Twisted Engineering - Carbon Bars
 

As promised, I am sharing my experience with newly acquired and installed Twisted Engineering carbon fiber bars. I will provide pictures soon.
I am a Chiropractor and use my hands to make a living. I have been battling extreme wrist pain this reintroduction to hare scrambling and enduro racing with the 45mm zoke shivers.

1st; Doug at Twisted Engineering very nice and helpful.
2nd; bars delivered safely and quickly.
3rd; rode 2 hours saturday with 50+ B and 30+ A rider; No vibration tingeling and no sharp edge rock stabbing at my wrist. I felt better sunday morning than I did Saturday morning before riding.

I ordered the 3x (most flex) and KTM low bend. Came off renthal twin wall carmichael bend. This bend is now my absolute favorite. May be too straight for some but improved my single track speed by at least 20%. You do not; repeat, do not feel any flex while riding. Even though these are the 3x, they still provide a very firm feel. Not mushy like other types of impact absorbing systems.

Like I told fred1956 this morning; If someone steals my bike, these handelbars will be one of the first things I order. I am elated that I will be able to continue to ride as aggressive and as often as I like and still make a living not in pain and not have to spend another $600 on suspension.

Summary;
pro; quality product, flex in every direction, light, attractive, they work.
con; $400 with guards (cheaper than not being able to work).

Nice report.

$400, with guards, eh? I thought they were a bit cheaper.

$300 without guards, but the guards are full wrap with deflector shields ($125 anywhere else). Not a bad piece of kit, if/when I sell my wee YZ80, that is what I will order. However, my forks are pretty darn good, I better ride it a couple more times to get the feel for them. On my old 2002 with the WP's I should have bought them, but I am on to newer bikes.

Nice report.

Phil, you sound stoked with the 2011! :D

I want to get a set of these for my 2011 ec250. What bar should I order to keep the same sweep as my stock Hebo bars and what height. I would like to go 1/2 - 3/4 inch higher. If they don't have a set with the same sweep I would opt for a set with less sweep

Thanks for sharing. At 63 and a half my joints are starting to protest. Keep us posted on your likes/dislikes please. My concern are the handguards moving in a crash or weakening the bar ends.

Bar Bend specifications;
http://www.twistedengineering.com/pd...D_SPECS_v3.pdf

They have a "try our bars" program. Try it out, don't like it, send it back. That's pretty confident on their part. How many times have you seen that? If only my ex-wife had made me that deal.

I'm liking the bend on the 2011 GG Race. Which is that on the Twisted Scale?

what brand and model bars are they. eg my 2011 300 six days had renthall twin walls 997 I think = carmichael bend
802mm width
99mm height
54mm sweep (12 degree)
110mm clamping area
200mm grip/perch area

my opinion is that the noticeable difference in bars is in height and sweep.
KTM bars run 38-42mm or 10 degrees sweep, CR high 62mm or around 15 degrees, yz 10 degrees, reed/windham 14 degrees

pro taper has slightly different numbers

straight/low = ktm
swept/low = mcgrath
swept/tall = cr high

These bars sound great. I was considering flexx bars. My problem is not with my wrists but my shoulders. A torn rotator cuff on the right and dislocated on the left. Sometimes I can't lift my arms above my head after a day of riding.

Flexxbars are great but not for everyone.

PlusOnePerformance

Okay, I sold the little bugger. Now I have exactly $400 in my sweaty little hand (metaphorically). However, I need to repair the frame (lower roller mount) and replace chain and sprockets before I get too far. Ugh. However, these are on my (short) list of improvements.

Can't wait to hear more about them, plus I REALLY like the exchange policy.

I hope U buy the bars and barkbuster kit and let us know your opinions. But will understand if not, being that money is tight here too.

I'd like to know how they hold up in a crash

I have problems with my hands,forearms and elbows. The Flexx bars have greatly extended my riding career to say the least. Almost pain free after a hard ride now. Work on the other hand, not so much. :/

They seem to hold up exceptionally well. Check out this thread I started over at ThumperTalk...

http://www.thumpertalk.com/topic/969...on-fiber-bars/

Well I just ordered a set for my '13 KTM 250SX. I'm hoping to ditch my KTM HPSD system in favor of this to reduce weight and complexity.

Besides, they just look trick!

The more I learn about composites the more I like aluminium. (A saying from aircraft design)

Rick, did you get the bars?

Not quite yet. Strongly considering. I bought the BRP elastomeric damper sub-mount thingy. That plus extra-rubbery Oury grips and the Twisted-E bars, I won't have any feel at all for the freakin' bike. ;)

Hey rick,

doug at TE strongly advised me to not use the bars with the rubber brp rubber sub mount. Something about stressing the bars at their mount. I advise giving him a call. I was going that way until brp took forever to provide. So I canceled. I find the bars alone are enough.

Pics as promised.

Give us a ride report when you get a chance. I'm particularly interested if it reduces vibration at the grips.

