Hi everyone!
I recently bought a used road bike, and it came with a carbon handlebar.

After removing the bar from the stem, I noticed what looks like a small bulge or possible damage in the clamping area
(I uploaded a few pictures of the handlebar here:
imgur . com / a / kd7yDvR
Sorry, can't post clickable links yet!).

There are no visible cracks, but the surface doesn’t look smooth — it feels slightly raised.

Could this be structural or cosmetic? Is it still safe to ride for the next 500–700 km, or should I replace it immediately?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

(P.S. I'm a light rider, mostly doing flat/urban rides with some light climbing, no racing or sprinting.)

Buy a new bar.

If you have any doubts about it, go to a bike shop and ask a mechanic there. It's really hard to tell from those photos.




https://imgur.com/a/kd7yDvR

Welcome to BF.

And congratulations on being one of the few noobs that know how to obfuscate a URL.

I had a similar experience. I replaced the bar. Then, from curiosity, I stuck the bar in a bench vise to see how much arm strength it would take to snap it off. I could see a crack expanding when applying steadily increasing pressure. I put downward pressure on the cracked side with both arms, from underneath, it shattered. I have no how many ft. pds. that was. But, I am a small, skinny, old guy.
You decide accordingly.

That actually looks like the stem bolts might've been undertorqued, as it looks like the handlebar was rotated (inside the stem) and abraded.

Whatever the cause, I would replace it. But then, I like having teeth.

It really looks like they have been over-torqued with the result being an over compression of the tube, as well as under-torqued resulting in the bar rotating and abrading the weave. It also appears that there is some debonding of the weave in places.

People always think that carbon is as tough as steel. It can be, but generally in only one direction.

Teeth are good, and more expensive to replace than even the most expensive carbon bar.

If there’s one part of a bike to not take a punt on…

Replace. I'm going to catch some flak for what I'm about to say, but here it goes: get a really nice aluminum bar. Lots of options, even on the used market. Reasonable prices, lots of designs. Many are actually very light, and light enough for 98% of all rider's needs. And although I'm sure that aluminum bars fail, I haven't seen or heard of it happening, personally. Carbon, on the other hand, has it's risks. I know of one instance where a bar snapped while the rider was well into a fast corner.

Ugh, no:



Corrosion can hit aluminum bars. Will they break or bend (fail)? Who knows.

The fear of carbon is misplaced. Well cared for carbon does not just fail for no reason.

I would replace. The majority of the damage just look like the grip portion have been flaking off maybe do to rotation but then there are those score marks...

If that's a 3T Bio Morphe in 26.0, I can sell you a brand new one. For a great price.
Or one in either 26.0 or 31.8 with a 120 stem attached. PM me if interested.

ugh is right! Yikes! But who let's their parts get that far corroded? Honestly, anything will fail without proper maintenance. As to carbon bars, I'm sure that there are many on the market that are fine. But it's one of those items that gets churned out by questionable manufacturers at cheap prices so that people can have their "carbon". This introduces far too much risk for me. And to get a proper carbon bar from a proper dealer, like Profile Design, is very expensive. Aluminum bars have been great for far less cabbage.

Just one?

I s'pose everything's relative, but my take is yes, the 'bar may be #1 while what separates it from #'s 2 ~ 12 is what the final costs could run to return your body to something resembling what it was before part #n broke, contributing to your falling whilst riding.

Steering? Yeah, you need to be able to steer.

Brakes? Some say 'Why brakes? I want to go fast!' until they don't.

Seat post? Unless you mash 100% of the time, it's nice to have someplace to sit while you rest your legs.

Then there's them rims, with the tires with which you stay in contact with Mother Erde whilst riding (hopefully) firmly attached.

Bikes are machines after all. Failure of one part will affect the performance of all the other parts.

CF is great under tension – as long as the epoxy encapsulating it is intact – 'cause it's not so good in compression by itself... why the epoxy is there.

About 4 out of 5 people who posted in this thread recommended the same thing.

Yeah, Al bars do fail sometimes. As well as Al stems, cranks, rims. Inspections are a good idea. I recently noticed a crack in my stem before it became dramatic.

A few bar examples:

Wow! I guess I've been lucky. No real problems with anything snapping yet, although I've heard more than one story about aluminum seat posts cracking. I tend to re-wrap my handle bars frequently to avoid build up.

It’s just an expression dude but maybe a geographically specific one that is unfamiliar elsewhere.

Nah, we get it over here, across the pond.

"Single Point of Failure", when applied to bicycles, may have greater meaning given that there are so many 'single points' in 'em, failure of any one of which can cause a crash.

It’s not that hard to have aluminum bars corrode pretty badly underneath the tape, particularly if you ride the bike on the trainer, sweat a lot, live in a humid, or a coastal environment. If any of that applies you need to take the bar tape off periodically and inspect.

they can corrode while the bar tape still looks fine. I’d wager most people riding AL bars do not regularly retape their bars, when the bar tape still looks pretty much new.

So, nothing wrong with Al bars, but they actually require more preventative maintenance than carbon if you’re concerned about your handlebars failing.

I ride in a desert. So dry. I re-wrap my bars pretty frequently. I also coat them with a bit of Park Tools grease.

I had this happen after using my bike on the trainer one winter. Bar tape looked fine, but when I unwrapped it there was a surprising amount of corrosion on the bar and brifter clamps. Bar went straight in the trash.

I would replace the bar for peace of mind. Unknown history and potential signs of damage are red flags for me. A sudden bar failure is one of the worst things that can happen.

New bars - NOW.

My crash, talked about it here before - my CF bars assploded. Looking back at old pictures of the bars - they may have been over torqued at the stem - possibly. But they assploded and the result was poor.

5 broken bones, concussion and lingering knee problems 3 years after.

You can also contact the manufacturer of the handlebar and include these photos and ask for their input as well.

I would replace the bars.
I had a pair of Whisky carbon fiber handlebars and got a recall notice in the mail, telling me to IMMEDIATELY stop using them. They looked perfectly good to me, but Whisky said the potential for damage was not visible, and they could suddenly break where the levers were attached.
I replaced them with the same size/shape Whisky bars, only in alloy. The difference in weight was negligible. I re-wrap my bars annually. Gives me the chance to look for cracks in the aluminum, or corrosion that may be forming. It isn't always easy (or possible) to see a defect in CF. Plus, I like starting off the season with clean, fresh bar tape.