Best Mountain Bike Handlebars

Stiffness on Trail

This comparison comes down to heavy cornering and landing drops to flat on my downhill bike, and heavy sprinting and cornering on my trail bike.

I found the iodine 11 bars to be the least stiff, far and away. The ENVE and Atlas bars were not noticeably different on trail here, but there was a clear improvement over the Spike 777 Evo bars.

1. ENVE / Atlas (tie)
3. Spike 777 Evo
4. iodine 11

Hand-Pump (best to worst)

This is probably the most subjective of these comparison points, with the most variables, however each bar was ridden for at least three months on both a trail bike and a DH bike. Hand pump was most readily apparent in this test on the trail bike because of the shorter travel and firmer suspension setup, but long days at the lifts certainly agreed with these findings. I am a firm believer that the stiffness of a bar is directly related to its perceived smoothness. More stiff = less hand pump. In other words, the stiffer the handlebar, the less it moves under an impact; the less the bar moves, the less it rebounds into your hand, and therefore the less beating your hands take, meaning a stiffer bar will by definition give you less hand pump.

From there, material comes into play—carbon is simply smoother for a handlebar than aluminum. If you tap a bar into a cement ground, you can feel the resonance of the bar. An aluminum bar rings like a tuning fork. The ENVE carbon bars, on the other hand, are basically 1/2 carbon and 1/2 resin in construction, so when you tap the bar in to the ground, it tends to clunk rather than ring. The iodine 11 bars have more resonance than the ENVE bars, and therefore give more feedback into your hands.

(By the way, in Joe Hanrahan’s recent article on the Best Ways to Save Weight on Your Bike, he says that saving weight in the handlebar isn’t very important; a slightly lighter handlebar does not do much to the overall ride. I totally agree with that. However, carbon and aluminum as materials do ride different, and therefore one ought to buy a handlebar based on the ride they are after, not just the weight.)

The ENVE can justify its higher price than the iodine 11’s as well as the aluminum bars because its as high-performance or higher than the aluminum bars, but also is lighter. The iodine bars save weight compared to aluminum, but also give up performance at a higher price point, and therefore the weight savings is not only not that important to the ride (per Joe’s article), you are also giving up on-trail ride quality.

1. ENVE
2. Atlas
3. iodine 11
4. Spike 777 Evo

Finish Durability

All of these bars have been exposed to numerous crashes, rocks, shuttling, shifter/brakes/grip installation, and general use. I realize that finish durability isn’t all that important, but I think its worth talking about. You put a massive amount of faith in your bars holding up and not snapping, and if a bar looks beat, you are less inclined to trust it.

The iodine bars have a clear coat of paint over the carbon, and the clear coat chips and cracks very easily. Install a brake lever to proper torque spec, crack the clear coat, slide a shifter on, put a nasty scratch in the clear coat.

The Spank bars have a polished powdercoat finish that is more prone to showing wear than the anodized Race Face finish.

The uni-directional carbon finish on the ENVE bars basically does not show wear. The bars still look nearly new.

1. ENVE
2. Atlas
3. Spike 777 Evo
4. iodine 11

NEXT: LONG-TERM DURABILITY