A note of caution...

[EggyBum6969]

to check the inside you can use an inspection camera pluged into a av port on a tv or bnc screen with adapter
or into a cctv dvr i use mine in quad view into the dvr the picture is brilliant

 

[ultrazenith]

This is perhaps the biggest problem with retrobiking, insofar as it limits the lifetime of your retrobike if you want to keep it period correct, or even original.

Sorry to hear of the OP's accident, and I am of the same mind regarding lightweight aluminium retro parts. Earlier this year I re-fitted the original (and barely used bitd) Avenir 185 g alloy bar to my main retro bike, simply to get back to as close to original build for my 1996 DBR Apex as possible. All seemed fine until 20 km into a 50 km mtb marathon race, when a creak started from the handlebar area. Back in the day, I recall everyone's bike had creaks under load after a year or so of use (cranks, bottom bracket, handlebar, seat post, etc.), so I didn't think to much of it. When I got home, after showing and getting some refreshment, I decided to check out the creak. Expecting to a bit of grit to fall out of the clamp area, I removed the bar, and to my horror I discovered a large crack running around 90% the circumference of the bulge of the bar! I nearly fainted at he thought of how hard I took some really gnarly rocky downhill sections, and how close I must have come to a catastropic accident...

From that day on, I have been really paranoid about all my aluminium load bearing parts. When something develops a click, I remove the part, clean, inspect for cracks, refit and if the clicking persists, the part gets retired.

I know also try to use only steel stems, seat posts, and bars. Weight savings from using aluminium are marginal for those parts, and steel is virtually immune to fatigue in this context. Titanium I will use as a second best, but steel gives me absolute peace of mind.

 

[mattr]

Except steel does have a fatigue life in that sort of application (unless you make it so heavy it distorts space and time), titanium (effectively) doesn't. Unless its rolled and welded, which most retro stuff probably is.
There are ways to minimise the risk of fatigue failure, that i'm not going into here, but none of them are particularly time consuming.

And FWIW I just bin bars after a few years heavy use. Or when i can't fix the source of the creak.

TBH, some brands are worse than others, those who buy boggo far eastern stuff, label it up as "own brand" and sell at premium prices are probably the worst, as you get the impression that they've spent money on R&D and quality control. In reality, they haven't, just some flashy stickers. Despite costing *almost* as much as another brand that probably (but not definitely) has spent the money.

 

[Max Mudroom]

I think the key here is what the intended purpose of those parts was. Yes, they were mountain bike parts but a lot of stuff made around 20 years ago was for lightweight XC style bikes. Mountain biking is much different these days. BITD when I was running a 140g flat handlebar I never saw the sort of trails that are commonplace at trail centres etc. now, big rock gardens, jumps and huge drop-offs were out of bounds for most of us in the early 1990s. I used to ride (and still do) mainly XC style, bridleways, fire roads, maybe technical singletrack including a lot of climbing for which you were thankful for light parts. But the sort of terrain that a modern trail bike can handle was simply unrideable 20 years ago. There was a real fashion for lightweight components in the early/mid 90s, I remember people used to drill holes in stuff to save weight! But then as people started using front suspension and venturing onto tougher trails, weight didn't matter so much, that's why people like X-lite brought in riser bars in the mid 90s with strengthening gussets on, for the very reason that lightweight stuff was snapping and bending. I doubt the original manufacturers thought their stuff would last more than a season or two, never mind still be in regular use 20 years later.

I now use a cheap torque wrench to avoid overtightening anything. Although the OP owned this bar from new, the danger with retro parts acquired second hand is that you don't know about possible crash damage by the previous owner(s).

 

[SimonBrown]

Re:

I doubt the original manufacturers thought their stuff would last more than a season or two, never mind still be in regular use 20 years later.

Quite.

But then as people started using front suspension and venturing onto tougher trails...

After years of promising myself I would fit some suspension front forks I finally got round to fitting some almost brand new 97 period Marzocchi Bomber forks. This was in late 2012 and around 9 months before the handlebars snapped. Did they change where I rode? No, not really - still the same tracks and trails. But I do know they took 12 seconds off my fastest singletrack downhill time.

Conclusion? I was going faster and probably subjecting the poor handlebars to greater loads than before. At some point, something had to give. And so it did.

Yeah, I know...in retrospect it was mental to just keep asking the handlebars to do their thing...but there you go.

 

[EggyBum6969]

ive got a number of raceface bits mainly stems an bars an seatposts old an new all still ok dont over tighten +1

 

[dyna-ti]

Lets not forget most could possibly be a few stone heavier :? ie Fatso.

 

[SimonBrown]

Re:

Ha ha ha...no! But it's not unreasonable to consider it a possible cause.

 

[jaypee]

Re:

Forgive my ignorance of hotrod bars but are they alumimium?

 

[SimonBrown]

Re:

Orange Hot Rod bars are indeed aluminium.