My wife and I recently bought our first road bikes! Sadly, my wife took a spill and bent her handlebars. She was out on her first ride without me, took a tight turn really slowly, started to fall and could not un-clip in time... Aside from a bruised ego she is fine.

Somehow the fall bent her handlebars, which is surprising because it sounds like she did not fall that hard. More specifically the left "drop" area bent inward. I do not know how far it originally bent because she said she bent it back to get home. She was not able to bend it back all the way. I got it to move a little bit more but still cannot get them back to where they were.

My question is first off, is there danger in using bars that were bent and then bent back? If I am to straighten them out myself, is there a good technique for doing this? I do not have a vice clamp to assist, but is there anything else that I would have easy access to that would help me get more leverage to bend them back?

If it is unsafe to bend them back, what kind of investment are we looking at to get new bars and tape? We do not need anything high end.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!