We know buying a titanium bar can break the bank, so we decided to share a simple trick to prolong the lifespan of your bar if the worst happen.
More often then not, you will ride your Titanium bar with a HIC compression system to be the lightest possible and most of the Ti bar / clamp combos will leave a portion of the bar slit over the clamp. That area will be where there's the most stress and it will usually break there.
From there your options are:
1. buy a new Ti bar (300$ ish) and get exactly what you want.
2. buy a cheaper steel oversized bar (120$ ish) but it's way heavier. unless you go with a butted bar ;)
3. switch your set-up to aluminium bars where you need to change your fork also (220$ ish). But you can get a result as light as Ti bar but weaker overall. So for the price difference, just go back to Ti bars right away. We wont talk more about that option...
Here comes our trick:
Cut your bar where they have snapped to have a nice finish and switch your set-up from HIC to SCS. You will not need to change your fork to do this. The SCS system let you gain about 1.5 inch. This means you will keep the same height as your previous set-up even tho your bars will not be cut.
We know! SCS compression is heavier but let's do the math for one example:
Trynyty Simple double clamp: 0.22lbs
Envy Omen SCS clamp (85$): 0.44lbs
If you switch from the Trynyty simple clamp to the Omen SCS, you add 0.22lbs of weight. On that, you take out the weight of the bar piece that is broken and the HIC shim that is no longer needed. For rounding it up, let's say you now add 0.2lbs
If you go with option 2. switching to steel bar: Titanium is 2x lighter then steel (fast calculation gives us a 1.5x difference for scooter bars though) Which means if you had a 1.5lbs Ti bars, a steel bar similar in shape would weight around 2.25lbs. So you gain 0.75lbs.
So your new choices are:
1. Still buy a new Ti bar (300$ ish)
2. Buy a steel bar (120$ ish) adding 0.75lbs
3. Buy a SCS clamp (85$ ish) adding 0.2lbs
I don't know for you, but my choice would be obvious!
Note that prices and weights might change depending on the parts chosen. Still, we believe that our second life option for your titanium bar is worth the cost ;)
Pleased to help you out.
