Originally Posted by
chaadster
Shape, weight, color, size, brand, material, and feel...in any particular order. Those are what give bars worth. Well, those, and the fact that riding a bike without one ain't much fun.
Now we're getting somewhere. We can consolidate this, if we're being logical. Feel depends on shape and size, stiffness (although "noodly" is a complaint on the more pricey ones, so leave that out(?), and what else? Vibration damping? I've seriously pondered that before (vibration damping), but to my knowledge from most reviews that's not much of a factor even between CF and aluminum, and even less between types of aluminum. Maybe if someone here knows otherwise, let's hear it!
I think you can get particular shapes and sizes in any price range ... so brand, color and weight. With apologies I'm going to throw out color, seriously. There's chrome and black, and they don't seem correlate with price. So inferring from your list, the willingness to pay more for one than another comes down to primarily brand consciousness and weight?
Now if someone would expound upon a quantifiable functional advantage of some aluminum handlebar over the other I'm interested in that as well. I know we're missing something, otherwise we wouldn't see handlebars 3-5 times the cost of others - the brand isn't all that impressive. Anyone? Does it really boil down to $X/gram on this? I'm honestly curious here. What is the tangible, objective benefit of spending more than the minimum on similarly shaped aluminum drop bars?