Zipp Vukabull Carbon Base Bar
Few, if any, brands have dedicated so much of their R&D; to creating the most aerodynamic equipment as Zipp has. For fast bars that still allow you to maintain a comfortable position to churn out watts, you couldn't do much better than the Zipp VukaBull Carbon Base Bar. The VukaBull bars differ from the VukaAero bars in two important ways. At only 200 grams they're much lighter than the Aero bars. And, perhaps more important for those of you who are buying this to race UCI-sanctioned stage races, they are 100% UCI compliant. Hundreds of hours of research using computer simulations as well as practical trial and error have gone into the design of these bars. The result is a time trial bar that has an airfoil shape that reduces drag, stiffens the bar and still manages to comply with UCI specs. In Zipp's terminology, airfoil refers to the wing shape of a wheel or, in this case, the handlebar. The airfoil shape was designed to operate best at the speeds attained by a bicycle not an airplane, and to have the lowest drag in a 0 degree or flat on position in aspect to the wind. In fact, the airfoil shape is the main area where the folks at Zipp have lavished attention on the VukaBull handlebars. In addition to spending hours examining the shape using fluid dynamics modeling, Zipp spent lots of time in discussions with fitters, shop mechanics, athletes, and consumers to find that there were two main complaints in current base bar design and execution. The first complaint related to the fact that the clamp section for clip-on bars had been too narrow in the past. That piece of information led Zipp to widen this clamp area to accommodate larger riders and riders wanting a wider spread between the clip-ons. So now the clamp width is 120. 0mm, adding 10mm more space for lateral movement. The second most cited problem revolved around the insecure handling riders feel when riding the bars in a 0 degree aspect to the wind: riders felt as if their hands might slip off the fro...