ProTaper Launches New Carbon and Aluminum Handlebars 1

The PROTAPER brand, through the years, has become the go-to cockpit solution for those athletes that want something better out of their time in the saddle. Respect for the brand has been honed over the years as each and every new product from the brand highlighted the dedication to constant improvement and innovation. A brief look over the product history only serves to underscore the depths to which ProTaper has been involved at shaping the competitive mountain biking world since its inception. As such, the brand is extremely proud to present several new products that highlight both the past as well as the future of quality MTB cockpit construction.

Icon Gold Bar: Bling, Better

Building the finest cockpit solutions for mountain biking’s future is partly due to having an amazing research and development department, but the engineers themselves would attribute a substantial part of their success to the accumulation of knowledge over the years. Innovating products since the inception of off-road cycling, the PROTAPER brand saw fit to release a throwback colorway to celebrate this important heritage that continues to pay dividends with every range of new products.

One of today’s most successful and sought-after handlebars, the ProTaper A25, gets a finishing and graphic treatment that recalls the very first gold bars from ProTaper launched in 1997 on Leigh Donovan’s world champion bike. So popular and iconic were those original bars that they became immediately synonymous with successful athletes but also became a bit of a ProTaper calling card. This new colorway of the 25mm rise bar celebrates the successful past of the brand atop a product that has evolved to take on the future of mountain biking. While the fame generated from the original bars has lasted over two decades, the Icon Gold Bars are available in very limited quantities and as such, won’t last very long.

PT C12 + PT C25: Carbon Control For The Rough Stuff

While the ICON GOLD BAR celebrates the glorious past of the brand through a throwback colorway on a modern product, the engineering team at the brand’s research and development center has been working diligently to produce solutions for the future of off-road. ProTaper proudly presents two amazing carbon bars, the PT C12 and PT C25 whose introduction represents a lightweight solution for mountain biking’s most demanding disciplines.

The ProTaper carbon bars feature PFL (plastic foam lamination) manufacturing technique that adds efficiency into the overall manufacturing process. Such a process allows for the reduction in necessary resin and carbon laminate, which then translates into a 15% lighter bar with respect to traditional manufacturing techniques...while maintaining extreme strength for even the roughest terrain or rider. In addition to reducing superfluous resin and carbon laminate, wall thickness ensures that material employment in the product’s structure is further optimized, reinforcing areas where strength is necessary and load forces are applied, while eliminating unnecessary material where possible. As these bars are designed for Downhill, Enduro and All Mountain, riders that prefer the more extreme side of off-road riding now have a lightweight solution that fears no terrain.

XC Hyperlite: The Featherweight Ticket to the Top of the Podium

ProTaper has become a trusted name in bars thanks to its unrivaled reliability through the years. It has become an exciting brand thanks to its tradition of pushing boundaries. The introduction of the XC Hyperlite marks the brand’s bold step into the cross-country segment. XC and XC Marathon both place extreme importance on efficiency, and in this highly competitive arena, every gram counts. A bar built for the most demanding World Cup level athletes must offer extreme reliability, and precision handling but also come in an extremely lightweight construction. The ProTaper engineering staff has worked diligently to develop a solution that ensures the hallmark PT reliability and resilient construction are guaranteed while aiming to produce a solution as ambitious in terms of weight reduction as the athletes it is aimed at serving. Only through meticulous research and development, countless iterations and a great deal of feedback from elite, world athletes were they able to produce the PROTAPER XC HYPERLITE.

By employing the relatively new PFL (plastic foam lamination) technology in addition to the precision tapering, excess material was completely eliminated and every remaining fiber in the new handlebar’s construction serves to ensure structural integrity and fantastic ride feel. The fruit of such labor come in the form of a final product weighing in at an unbelievably low 125gr, placing it amongst the lightest production carbon handlebars, if not the lightest, currently on the market. The ProTaper XC HYPERLITE is the new featherweight solution for those looking for extreme performance compliments to their racing ambitions. Anyone can produce a lightweight bar...but only ProTaper can produce the lightest and most reliable solution in one single package.

For more information, please visit hayesbicycle.com