How Often Do You Change Handlebars?

[29r]

Yep ,

I once had the throttle side come off in my hand pulling to a stop at the 2nd section of the day . ( Steel yamaha ) SCAREY ! You could see where it had been cracked around the crossbar weld vs. the fresh break . I'm afraid it's one of those' If it ain't broke , don't fixit' type caveat things .

I've always tryed to make note of the radius of the clamps and indexed the clamps so they don't get switched . If the the bars get scored that's where they'll break .

Reminds me too that we used to tighten down the clamps evenly until you could just rotate them and then tighten the front ( or was it the back ? ) until it wouldn't move . It allowed the bar to rotate back on impact saving some where and tear . Until now , I haven't thought of this past practice . Wonder if it was a good idea in the first place ? It seems it did work .

Another thing is how do you transport your bike ? In the back of a truck or trailer with the suspension bottomed out , held tight with tie downs out on the ends of the bars ? I try not to over do it and use soft straps around the bars , preferably around the lower triple clamp so as to not stress the bars .

Anyway , just a couple cents worth .

[gaff]

Of my three bikes, 2 have Renthals and the 3rd (my main bike) has Domino. The reason i originally switched to Domino was of the reputation that Renthal was getting for snapping. I have since witnessed at meetings a pair of Renthals bend and a pair each of Domino's and Hebo's snap. What i am trying to say is that Renthal seems to be getting all the bad reputation when actually they have almost 50% of sales (see thread "POLL which bars do you use"). It seems to me that we take this gamble on bars snapping no matter which we purchase.

Gaff.