Carver Bikes started as a house brand of Bikeman.com, where owner Davis Carver started creating and offering products that his suppliers were not making. Small, but with a loyal following, Carver had many niche products to market before larger brands.
Carver mostly works in titanium, and introduced the MyTi handlebar a few years ago, which is an Alt style sweep bar made from ti. A great material, but typically pretty expensive, and not very light. Enter the MyTi Carbon, coming in at 50% less weight and 33% less cost, and our first ride impression after the break…
710mm wide and with a 29 degree sweep, the bar’s specifications check off the boxes of Alt bar fans. These bars were popularized amongst the rigid 29er riders and fat bike riders because the drastic sweeps give greater comfort when riding. The MyTi Carbon also has a proper forward sweep first, in order to keep the general hand position similar to a standard flat bar, so that the sweep does not mess up the intended fit of the bike.
The original MyTi weighed in at a portly 505 grams. Alt bars have extra material, so the weight was partially due to that, but also titanium does not make for the lightest bar no matter what the design. Moving to carbon fiber dropped the weight to just 221 grams, cutting off an impressive 284 grams. Cutting weight is impressive, but at the same time, the price also dropped from $149.95 to $99.95.
For an initial review, I mounted the bar to my Surly Ice Cream Truck. The simple flat black paint and small, simple logos blend in well, and don’t draw unnecessary attention. They replaced a 740mm wide flat bar with a 9 degree sweep, and the fit was spot-on, there was no change to stem length needed. However, due to the angle of the bars, the brake lines on the Sram Guide brakes were now technically too short, since they were being angled further forward, and that caused them to pull tight under a full turn of the bars. For a longer ride test, I will need to change out to a longer brake line.
The Carver MyTi Carbon presents a great value at $99.95. So new, it is not even listed on the Carver website yet, but is already for sale at Bikeman.com
