Ritchey WCS 35 carbon handlebar review

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Full Product Name: Ritchey WCS Trail Rizer 35 handlebar

Retail Price: £145

Available from: www.paligap.co.uk

Trail duty goods from an MTB icon

As we touched on in the WCS Trail wheel review, Ritchey have been best known in the past for their pedigree in making high end cross country components and frames – but things are changing as they continue to bring out more products focused on the trail riding most of us do.

The Ritchey WCS 35 carbon handlebar measures up at 760mm wide, has an oversized 35mm clamping area, 15mm rise and features a 9 degree back sweep and 2 degree upsweep. The 35mm clamping area is heavily knurled to help reduce clamping torque, and they tip the scales at just over 210grams.

Ritchey’s new Trail series of products are simple and understated. We like.

To look at, you wouldn’t think they were anything special – they’re far from in-your-face flashy and aren’t dripping in branding like some other bars on the market, which I like. I also like the fact that enduro isn’t mentioned once – Ritchey have gone with ‘trail’, which most riders can connect with as a realistic reference to riding.

It also suits the 9 degree back sweep, which is a lot mellower that the elbows out 7 degree than Renthal use and suits the 760mm width. Some carbon bars are ultra stiff which can give a lot of trail feedback through the grips, but the Ritchey bar has a nice dampened feel to it – it’s a very comfortable bar for all day riding. I noticed on a couple of uplift days that my hands were noticeably fresher by mid afternoon than they were with my normal ultra stiff Renthal Fatbar.

The heavily knurled clamping surface meant no creaking – but took longer than usual to find our sweet spot for bar position

I rode the bars on a Ritchey WCS stem, which was a simple and effective unit 3D Forged from 2014 Alloy. It uses opposing 4mm bolts on the steerer tube clamp for a solid contact,  and has a large 220degree bar cradle for the face plate to clamp to. This supports the bar incredibly well and combined with the knurled surface meant I didn’t suffer any creaking during testing – and didn’t have to resort to using an anti-creak compound.  It did make getting the bars at my preferred angle a pain in the ass though – but once set the set up was solid.

We say

Ritchey’s 35mm carbon trail bar has a great feel on the bike – it’s stiff and resilient, and tastefully understated. The retail price is a shade higher than similarly specced bars from Renthal, Race Face and Easton – but definitely brings Ritchey back in to the picture. Despite being 20mm narrower than I normally favour, I’m still running the bars in place of my usual bar – the increased back sweep has won me over.

At time of writing, Ritchey have just sent us a stubby 45mm version of the stem which we’re testing against a few other short stems – we’ll be publishing the reviews soon.

 

 

 

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