OneUp Components Carbon E-Handlebar

If you go way back in time, like hundreds of years, you’ll find pictures of John Tomac and Myles Rockwell smashin out smooth downhill runs on rigid bikes with skinny tyres and round, flat bars. It took a long time for the handlebar to evolve from a broomstick to something that incorporated geometry - in the form of different widths, bends and rise. But even as this evolution was taking place with the handlebar going through four developments in the clamping area diameter and multiple jumps in widths, something always stayed the same - that round shape from the original broomstick. A few years ago some guys decided they’d had enough, with bars becoming mega stiff and a development phase that had maybe lost sight of the real-life needs of the average MTBer. OneUp jumped into the handlebar game in 2019 with a bar that was as fresh and innovative as its name wasn’t, and now they’ve taken that product one step further with the E-Bar - the oval e-bike bar to rule them all?

OneUp Components E-Bar Highlights

• 800mm Wide
• 35mm clamping diameter
• 35mm Rise
• 8° back sweep/5° up sweep
• Weight: 238g claimed
• Max stem clamp width: 65mm
• Minimum trim width: 740mm
• Colour: Black.
• Decal kits: Red, Green, Blue, Orange, Gold, Matte Bronze, Black, Purple, Oil Slick & White.
• Stealth Routing: wire ports & grooves for e-bike controller
• MSRP: $149.50 USD

Initial Impressions

Taking the bar out of the package, that sleek looking oval shape is visually striking, while the subtle black on black graphics and smooth bends contribute to a slim overall look. OneUp supplies high-quality stickers in many different colors should you wish to customize the color of your bar’s graphics to match your build - we found these to be of high quality and easy to apply.

After the oval shape, the ports and grooves present on this E-Bar are the second most striking feature. They exist to provide for stealthy cable routing for your e-bike controller, and were designed to work with units from Shimano and Bosch specifically (or any other controller that uses a connector diameter less than 6.5 mm).

Installation and Set-Up

We first cut the bar to our preferred 780 width. The markings on the bar make it easy to cut the precise amount needed. When double checking the positioning in the stem we were glad to see that the center mark is really in the center of the bar, something that is expected to be a handlebar standard but nowhere near being true in real life.

We tightened the stem to the suggested values and obtained a good grip without the use of any grip paste at all. We run all our controls under-tightened so they can spin and not break in case of a crash, and we checked to make sure that the cable routing channel on the underside of the bar does not interfere with the controls being able to slip and spin if need be.

Unfortunately we were not able to make use of the internal cable routing ports as we mounted the bar to a Specialized bike that is not compatible with this routing. However, from our experience on the spanners and by examining the shape and size of the ports we feel that the average customer may struggle fitting in the control cables through as intended. A suggestion for an improvement here could be for OneUp to supply this bar with pre-installed dummy cables to make installation easier (as often seen on aftermarket frames with internal cable routing).

On The Trail

Hitting the trails on the E-Bar got us feeling confident from the get go. The sweep and bend are of our preferred values for a natural feel while holding the bar. As for the big question about the compliance of the bar - it was not designed to be a suspension product, rather it was made to not be as stiff as a solid metal bar. We tested the compliance claims in a semi-scientific study of our own (you can check that study out HERE), and we did indeed find that the OneUp bar offers significantly more vertical compliance than any other bar we tested. This e-bike version exhibits the same characteristics as the bar we tested originally.

On the trail, this compliance translates to a certain amount of extra comfort that we have grown to appreciate more and more with time. There is a noticeable damped feel to the bar, compared to other mega stiff bars we’ve also spent some time on. The interesting part is that this damped feel doesn’t translate into a flimsy frond end, as that built-in compliance is directional and designed to work along the y-axis (vertical). When applying force to the bar in order to make a hard turn or under hard braking, the bar is solid and confidence inspiring.

Things That Could Be Improved

There's not much to report here, as we had zero issues regarding the strength and longevity of the bar. While most aggressive e-bikes tend to go well with a high rise bar, the increasing prevalence of  lighter and shorter travel e-bikes may mean that there is a need for the E-Bar to exist in a lower rise version as well - a 20mm version would be a good option to offer riders.

Long Term Durability

After three months of regular use and abuse, our E-Bar looks and feels as new, with the matte finish proving to be strong and stealthy. We have also been running the non-e-bike version for over a year with no issues.

What’s The Bottom Line?

We would like to thank the OneUp engineers for creating a great carbon handlebar for E-MTBs, with awesome ride characteristics and quality at a fair price - if you have compatible controls it will help tidy up your cable routing too. It is so good that this tester will surely fit another E-Bar to his analog bike, just to mess with other riders on the trail.

With regards,

Testers with soft hands and no time for the gym.

For more information, head on over to www.oneupcomponents.com.

About The Reviewer

Yonatan Yatom - Age: 27 // Years Riding MTB: 15 // Height :6'0" (1.83m) // Weight: 161 pounds (75kg)

Yonatan is a born racer and a bike addict. As a true competitor the only thing on his mind when lining up in the start gate is the finish line. With a background in local enduro and DH races and even the occasional appearance in an Enduro World Series on his resume, Yonatan has more recently applied himself to building bigger legs and trying his luck racing XC as well. Throughout the week he’ll be manning the spanners at the bike shop, reading about new stuff on the internet, and thinking about how to improve everything he rides. Yonatan’s riding style is fully pinned, smooth, and quiet but he can be nasty to his bike when needed.