So those bars in the pics above are the Gen 2 style that just came out and unfortunately it appears that you are unable to see the cool CF weeve any longer. Not really a concern but I was digging the talking point.

I called Doug (there are 2 Dougs in charge at TE) and he told me all about the new Gen2 style and also mentioned they now cost more at $280/ set. I mentioned that they still showed $250 on his website to which he replied "it's getting changed tonight as all new orders have been Gen2 the last month which cost more to make". So I went ahead and submitted my order right then before the price increase occurred.

I have not received a tracking # yet but I believe they are all handmade once an order arrives.

What is better about Gen 2 ?

the profits?!

;-)

So, TE says the BRP flexi mounts could cause damage to the bars? That blows.

You called them?
I was having serious issues with wrist pain. With the bars only; no wrist pain, no sharp hits, no vibration.

I preferred to stay with the bars only since I don't want any height added as with the BRP (1").

I just got off the phone with him and invited him to come to this forum to clear up some things.

I asked if this was a practical or theoretical concern. He said that plenty of people are using the BRP with the TE bars, but he has never cut one open to be sure there is no damage to the sleeve.

Hi Guys, this is Doug Cain from Twisted Engineering. Sorry for the delay, I had to get permission from the site admin.

I first want to thank AZRickD for inviting me to your forum and everyone who has purchased our bars for the positive feedback. We appreciate any kind of feedback. Positive is always great, but negative is where we improve.

I was primarily asked to join to clear up questions regarding a rubberized mount set up, so I will do my best to do that. If both sides of the lower portion of the mount are manufactured from one piece or are physically tied together somehow there is no problem using one. However, if the mounts are individual that gives them the ability to twist and flex and not stay in line with the other clamp. When you have a rigid metal bar between them, that keeps the alignment. But when you have a bar that can flex the way ours do, that's what causes the problem. That constant flexing at the edges of the clamp have caused the aluminum sleeve, is some cases, to have stress cracks. This has only been in a few cases, and we don't actually know if any of that transfers into the underlying composites. That sleeve is very thin and serves no structural purpose at all, it's only for wear and labeling. We have not been able to evaluate the issue because the people that have sent us pictures regarding this are still running the same bars. For these reasons we don't recommend running any kind of individual flexible mount on our handlebars.

The other side of all that, is while I have no doubt those mounts are a good product, and do what they are intended to do, you won't need them. They may in fact take the natural feel we have designed into the bars and change it.

Thank you again for inviting me to this discussion. If any one has any further questions please don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks for that and welcome

So next question, what is the upgrade to the new gen 2? Or was I right?

Lol. I had to laugh when I read that.

No...unfortunately its not helping the profits. People were concerned about the bars being able to snap off and leaving them stranded in the middle of the woods or a race. Definitely a legitimate concern, and as difficult as it would be to actually do that, we didn't want to hide behind the idea that aluminum bars can snap off too. So we went back to the drawing board and came up with this new design. This bar is next to impossible to actually snap off. That's not to say you can't damage it, because anything can be damaged. Howver if you actually crash hard enough to damage the bar you will still get home or possibly finish the race. Whatever the case may be.

I'm not going to get into exactly what we do for obvious reasons, but, this was accomplished by adding an almost indestructible "Twisted Core" to the bar and more materials in select locations. This also added a significant amount of time to the manufacturing process. Unfortunately that translates to higher cost.

Please keep the questions coming, we appreciate the opportunity to shed a little more light on our product.

The BRP sub mount has a solid base, so I will presume to say it is safe.

If I were to use my Protaper top mount, it would be even stronger and would give me a place to mount my speedo. I think the geometry to bolt on the inner guards is roughly equivalent with that generous slot cut out.

Pretty sure those mounts work independently.

I own the mount. They'll do fine.

How are the bars working out?
Do they reduce 2 stroke vibration as well as impacts?

I know four folks that have the TE bars. They love them. All of them had Flex Bars previously.

Any disadvantage to the other type of suspension bar?

The carbon bars both locates the grip and act as the spring(leaf type, sorta.) The other type uses portions of bar and pivots to locate the grip with a separate non-metal spring. Elastomers were used without dampers in the first mtn bike suspension forks because some damping was created by the exchange of energy to heat.

I personally like the simplicity (no moving parts) of the TE bars, but I wonder if your buddies missed anything form the flexx suspensions design.

Still love these bars and guards. Many miles. Several wrecks.

All but one of them have the Flexx bars hanging on their walls with no plans to re-install. That one moved the Flexx from his single-track bike to his dual sport KTM.

Downside ? Maybe that they are not adjustable ?

Hi,

How does Twisted Engineering plan to address the issue with current international (FIM) enduro technical rules:

33.12
Handlebars made from carbon-carbon, carbon-kevlar and/or other composite
materials are not authorised.

It is clear that progress cannot be stopped but there is a definitely legitimate concern about neverending hunt for minimal weight and resulting compromises in reliability. Certification of some sort?