Deontologist

Interestingly enough Google turned up a lot of theoretical discussions about carbon vs alloy and which one would survive a crash ... but no real world stories of who crashed on alloy handlebars and did/did not replace them.

So, I crashed today. Hard enough to have knocked the shifters out of place a bit and hard enough to have misaligned the stem. I've loosened the locknut on the shifters and put them back in place, but would you still suggest getting new handlebars? Or nah, because it's aluminum? Any real-life experiences? I'll probably undo the bar-tape later and look at the bar if it's suggested that the bar might be a keeper. If not I'll just toss it without going through the trouble of undoing bar tape and removing the shifters and inspecting the bar and then possibly re-doing the tape.

Marcus_Ti

Crashed hard on a set of IRD Blackbird wing-topped alloy bars. Crash was on concrete and hard enough to badly abraid the aluminum. Gouging through the black satin finish and into the metal. Rode those bars for years afterwards. Only stopped using them last year when I wanted a different reach handlebar for my daily.

hairnet

It's a good thing your stem and shifters moved during the crash. I have only replaced bars that bent from the crash.

garysol1 

If the bars are not bent I would keep on riding them without giving them another thought.

Homebrew01

Even with slightly bent bars, I have bent them back and kept riding. If they're not bent, no problem.

FLvector

Prolly a good idea and closely inspect the stem as well.

Deontologist

Sounds good. Because I have other things to replace ... such as the fork - which is carbon. It delaminated. So that needs to be replaced above anything else.

Interestingly enough I rode on it for 5 miles to the support site without any issue - no unusual vibrations, no flexiness, no catastrophic failure. I also tried squeezing on the fork at home and it didn't budge. I didn't notice the broken fork until I got home ...

RollCNY

I have an aluminum MTB bar that I cut in half, pounded the clamp section flat with a hammer, and use it as a cheater bar for my box end wrenches and adjustable wrench. I have jumped on it, wrenched on it, smacked it around, pounded on fasteners with it, and generally punished it in every conceivable way. It is not cracked. It has not bent. It has not split.

Your bar is fine.

rpenmanparker 

Only if they are bent which has been never.

carpediemracing 

I've tossed bent bars.

I only recently (2014) replaced aluminum bars I got back in 1995-1997. I stopped using one bar because it started creaking (aka probably cracked - it was a heat treated bar and when I cut off the excess drops area it actually made crackling noises). The other bars weren't heat treated and I stopped using them because I figured 18-20 years was just a lot of time to be using bars for racing/training.

If there's any creaking coming from the bars then toss. Obviously do a visual inspection for cracks.