Salsa’s tagline reads Adventure by Bike, so naturally their product tends to skew that direction. With their latest refresh of their cockpit component line, Salsa is adding to the adventure theme with bars that are better built for off and on road adventures – especially bikepacking.
One key change that you’ll see on the new carbon bars is a wider 31.8mm clamping section. Bars like the aluminum Cowchipper above have a 120mm wide section, but the carbon bars bump up to 140mm. Why? More room for stuff. Whether that’s aerobars for a Tour Divide attempt, or extra mounting space for a front bag system like the Salsa EXP Anything Cradle, the bars offer more real estate to clamp things down.
All of their bars are now offered in three levels as well – standard, Deluxe, and Carbon. The standard bars are made from 6061-T6 aluminum, while the Deluxe see lighter/stronger 7050-T6 aluminum with a polished center section. The carbon bars have been designed to be lighter, stiffer, and more comfortable, all while offering the extra bar space as mentioned. Salsa puts these bars through the ringer on the testing side as well, noting that the Cowchipper and Woodchipper carbon are tested to the same ISO 4210 mountain bike standards as their aluminum mountain bike bars since they’ll be subjected to the same kind of abuse.
While the exact weights weren’t given, Salsa said that the carbon bars should come in about 75g lighter than their aluminum counterparts. Pricing for the Cowbell, Cowchipper, and Wood Chipper is $50, $75, and $215 for standard, Deluxe, and Carbon respectively.
It’s a similar story for their mountain bars, with the carbon versions getting an extra 20mm of mounting space in the center. Both the Salt Flat and Rustler rise bars will be available in both 750 and 800mm lengths, and in standard, Deluxe, and Carbon for $39, $69, and $140. Note that these bars have a slightly more aggressive sweep than most with an 11 degree backsweep and 6 degree upsweep, which felt surprisingly comfortable in the short time we had to check them out at Frostbike.
Salsa is filling out their lineup with the Guide seatpost in standard, Deluxe, and Carbon, and two versions of the Guide stem. The seatposts are a fairly simple two-bolt head design with zero and 18mm offsets available and will be available in the standard three sizes for $50, $65, and $90. The Guide stems are the same that Salsa have offered previously, just with updated graphics and a $40 retail.
