Renthal FatBar Carbon Handlebar [Rider Review]

Our "Rider Review" article series features the honest reviews from verified purchasers of Worldwide Cyclery. They contain the photos, thoughts, feedback & overall review you are looking for. 

The cockpit consists of the most personal components of your bike and requires consideration when looking for new bars and stems. For those that like the old school moto feel, Renthal is a name you're familiar with. Our friend, Andrew has been ripping the Renthal Fatbar. See what they think!

Overview

I'm not sure this review is entirely necessary as the Renthal FatBar + Apex Stem combo has been around a hot minute and a lot of professional riders adorn their racers with them. Their marketing strategy must have gone something like, "Lets make the best product, then everyone will want it." Renthal's experience in Moto-X and their reputation for quality high performing components made this an easy choice. Other features that caught my attention were the classy AluGold color accents, the 800mm width - oh man do I love wide bars - and the super short 33mm length.

On to my riding experience.

I have a Diamondback that came with house name bars and stem which for a lot of in-house OE content was just serving the purpose of filling a gap to keep total bike cost reasonable. Needless to say cockpit upgrades were pretty high on my to-do list. I was able to install these bars about a week before heading to Whistler, BC for Crankworx and boy am I glad I did. Late season Whistler is tricky as your priority to find the least trafficked trails quickly rises as you encounter seemingly never ending braking bumps and blown-out berms. This is where I could feel the biggest difference between a budget AL bar and a high end carbon one (surprised I know). The braking bumps and tech trails which had basically turned into pot-hole sand beaches would have destroyed my arms if not for the compliance of the carbon bar. The additional weight I was able to carry rearward on the bike made tackling steep rock descents a bit easier as well.

Final Thoughts

So you should buy them, because it's just an obvious choice. But, the guys at Worldwide put a lot of work into being the coolest online shop around and they deserve to be rewarded for that with our business.