We also believe bikes are primarily made for the sheer fun they add to our lives. That’s why we started PNW Components. We ride downhill, enduro, cyclocross, XC, gravel grinders… we’ve even tried unicycles but none of us are very good at that. We think bikes are so rad that we ended up working for the top bike brands in the world. During this time, we traveled and studied bike markets and design, while learning from incredible manufacturers about how to create great products at low prices. What this means for you is high quality parts for a fraction of the cost, leaving money in your wallet to buy other things… like burritos. We love those too.
We think handlebars might be one of the most overlooked aspects of a riders' experience on the trail. If you’re like us we obsess over tire pressure, grip compounds, suspension tune and even what color jersey we’re wearing (ok, that one has no influence over our ride, but we sure do look great in the parking lot), but sometimes we forget that handlebars bring key characteristics to ride quality that we can’t afford to ignore. This is why we brought the Range Handlebar to market.
We had a ton of fun learning about bars in the process and we wanted to pass the quality in performance and knowledge on to you, our customers. From the start, we knew we wanted to make an alloy bar. This compound really speaks to who we are as a brand. Alloy is durable, ensuring you can love it for the years and miles to come, and the production involved allows us to pass on more savings to you. And while we aren’t necessarily weight weenies here, we are stoked to bring one of the lightest alloy bars to the game at 300 grams.
So, what makes up this handlebar? While we love the durability, ride feel and lightness of alloy, within these catch-all terms there are subtleties in the material that make a difference on the trail. Choosing the right mix of alloy was a key factor in the development of our first PNW handlebar.
The majority of handlebars out there use a 6000-series alloy, this is the Honda Civic of alloy compounds. It’s reliable, inexpensive and gets the job done. To save on cost, 6000-series alloys use Silicon as part of the mixture instead of a superior element like Zinc. We respect this and use it in a few of our own products. But, there are some ultra premium bars that use 7000-series heat treated alloy which is the crème-de-la-crème of materials. In some instances, a 7000-series alloy can be lighter than carbon. These 7000-series alloys were developed by Japanese engineers for use in aerospace, and because some of us fall in the space nerd spectrum, we knew this was the alloy we had to have.
After we picked the type of alloy to use, we had to take into consideration the heat treatment process. This helps determine a handlebar’s longevity and ride quality. Heat-treating is when an alloy is baked at high temps to further forge the material together to increase hardness and durability. There are many styles of heat-treatment, but the majority we see in the bike world is T6. By removing the alloy from heat treatment at peak stiffness, T6 creates a very hard product. Of course, this is great for durability, but what about the ride quality? We’ve found that T6 can make for a harsher ride and in some cases, make for a brittle bar than can crack over time. To make a suppler alloy, we went with the T73 heat treatment process. This keeps the bar in heat treatment for slightly longer, giving the alloy compounds a better bond and in our opinion, better ride quality. It also reduces the brittleness of the bar, making it the perfect process for The Range Handlebar.
Of course, this material and heat-treatment process isn’t cheap. But we’ve always had a commitment to our customers to deliver the highest quality products at the best prices, so we chose a 7075-T73 heat-treated alloy that delivers on our promise. Lightweight, durable, but priced at where most 6000 alloy bars are.
"The Bachelor 150 works well and after six months is proving as reliable as the better posts on the market. To date, it's been a set-it-and-forget-it kind of component."
-Vernon Felton
"I have to say I really love this seatpost and I plan to continue running it for a long time. With a simple and reliable design and solid performance, there isn’t much more I can ask for from a dropper post."
- Jeff Barber
"Our time with the Bachelor post has been trouble free throughout the months of abuse we have put it through. The best parts on any bike are the ones you can install and forget about because they just work – the PNW Bachelor post is on that short list of parts."
-David Howell
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