Dropper specialist BikeYoke finally expands deep into MTB cockpits with the long-awaited Barmate Carbon mountain bike handlebars that we’ve been sneaking peeks at for years. They feature built-in vertical flex for enhanced rider comfort & reduced fatigue, yet are still gravity-ready. Then, BikeYoke also has some tough alloy Barmate bars for mountain bikers on more of a budget.
Plus, in classic BikeYoke fashion, they geek out on the details and propose a more logical way to describe MTB bar dimensions so riders can more accurately get their hands where they want with a new bar and stem setup. We’ll delve into that in a bit, too.
But before I get techy, I just want to tease that I’ve been riding the new BikeYoke Barmate Carbon bar for a few months, and I feel like it’s the only 35mm bar I want to ride anymore…
BikeYoke BarMate Carbon mountain bike handlebars
BikeYoke says they’ve been working on the Barmate handlebar project since 2020. The first time they let us tease one of these bars was back in 2023. And already then, I was drawn in by the combination of the oversized 35mm clamping area which quickly tapered to the flattened section at the edge of its rise. It seemed almost obvious as someone who feels like round 35mm bars are simply unnecessarily stiff & uncomfortable.
This unique carbon bar flattening allows the BikeYoke Barmate Carbon bar to be stiff laterally & torsionally in the directions that make handling precise. But vertically, the carbon bar can flex to damp trail chatter & vibration, reducing rider fatigue and even reducing arm pump on long descents.
Bike Yoke says their goal with the bar was “nothing less than making the most compliant and comfortable 35mm carbon handlebar” on the market. That’s what took them so long to refine the bar’s layup and titanium reinforcement, delivering compliance while still making a bar strong enough to get the highest EFBE Tri-Test MTB-Gravity category 5 certification.
MTB Handlebar Stack & Reach sizing vs. Rise
Not only does BikeYoke aim to bring rider comfort back to oversized 35m bars, they also want us all to rethink how we talk about handlebar dimensions in a more consistent way. The reason is simple, handlebar size is typically ambiguously described by ‘Rise’ – the height a bar rises as it tapers up from the clamping area.
But the length of the taper varies from one manufacturer (or even different materials) to the next. And since most (but not all) bars now have upsweep, they continue to ‘rise’ as you move away from the taper towards the hand position. And let’s not get too deep into the fact that rotating your bar a few degrees forward or back changes how much they ‘rise’ because bars also vary in backsweep. (BikeYoke’s ‘Handlebar geometry explained.pdf‘ pdf quantifies those impacts, too.)
What it all amounts to is that no two bars with the same Rise are likely to put your hands in exactly the same position.
So BikeYoke proposes to describe handlebars by their objective bar Stack & bar Reach, just like bike makers have adopted with frame sizing over the last decade or so. Then, you can combine that bar dimension with stem Stack & Reach and frame Stack & Reach, and be sure where your new cockpit setup will end up.
Read more about it here if you want to geek out on handlebar & cockpit geometry measurement and variation with BikeYoke.
Carbon Barmate Tech Details
- 35mm clamp carbon mountain bike handlebar
- 6° upsweep & 9° backsweep
- 800mm wide, can be cut down to a minimum 760mm width
- embedded titanium mesh reinforcement at the stem & controls to distribute peak clamping pressure without carbon damage
- max 65mm stem clamping width
- max 6Nm stem clamping, max 3Nm controls clamping
- EFBE Tri-Test MTB-Gravity Cat 5 tested
- no rider weight limit
- 50mm & 65mm Bar Stack sizes available (comparable to ~20mm & 35mm rise)
- -35mm Bar Reach
- claimed weight 260g (50) & 265g (65)
- raw carbon with matte clearcoat
BikeYoke Barmate aluminum mountain bike handlebars, too
Now while the uniquely tapered carbon bars was all about bringing comfort & compliance back to 35mm, the Barmate Aluminum handlebar is just meant to be a tough no-nonsense handlebar you can put on anything from your trail bike to your DH bike. Tough but light and affordable, in custom heat-treated 7050 alloy.
It’s made to fit any modern 35mm clamp mountain bike stem. And meant to make you bike look good – either in classic brushed and anodized black or a unique silver AND black finish. The two-tone bars silver to the left of the stem, black to the right. BikeYoke first brushes the bars by hand, then anodizes them silver, then masks off the left side and anodizes the rest again in black, before laser etching logos and alignment marks. The result is a really cool look that’s just as durable as single color ano bar.
Aluminum Barmate Tech Details
- 35mm clamp, heat-treated 7050 aluminum mountain bike handlebar
- 6° upsweep & 9° backsweep
- 800mm wide, can be cut down to a minimum 750mm width
- max 85mm stem clamping width to work with wide Direct Mount stems on dual-crown forks
- max 6Nm stem clamping, max 4Nm controls clamping
- EFBE Tri-Test MTB-Gravity Cat 5 tested
- no rider weight limit
- 50mm & 65mm Stack sizes available (comparable to ~20mm & 35mm rise)
- -35mm Bar Reach
- claimed weight 325g (50) & 325g (65)
- available in all-black or unique half-black/half-silver anodized finishes
Riding the new Barmate Carbon 50 bar
I’ve been riding the mid-rise Barmate Carbon bar on an all-mountain bike since the last days of 2024. And while it’s only been in the past month that I’ve been riding on drier trails not covered in ice and snow, I’m pretty confident that I’ve come to a conclusion about this bar. And I’m not sure I can go back.
I think this may be the first 35mm bar I’ve ridden that feels like it hits that sweet spot of delivering precise bike control without feeling overly stiff.
I’m no light rider at 86kg (190lb), and I ride some of the most technical and physically demanding mountain bike trails in Europe. I may not be super fast, but enjoy riding the steepest and rockiest tracks that I can find. And yet almost every carbon or aluminum 35mm bar I have ridden has felt like it was stiffer than need be. I was perfectly happy with most 31.8mm bars, and would never have gone bigger, except that almost every new trail/all-mountain/enduro/freeride bike I tested for the last couple of years came fitted with a 35mm diameter bar clamp.
In the best cases, they weren’t so bad and I dealt with it. But on a couple of bikes – both alloy & carbon 35mm bars – I noticed that my hands, arms or shoulders were especially sore after a couple of long days on the bike with a lot of descending. It was especially noticeable when shuttling high-speed enduro tracks or spending repeated days in bikeparks.
Finally a compliant 35mm bar!
I’ve yet to repeat that with the new BikeYoke Barmate Carbon bar. But I can already notice how the subtle vertical flex of the bar slightly mutes a bit of the choppy feel out of brake bumps and choppy, rocky & rooty trails. Yet, I don’t actually feel it flexing enough while riding to change my sense of stability or control. Standing still, you can really push up & down on the bar and see it flex vertically though, just like you can see your tire flex or watch the suspension go up & down.
With only a few months of winter trail riding on the new carbon bar, it feels a bit presumptuous to say, but this is likely the best 35mm bar I’ve ever ridden. And I think I want to put one on both of my personal mountain bikes. I get the feeling this is going to be my new benchmark to compare how other mountain bike bars feel and perform, curiously in the same way that a BikeYoke Revive is the post that I compare all other droppers to.
BikeYoke Barmate handlebars – Pricing, options & availability
All of the new Barmate bars are available no directly from BikeYoke. All come in either 50 or 65mm Rise, and are compatible with 35mm stem clamps only.
The BikeYoke Barmate Carbon handlebars sell for $270 / 270€.
The two-tone silver & black Barmate Aluminum bars sell for $99 /99€, and the simple black aluminum bars for just $89 / 89€.
