Product 2003

Back to handlebars. Did I say this was the year of the aero bar? Funny thing is, as I understand it Scott's patent is still in force for another year or two, and Profile Design has a right to enforce it. It'll be interesting to see if that happens.

Be that as it may, Oval Products, a new company, came out with a handlebar very much like the Hed bar, but made of aluminum. It's no coincidence that the two bars are similar, as Steve Hed and John Cobb collaborated on the design of the Hed bar, and Cobb has an interest in Oval. Cobb also works on Hed's payroll. The two companies have agreed that the aluminum one (shown above), which will sell for $295, is Oval's, and the carbon bar (at $400 and change) is Hed's. Oval is showing stems, seat posts, etc., which makes sense, since Oval's president, Morgan Nicol, was former head of Ritchey Europe. Nicol knows how to make that kind of stuff. We'll write more about Oval elsewhere on Slowtwitch.

Oval also introduced a new fork, which was also designed by John Cobb. It is quite reminiscent of Kinesis' carbon airfoil, a fork which Cobb has always liked. The Oval version, though, sports a sort of bi-plane, or louvred, look. It's hard to tell from photos, but each blade is actually comprised of two blades, with air passing through.

Deda's aero bar caused a big stir. It is extremely nicely made, and is the prettiest bar of the lot. It's one-piece, but like those shown by Easton, Oval and Hed has a round section for which any stem can be used. It's ironic that Deda's bar should be built in this way, because the aluminum (and not very high-tech) Deda aero bar that Lance used in the most recent Tour (quite similar to Oval's bar shown above) was chosen because Hed was unable to make a one-piece (stem included) carbon bar required by Johann Bruyneel (this is my understanding after speaking to several of the parties involved, Bruyneel not being one of them). The Postal team rejected the idea of Hed's one-piece bar, which was built minus the stem. Yet this is precisely the sort of bar Deda has brought to Interbike, and ditto for Hed, Oval and Easton. It would seem that Bruyneel, Armstrong, and the Posties ought to have taken a closer look at the aero bar Hed first presented the team at the Tour of Murcia (more or less the bar Hed has for sale). It was clearly the superior design.

The only thing negative you can say about the Deda bar is that it came along in a tough year. Like Sosa blasting 60+ homers and losing the homer title, Deda's excellent bar comes along at the same time as Hed's. Deda's bar will sell in the U.S. for more than $600 without brake levers, which is at least $100 more than Hed's which comes with integrated levers. The carbon work on the Deda is at least as good as that on the Hed, which is surprising since Hed's carbon work is hard to beat. But the Hed bar has that incredible frontal aspect. The thing you notice about Hed's bar—head on—is that you don't notice it. It's almost invisible, and no bar has ever been made this way, at least that I've seen.

The other feature I like about Hed's bar is the feature it doesn't yet have—but could. I've been griping for months in these pages about an armrest that would extend along a greater distance of the forearm, so that I could use a longer stem, a shorter clip-on extension, and make up for the armrest sitting (uncomfortably) midway up my forearm with a greater area of support. (My custom Mandaric-made double-barreled Syntace is my current solution). The Hed bar has an incredibly strong and stiff base, and the armrest support is locked down tight. It appears to me, and Steve Hed (pictured above with his bar) concurs that it would not be a problem to build an armrest support twice as "deep" which would cantilever forward toward the clip-on extension. This would solve my problem of kneecap clearance while climbing out of the saddle, giving me a greater surface area of support. So Hed's made a bar for me. The market will determine whether he's made a bar for everybody else.

I've got much more to write about this show, especially about the complete bikes themselves, which I've not touched on. The bikes, and wheels, and all the rest, all be covered in successive days.