Renthal Fatbar Carbon
Last week we saw the announcement of Renthal’s new Apex stem, and now hot on the heels of that comes the news that Renthal are now finally making their carbon bars in a decent width. At just 740mm wide we never felt their Fatbar Lite Carbon bars were quite wide enough, and so we’ve been waiting for this news ever since Renthal started offering carbon bars. The new Fatbar Carbon comes in at a full 780mm which should mean that all but the most extreme tastes are now catered for.
Rather than simply make a wider version of the Fatbar Lite Carbon Renthal have actually designed this bar from the ground up, paying particular attention to the feel of the bar. They reckon they’ve managed to replicate the feel of their incredibly popular aluminium Fatbar, but now you get that DH strength in a bar that weighs just 225g.
Whilst this bar may have been designed with DH strength in mind, that certainly doesn’t mean that its appeal is limited to the DH market. With the low weight and generous width we think these will be popular with almost everyone, no matter what kind of bike they are riding.
Shape wise it’s good to see that Renthal haven’t deviated from their now classic 7 degree backsweep and 5 degree upsweep that so many of us love, and with a choice of 10, 20, 30 or 40mm rise they got every base covered. With bar height being so critical we welcome Renthal providing so many options. We can’t think of anyone else who offers quite so many choices. One area where you don’t get any choice though is bar clamp size. These only come in a 31.8mm diameter, which matches their approach when it comes to stems. We certainly have no issue with this though as we are still unconvinced of any benefit brought by moving up to the 35mm size.
In conclusion then we like these bars a lot. They were the bars that we’d been waiting for, and now that they’ve finally arrived they are every bit as nice as we’d expected them to be.
Features;– UD carbon construction
– Ride tuned for the ultimate combination of stiffness and shock absorption
– Increased width oversize centre section for fine-tuned flex characteristics
– DH race and twin crown fork compatible
– DH spec 780mm width
– Permanent graphics, set-up grid and cut marks
– Race-light 225g weight
Price: £134.99
