I know this is a bit of a can of worms, but if folks have used any inexpensive aero handlebars and are happy with the product, I’d love to hear your recommendations. I just realized today (after I think 3 years of owning my bike) that I have 42cm handlebars. Having used 38cm in the past I can go pretty narrow, but I’m thinking of splitting the difference and go to 40 and I figured while I’m at it maybe I’d see if it was possible to go aero without breaking the bank (I’ll take the purported 5w savings to go along with the more narrow bars lol). Anyway, just curious to hear any first hand experiences (I realize there are potentially drawbacks, we don’t need to debate those, unless they pertain to real world experience)
If inexpensive, I would look at aluminum, and there should be plenty of good options from reputable companies. Trying to avoid the rabbit hole of “Chinese carbon” as requested so that would be my tip.
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From what I’ve found the Prime Primavera and Easton EC70 are the least expensive offerings available.
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If in the UK, Wiggle are still doing 38cm Deda Zero100 bars at 50% discount.
I’ve just bought the prime primavera bars from wiggle for £150. Great reviews and they look good too with very little obvious branding (which I like)
Getting them fitted next week so can’t give a full personal experience just yet!
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Vision Trimax Aero (alloy, ~USD80)
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nice! hadn’t seen those before, appreciate this and all the other feedback!
I’ve had Bontrager’s aluminum aero drop bars on my road bike for… looks like 4 years now. The aero gains are never going to be huge, but I was also trying to get a more comfortable width and figured that an aero shape couldn’t hurt. 
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didn’t realize there were many aluminum options, good to know. But I think if I use bontrager with a specialized bike it might explode lol
I have this one on two of my bikes now & think it is almost perfect:
https://www.bike24.com/p2417598.html
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Dear Superzero alloy are nice, shorter reach than some bars.
They’re also often on sale.
I’ve had these same bars on my 2014 Madone for a couple of years now. I love them. The only tricky thing is that the inner edges of the internal routing holes can scratch your cable housing.
I found these for ~100 on amazon, definitely looks super aero like some recognizable high end models I’m familiar with
and a bonus is the reach and drop is most similar to my current bars
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I have these bars(1st gen) but couldn’t fit Apex 1 shifters correctly on them.
Yes I heard about those issues. Luckily I’m Shimano and I have the 2nd gen anyway which probably fixed that issue?
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The prime bars do look really compelling and this is an upgrade I’ve been thinking about - the only issue I see is that the reach is quite short at 78 mm.
I’m currently running a 120 mm stem with very basic stock 2013-era entry level Madone bars that have 100 mm reach and are 42 cm wide. Drop is comparable, no flare.
I’d be thinking about going down to 38 cm. Even if I go to a 140 mm stem, I’d still be losing a little bit of reach, and my understanding is that narrowing the bar might motivate needing even a bit more reach.
Am I missing something in the geometry of these prime bars that would help mitigate this concern or should I just be looking at something else?
I do not know enough about bar geometry to speak directly to the above reach question, but I would like to add a positive recommendation for the prime primavera. I upgraded to these a few months ago (on advice from this forum) and I love mine. They were easy to route cables through, they look really good, and they feel great, especially I like the drops more than previous experiences. I think they were about $150? Maybe $175.
I bought some Easton carbon bars off ‘Wiggle’ in the UK when I rebuilt my bike last year.
Cost difference between them and a replacement set of a standard round-bar aluminium straight replacement item (original ones got bent in a crash) wasn’t huge.
I used some birthday vouchers to take the sting out of the price 
but IIRC they were the cheapest on line I could find that had a reasonable write up / rating when doing internet research.
I’ve found them to be very comfortable - in particular I super like the flat piece near the stem as it feels very nice / comfortable when riding easy.
No idea on aero - I expect there is minimal benefit but they were significantly lighter than the original aluminium ones I had that came with the bike.
Cable routing and hydraulic lines was a little ‘fiddly’ but worth the faffing about as it looks super neat and tidy.
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Another vote for the Prime Primavera. They were really easy to set up for a mechanical groupset.
Also I emailed the company about clip on aerobars as this isn’t mentioned on their website or on the packaging. They confirmed they were compatible. I haven’t got round to trying this yet, but the round section is pretty wide.
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I went with the Easton EC70 aero bar, too. Sure, still cost around 170€, but a good bit cheaper than comparable bars from Zipp and Ritchey. Very comfortable shape, and all the Di2 cables are internal on it, too, no blockages inside the bar. I also looked at the Prime Primavera, but that’s also 170€, so heck, might as well go with Easton. “Inexpensive” and “carbon” are tough to have in the same sentence.
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