Originally Posted by
Ferrous Bueller
^The link I provided was just an example of how stems are tested.
Torque and lever arms are sometimes difficult to explain. Picture it this way:
The handlebar is two wrenches, connected at their jaws. Their jaws are on a nut in the middle. You can use both hands to twist the nut.
The jaws and the nut are the focus of all the torque. The nut is analogous to the center of the bar, the stem, and steerer tube head. That's where all the effort is concentrated, and why the industry made all the changes I referred to earlier.
i get how it works (levers and general physics principles in play here), i'm just curious if the bars are "flex-ier" than a stem, given current technology. obviously way out at the end of the bar a small amount of flex by either stem or bars gets amplified by distance compared to the angle of the deflection up at the lever point. I would love to see some definitive testing that could resolve which of the two parts is most "important" (though I think they are both so close to being irrelevant that it borders on nitpicking for all but the most jaded of pro-riders, we 99.9%ers should concentrate on comfort and aesthetics over stiffness in the bars/stem area if we are gonna bother scratching our upgrade-itis).