do wonder about this. I mean, it's great and all that the bar is tested to handle regular repeated abuse. BUT I assume my handlebar will handle that. I would be interested to know how much more my bar versus others will be able to handle in a crash or abnormal situation.

 And a much better article: reviews.mtbr.com/video-enve-dh-minnaarbar-impact-test

 That article is a far better source of information! Thank you for posting that!

 Thanks @burnbern.

 My ENVE is cut too, @ 760, and it's perfect !
808 mm seems really wide, i would be frightened shredding between trees with that

 **GROAAAN* - not this again.
Some 34 year also also prefer 780 bars - personal preference an' all.

Also, it seems to depend a lot on how long you've been riding. Many who have been riding for many years, prefer their bars narrower, this is what they got used to. I started riding relatively late in life, when wider bars were the norm - so that's how I prefer to ride them.

 Also depends how broad you are. If you have narrower shoulders, narrower bars will fit you better, and if you have broader shoulders, wider bars fit you better. But there's also preference to it.

 It also depends on the bike. Stack and reach play a part also.

 Isnt 750 bout average these days

 Why do you say that this equates to drops with a rearward weight bias? In a real scenario an awful lot of an impact is absorbed by the forks/riders arms and the majority of the riders weight is dissipated through the pedals not the bars so I would say 32lbs coming to an instantaneous stop is pretty fair.

 nishnash - Perhaps you can send them instructions on how to carry out a "proper" test? Just be sure to include your engineering credentials and previous destructive testing experience. Unless you're just another internet expert that clearly lacks any understanding of the dynamics at work when you ride your bike...

 the longer the better

 Nukeproof warhead carbon for 130?

 just about every other bar on the market is cheaper than 225

 ...

 Easton Havoc Carbon DH bar, 35mm - UK RRP £130.00 from Chain Reaction, technically $212.00US. Easton have it listed as $160.00US on their site.

Having said that I cant tell if it's a good comparison as Chain Reaction has it listed as 800mm and 225g, and Easton have it on their website as 750mm and 225g...

www.eastoncycling.com/en-us/havoc-35-carbon

www.chainreactioncycles.com/easton-havoc-35-carbon-dh-riser-bar/rp-prod90419

 It is 800mm wide, the 31.8 clamp version however is 750mm