The Race Face Era carbon handlebar is a tough yet compliant bar with a wide range of rises and widths to suit most gravity-fed applications. Although the clamp width won’t suit direct mount stems and the graphics are a little lairy for some, the science behind the “Goldilocks Tune” has paid dividends.
- Best MTB handlebars – tried and tested trail bars
- Gusset S2 handlebar review
- MTB cockpit setup – How to clean up your handlebars
Race Face Era carbon handlebar – Technical Details
The Race Face Era carbon handlebar is the brand’s premium trail and enduro offering, which has been tuned to find the optimum ride characteristics. Each variant, size and rise of the bar has a unique carbon lay-up using 96 pieces, each around 0.1mm thick, to tune the feel and maximise the strength-to-weight ratio.
Race Face has paid special attention to the flex, dubbed the GL (Goldilocks) tune. Rider-based feedback has informed the tune, which aims to hit the sweet spot where the feel is compliant without being too vague or flexible.
Rather than going down the oval-shaped route to achieve the GL tune, Race Face has gone down the more traditional route of a rounded profile using the carbon lay-up to tune the feel. This rounded profile is said to avoid the feel of the bar changing for riders who like to roll their bars far back or far forward.
This bar uses a narrow clamp width of 60 mm, which allows the taper and rise to begin earlier, influencing the stiffness tune. This does mean these bars aren’t likely to be compatible with wide clamp stems such as direct mount variants.
The Era uses an eight-degree back-sweep and a five-degree up-sweep, which is right around what is considered common in today’s handlebars – a comfortable and familiar shape to many. The 800mm x 40mm offering is claimed to weigh in at 220g, so they’re by no means heavy, especially when considering it’s Category 4 rated and downhill compliant.
For peace of mind, this bar is covered under Race Face’s lifetime warranty, which covers against manufacturing defects and crash damage for the expected life of the product.
The Era bar comes in a 35mm diameter clamp with 10mm, 20mm, 40mm and 55mm rises. Cutting down bars changes the stiffness, so there are three widths available to get the same feel for your size. These widths are 760mm, 780mm and 800mm.
The handlebar comes in a black colourway with seven graphics colours to choose from, so there is likely a size, rise and colour to suit all riders.
Race Face Era carbon handlebar – Performance
Mounting the bars was a simple affair, no fuss here. After a couple of rides, I did find the bars wanted to roll, slipping in the particular stem I was using (Amflow). So, a word of warning to make sure you use carbon paste here when fitting your carbon bar. With the bar mounted in the middle of the markings, it has a natural and very familiar feel in terms of sweep.
The main thing I noticed running these bars was not much at all. With a handlebar, I’d say this is a good thing. Any bike part that happily goes about its business with no fuss is a good one in my books.
There is no doubt that the hard work from Race Face to get the GL tune just right has paid off, resulting in a bar which has notable vertical compliance. Small trail chatter is handled well, dampening some of the harsh vibrations, particularly when compared to an aluminium bar. Larger compressions are no problem for the ERA bar, there is notable flex, but it never feels wayward or uncontrolled. It just works along with the rest of the bike. At no point does the bar feel “soft” or inaccurate, with twisting compressions and front-wheel deflections not affecting the steering feel.
Race Face’s rationale that the circular (as opposed to oval) shape gives more consistent flex and comfort across roll angles and impact directions makes reasonable sense. That said, as a rider who typically runs his bars close to matching the head angle of the bike, it’s likely less of a benefit for me. If you’re typically setting your bars up to be aggressively rolled forward or backwards, then Race Face’s bar may give you the edge in comfort over an oval-profiled bar such as OneUp’s.
Race Face’s effort is commendable in producing such a wide range of bars to try and standardise the feel across the widths and rises. It’s obvious a wider bar will have more leverage and therefore flex more however, I am not sure how Race Face accounts for the weight of the rider in these scenarios. As a general rule, smaller riders and therefore lighter riders will run narrower bars, so I’d argue the narrower bars being proportionately softer isn’t soft enough. Race Face has rider-based feedback across a range of riders, so I have no doubt this was part of their extensive study.
If I had to be picky, my only gripe is the branding, which is a bit too much for my liking, particularly in a lairy colour.
Race Face Era carbon handlebar – Verdict
With a retail price of £140, this is not a cheap handlebar, however, for a premium carbon offering, they’re well priced compared to other offerings on the market.
The PNW Components Loam Carbon handlebar comes in at £150, which was praised for having good compliance but was on the heavy side for a carbon bar. Another option is the OneUp Components V2 carbon handlebar, which is also £150. The vertical compliance on this bar was really noticeable, boasting great comfort with the usual OneUp build quality. It’s considered the benchmark carbon bar.
The Race Face ERA carbon handlebar does a great job of dampening trail inputs and keeping things upfront a little more calm. Whilst the graphics may not be for everyone, the reduced fatigue and maintained control are excellent. With a wide range of widths and rises, it’s hard to look past this solid offering.
You might also like:
- How to tweak your mountain bike’s geometry – Cockpit
- Canyon goes bananas with another crazy cockpit creation for all new Grizl adventure bike
- Clever component upgrades for kids bikes
Product purpose:
Less trimming. More comfort. Trimming bars makes them stiffer and ultimately, less comfortable. Instead of making only 800mm lengths and expecting riders to cut them down, we made six carbon bars in your size and rise, all hitting our GL tune for reduced fatigue.
Strength in numbers. We took nearly 100 individual pieces of hand-laid carbon fibre and bound them using a toughened epoxy resin, with a specific layup for each bar variant. The result is the highest strength-to-weight ratio of any handlebar we tested.
Give arm pump the axe. Era is Race Face’s carbon answer to arm pump and hand fatigue. Ride harder, ride faster and enjoy a consistently compliant feel in every width and every rise. To personalize your Era carbon bars even further, we made them in six eye-catching colours. And of course, Era is covered by our Lifetime Warranty, crashes included.
Build extra:
Bar Rise: 10mm, 20mm, 40mm, 55mm
Bar Width: 760mm, 780mm, 800mm
Bend (DEG): 8°
Upward Sweep (DEG): 5°
Material: UD Carbon
Weight: (800mm x 40mm)220g
Max. Stem Clamp Width: 60mm (not compatible with wider stems, like Direct Mount stems)
Product construction
Product construction extra:
Product performance
Product performance extra:
Maintains direct steering
Product weight
Product weight extra:
Product comfort
Product comfort extra:
shape provides a comfortable ride
product value
All the deals displayed on our review pages are pulled from a constantly updating database feed of the best affiliate deals available. The criteria for deciding on what are the best deals is who is offering the lowest, delivered price. In most cases we will be showing the very best deal available online, but sometimes you may be able to find an item cheaper. If you can please feel free to post a link in the comments box below. To find out more about affiliate links on road.cc click here.
Overall performance:
Product likes:
Direct steering feel
The widest range of rises and widths
Product dislikes:
Won’t suit a direct mount stem
Must assemble with carbon grease
