Easton Havoc 35

[Uncle Cliffy]

agreed X 10....renthal bar and stem combo is F'ing bonkers...i've never felt anything like that.....i nose cased and crashed so hard recently that i pushed one side of my boxxer upper crown about 3/4ths of an inch farther down than the other side, yet my bar remained straight and my stem didn't budge....that's unheard of....i've smoked bars and twisted up stems a bunch in the past....renthal is untouchable....it's idiotic to run anything else

I'm going to counterpoint you Ian. Mostly cause I agree with your post. I just got myself a set of Fatbars recently, and they're mega stiff. They just feel bombproof.

Except, I just can't seem to dial in the bend..... I have 31.8 Havocs on my trail bike, and couldn't be happier. Takes me minutes to dial in the roll if I make a change. The Renthal bars took me a while, and after the first ride I still wasn't happy. Stiff? No doubt. But going from bike-to-bike is going to bug me. I'm not the fastest or hardest rider out there, and for those reasons I guess I'm irritated more by the little things.

When the first news of this Easton bar standard came out, I bugged my rep. fairly consistently when they were going to be available. I just wanted a wider bar for my big bike, with the same Easton bend. He told me it was going to be a while, so I went with the Renthals. (My Integra stem is still in the mail.) Easton was keeping everyone in the dark on this, so surprise. Guess my Renthal stuff's going in the classifieds.

[Verskis]

I don't like the backsweep on Renthal bars either. 7 degrees is too little.
I bought a Renthal bar thinking it had the regular 9 degree sweep as was said on ChainReactionCycles, should have checked the manufacturer site first.
I'm used to the small sweep now and I am going to keep the bar, but I would still prefer more sweep. I find it weird that many people seem to really like the Renthal's sweep, many reviews have stated that the sweep feels very good and was natural feeling straight from the beginning.

[DirtMcGirk]

I run the 800 Gravity Lite Wide on my 303. It keeps my shoulders from imploding after a full day of riding. But I also have pretty wide shoulders, and its hard to bring my arms in around my moobs.

[norbar]

People also forget prefered bar width changes with frames/stem length. To an extent of course.

[Steve M]

The best part about this is the pinchbolt stem actually - way less problems with crushing thin-wall, large diameter tubes (especially carbon) compared to a standard vice-clamp stem. I'm usually the first one to sigh when a new standard is released, but this one doesn't force you to change anything at all except for the bar/stem, and it seems to be legitimately lighter/stronger/stiffer. I'd buy one.

[Ian Collins]

I'm going to counterpoint you Ian. Mostly cause I agree with your post. I just got myself a set of Fatbars recently, and they're mega stiff. They just feel bombproof.

Except, I just can't seem to dial in the bend(

strange you say that because it's one of my favorite parts of that bar....my hands just feel comfortable on them moreso than other offerings in terms up up and backsweep....i like the idea behind the 35mm interface, but i just hope they increase they offerings in height.....renthal offers 4 heights...pretty sick

[Ian Collins]

Pictures?

ok, i'm so called out, i don't save pictures of all of the parts i destroy....i don't have time for that man, sorry....and i also think it's lame to post pics of busted products on the internet (especially with no frame of reference)

[epic]

Doesn't Deda already have 35mm? It's not like Easton just sprung this out of the blue. And yeah, I know that Deda is roadie stuff, but 31.8 started there too.

[Wa-Aw]

Anyone back up that "Taiwan is pushing it" statement?

35mm does seem to make more sense. Who pulled the diameter 31.8mm out of the bag anyway? Seems incredibly specific to have just been kicked out to the market.

As for bar widths the pro thing with smaller bars really hit me for being a shorter guy and running wide bars. I really really tried to run cut down bars but I just never got comfortable. I hypothesize it's because a) I'm not as strong as they are. b) Wide shoulders + tendency to run small sized frames c)Looks more badass.

OT: What's with the Renthal hype? I know there are softer/harder bars out there (ran soft syncros' and solid racefaces) but bar geometry is pretty standard these days and I don't see anything unique about the Renthal's. I guess that metallic beige is a pretty solid looking color though, probably be less stiff in normal black and even softer in white.

[LMC]

35mm does seem to make more sense. Who pulled the diameter 31.8mm out of the bag anyway? Seems incredibly specific to have just been kicked out to the market.

Its 1 1/4 inches, it just always gets quoted in milimeters.

[Udi]

True but trivial, depends on headtube lengths, fork model. and who want a mile of flexier stanchion and high BB, when an angle set would do the same.

Me. 40mm stanchions don't really flex.
I'm in the same boat as worship_mud and found it a great way to slacken my bike out (had it at 62* in the alps) without making the BB excessively low - I found the bike faster through rutted / rough / rooty sections with the BB at 13.75 vs. 13.50, and I know my frame isn't the only one that is already quite low out of the box. Using an angleset / angled cups alone to achieve the same thing would have left the bike too low and slower overall (I'm running -1* instead of -2*). Dropped the bar rise to compensate for the height and couldn't be happier.

There's definitely more than one way to skin the head angle cat and it's worth considering all the options and how they affect your own setup.

[dump]

Its 1 1/4 inches, it just always gets quoted in milimeters.

Yup... and 35mm is 1-3/8"

[no skid marks]

Me. 40mm stanchions don't really flex.
I'm in the same boat as worship_mud and found it a great way to slacken my bike out (had it at 62* in the alps) without making the BB excessively low - I found the bike faster through rutted / rough / rooty sections with the BB at 13.75 vs. 13.50, and I know my frame isn't the only one that is already quite low out of the box. Using an angleset / angled cups alone to achieve the same thing would have left the bike too low and slower overall (I'm running -1* instead of -2*). Dropped the bar rise to compensate for the height and couldn't be happier.

There's definitely more than one way to skin the head angle cat and it's worth considering all the options and how they affect your own setup.

Yeah but you're curing a poorly designed BB height for you. Not the ideal way to skin a cat. And that was my point. Wasn't actually asking who? Just metaphorically.

[norbar]

Yeah but you're curing a poorly designed BB height for you. Not the ideal way to skin a cat. And that was my point. Wasn't actually asking who? Just metaphorically.

Or a poorly designed bb height or nothing really purly designed considering where Udi rode it. If it's easily adjustable why is that a problem?

[pdxmonkeyboy]

I can't wait till these hit the shelves! Finally a carbon bar that I won't worry about snapping. It's a win win...of coarse all the pink bike thread on the subject is a bunch of people pissing and moaning.