RELEASE AND FIRST RIDE

Race Face’s Era And Turbine Handlebars

Words by Robert Johnston  |  Photos by Cole Gregg

Race Face has offered a range of handlebars for years at this point, with both alloy and carbon fiber offerings in a variety of flavors. Many have enjoyed their performance, but even so Race Face has been working to update and improve their handlebar lineup to move with the times and implement elements they’ve learned along the way. For 2024 they’ve updated their Turbine alloy handlebar, and welcomed the new Era carbon handlebar to the family. Keep on reading to learn about them and hear our first impressions on the Era handlebar. 

The New Race Face Handlebar Philosophy

For 2024, Race Face took a look at the market and their existing handlebar offerings, and identified that riders were seeking more comfort and compliance without sacrificing control and strength. They experimented heavily with different bar stiffnesses to develop their “GL Tune” (Goldilocks Tune) stiffness values, to which their new Era and Turbine handlebars are designed.

Handlebar stiffness is a combination of multiple factors, one of which is handlebar width. This means that riders will have a stiffer bar feel if they trim down a bar, compared to purchasing a bar optimized around a narrower width. Race Face claims to have found a 24% increase in stiffness for riders trimming an 800mm wide bar down to 760mm. That’s significant.

To combat this, Race Face is offering unique bars for 760mm, 780mm and 800mm widths in 10, 20 and 40mm rise offerings. This will ensure that a rider purchasing a 760mm Race Face Era or Turbine bar will receive the same GL Tune stiffness value as those purchasing a wider bar. 

About The Race Face Era Carbon Bar

For the new Race Face Era Carbon handlebar, Race Face wanted to produce their take on the ultimate trail carbon bar. It features their GL Tune stiffness, with their full range of width and rise options to ensure riders on all sizes of bar get the same optimized feeling. It’s manufactured from UD Carbon Fiber with a toughened Epoxy resin to maximize strength to weight.

Rather than going down the oval shape route to obtain their GL Tune compliance, Race Face opted to instead retain a more conventional shape, and instead tune their compliance into the carbon fiber layup. The carbon fiber layup varies across the bar to add strength and stiffness to the areas required, and compliance to the areas desired to maximize comfort. This avoids any riders on the extreme side of bar roll from losing comfort, as well as ensuring comfort in more than the vertical direction. 

The Race Face Era carbon bars are offered in a choice of 6 width and rise combinations from 760mm to 800mm wide and 10mm to 40mm rise, with a 35mm diameter stem clamp only. The 800mm x 40mm offering is claimed to tip the scales at 220g. They’re rated to Category 4: that’s to say they’re not going to be suitable for your downhill race bike, but should suit any pedal-friendly machines. The Race Face Era handlebar is offered with a choice of six colored graphics, is rated for eMTB usage, and retails for $169.99.

About The Race Face Turbine Bar

The new Race Face Turbine handlebar is designed to offer the same ride feel as the new Era bar, at a more friendly price point thanks to its heavier 7075 aluminum alloy construction. This Category 4 bar promises to offer the same strength for hard charging, tipping the scales at a respectable 315g for the 800mm x 40mm size.

To obtain their GL Tune stiffness values on the Turbine Handlebar, Race Face worked hard to develop a butting profile for the wall thickness that would retain the strength where required without adding harshness. Race Face claims they were able to achieve compliance values within 5% of their Era bar. 

The Race Face Turbine Alloy Handlebar is offered in the same 6 varieties of width and rise with 35mm diameter, in a choice of seven anodized colors, for a retail price of $89.99.

THE DIRT

Analyzing Race Face’s new approach to the topic of stiffness, I’m impressed to see their efforts to normalize values across the size range. I’m not certain this is the correct theory though. I’d wager that the ratio of bar width and height preference vs rider weight is going to be fairly linear. Shorter riders with narrower frames who therefore weigh less are likely to need smaller bars, so should the smaller bar options not have a reduced stiffness value compared with uncut wider bars typically used by larger, heavier riders?

Race Face says their blind testing found that 85% of riders across the weight and size spectrum preferred a bar stiffness value within a narrow window. This is the stiffness value that GL Tune is designed around. We’re interested to compare and see exactly how the performance stacks up as a result.

RIDE IMPRESSIONS | I’ve been able to log a few rides on the new Race Face Era Carbon handlebar so far, fitted to the front of the Fox 36 Grip X-equipped (Fezz) Ari Delano Peak all mountain machine. I’m yet to have the opportunity to go back-to-back between the Race Face Era bar and a competitor bar, so I can’t place their comfort with absolute certainty. But between Race Face’s in-house testing, and the initial feedback from this few rides, it’s safe to say they’re not just another harsh and uncomfortable carbon bar. 

As a rider on the upper end of the weight scale with fairly well conditioned hands and arms, I’d be more likely to suffer from the effects of an overly compliant bar that lacked input precision. That said, improved comfort and the reduced fatigue that accompanies it is always welcome if it comes without detriment to control. The Race Face Era bar has neither rattled my teeth loose nor limited my confidence to push the Ari Delano Peak to its limits thus far, so I’ve got a good feeling that Race Face has struck a nice balance. But stay tuned for a long term review once we get these bars back-to-back against some of our favorites to see what conclusions emerge.

To learn more about the new Race Face Era and Turbine bars, head to www.raceface.com