I went to trim my MTB bars 10mm each side today but they appear to have some kind of permanent end plugs in them. Epoxied in place or something. Does that mean these bars shouldn’t be cut, or are those plugs just there to ensure a clean finish?
Cannondale carbon bars - not even on a cannondale, I just bought them because they were discounted 70% or something. Shipped at 760mm and I wanted to take them to 740 (and maybe eventually 720).
I know what I’m doing making the cut and have all the right tools - I’ve done enough steerers on road bikes that it’s familiar. I’ve just never cut MTB bars before so finding this made me want to confirm what it is before I cut it off.
Anyone have experience with these and can say one way or another?
I have cut some bars. Not these. I don’t see an issue.
Thanks. Eventually found a different product page for them that says:
Bonded aluminum reinforcments at the end of the bar give strength for lock on grips.
Then once I figured out to search for ‘inserts’ instead of ‘plugs’ I found some other discussions about this kind of thing on a few different makes/models. Mostly people wondering if they can replace the inserts after cutting so they can still use bar ends. Seems like there are a few aftermarket products that offer exactly that.
In my case they were about 23mm deep, so unless I wanted to cut the bars down from 760mm to 710 or less then it meant using my metal hacksaw blade instead of the carbon one. Wrapped tape around the cut to keep the carbon from fraying and it was a really straightforward cut. No hiccups, filed to nice clean edges. Happy camper!
—
On an almost completely unrelated note my search revealed that the Prime carbon XC bars have been reduced to £15 as part of the latest round of wiggle/crc selloffs. At that price I might get a set just so I can keep two different width options on hand. Or could even put them on a commuter or something at that price!
1 Like
