Originally Posted by
2ndGen
Definitely...but the plastic bike I want is way out of my league right now.
So, I can get the components that'll eventually end up on it now
(and take advantage of parts that I want that just happen to be on sale).
Right now, my stock aluminum bar is kicking my arse.
My point is that you really won't achieve your goal of comfort and road dampening to any meaningful degree with carbon bars. I have a carbon frame and an aluminum frame (Cervelo R3 and P2SL aluminum TT bike). You could put every carbon component possible on the aluminum bike (bars, stem seatpost, fork) and it would still be a rattletrap compared to the carbon frame. The CAAD9 is what it is. You would probably do more to to achieve your goals with high quality bike gloves than with an expensive carbon bar.
I do agree with the above comment that the primary advantage of carbon bars are the non-round shapes. For some, this is an advantage.