I have these on a klunkerish '84 TREK mountain frame with a horizontal crown rigid fork. I prefer the hand position to flat bars. My only concern was that an earlier testimonial said they had finally failed after years of pounding, and I live in the mountains and do ride this bike on trails. However, I only weigh 133 lbs. and the absurdly wide vintage rims allow me to run the biggest folding tires that will fit at pressures in the 20's,
so they'll likely hold up. And, they're beautifully made-

Nice compact bar for heads-up riding in town but with enough attitude for efficient riding on open roads, and for hill climbing. I installed this on a road bike I have previously used for long-distance commuting on open roads (40 miles a day) that I now need for more mixed commuting (about 15 miles a day on city streets and bike paths). I wanted something with a more heads-up posture for navigating busy streets, but I wanted to still be able to put the hammer down for longer sections of open road. This bar serves both purposes very well and its more-compact form allows for easy transport when carrying inside buildings, stairways, and lite rail. I angled it down slightly for better leverage when climbing hills. Very pleased with the result and look.

A swept back bar with a forward position- perfecto. Pairs with VO City Bike levers.

I’ve got two of these and the one on my main bike failed this morning. It had at least 10k miles of bunnyhopping, occasional at-speed unavoidable pothole slams, a lot of rocky/rooty dirt trail use, and quite a bit of the pavement riding was below 0°F. It has evidence of having been fractured for at least a few months prior to this morning’s full fail (black in a ~15° portion of the opened grain, shades of dark grey totalling ~160° transitioning to the fresh grain). Had I been doing at least a yearly disassembly, clean, & inspection, I definitely would’ve caught it.

The site used to have a warning that these bars were not for trail use, which I remember consciously disregarding at purchase.

Due to these having just absolutely wonderful flex characteristics and a really useful (for my hands & arms) set of available positions when taped instead of using grips, 10/10 will buy again- I’ll just retire them at ~5k miles of abuse, which is about where GP5K’s die anyways. These cost less than the tires and I kinda enjoy doing bartape, so it’s no biggie to just swap them at the same time every time I swap in fresh tires (so long as VO doesn’t go and discontinue them).

I might’ve just talked myself into trying to make a bulk purchase of these to guarantee I have them on-hand in the garage as needed.

Excellent finish and form. Would highly recommend these, esp. at the price. The only caveat I can think of is that if you are thinking of getting "rapid-fire"-type shifters, they will most likely sit on the bend and not be at an optimal angle. I made mine work, but friction thumb shifter, bar-end shifters, or perhaps even an integrated brake lever/shifter might be better options.