Originally Posted by
gearbasher
I might catch hell for this, but I'm still using the very first Cinelli Mod 66 bar and 1A stem that I bought in 1983. They've been on three bikes and have over 100,000 miles on them.
That sounds awfully NEW!!!!
I did finally remove my old Cinelli bars off of my old bike. I bought the bike used in 82, and the bars could well have been 10 or 20 years older.
I only retired the old bars because I chose to go with newer bar shapes.
I have, however, seen broken vintage bars. Cinelli used a double strength center section. I'm not quite sure how they created it, sleeved? Perhaps it creates a stress point at the edge of the sleeve, but the bars seem to be quite STRONG, and made with a good alloy (6061 or similar?)
Other Asian brands simply had an expanded bulb in the middle, and may have actually had thinner middle material than the rest of the bars.
I would be very skeptical of using those early expanded bulb style bars.
If you choose vintage bars, get a good name brand with the double thickness or sleeved center.