Following on from the successful launch of its strongest carbon cranks to date, the Race Face Era lineup continues to expand for 2024. Just recently we saw the arrival of the Era carbon wheelset, and now Race Face is set to launch a brand new carbon handlebar under the same Era name. Not only that, but there’s a fully redesigned Turbine alloy handlebar joining the range too.

Mountain bike handlebars might seem like a dime-a-dozen these days, but with some five years of development behind the new Era and Turbine, Race Face claims it has cracked the code when it comes to overall ride quality. The result is no fewer than 12 different handlebars, all of which place a big focus on compliance and reducing rider fatigue.

Developing the new Race Face Era & Turbine handlebars

Back in 2019, the Race Face engineering team started a development project to investigate the various factors that cause arm pump. This involved strapping bump accelerometers to rider’s arms in order to measure the frequencies being transmitted from the trail and up into the grips.

The team tested a huge variety of different bars on the market, which included a serious amount of in-house lab testing to assess flex characteristics and overall strength.

Results proved interesting, with Race Face claiming that the stiffest handlebar it tested was actually a 31.8mm diameter carbon bar. The team also stated they found no advantages from foam-filled bars, and while the oval-shaped bars from OneUp were highly compliant in a single direction, that compliance was significantly impacted by rolling the bars forwards or backwards. Shade thrown!

The Goldilocks Tune

New prototype handlebars were concocted, with some 4,000 ride hours tracked over the five-year development phase. Utilising blind testing (covering up the bars, not the rider’s eyes – yikes!), the team began to hone in on the sweet spot between handlebar compliance and steering rigidity.

In the end 85% of test riders preferred a particular zone, which gave the engineers a specific flex metric that’s measured in Newtons per millimetre (N/mm). Race Face refers to this metric as the ‘Goldilocks Tune’, or GL for short.

To achieve this sweet spot, the Era handlebar features a 96-piece unidirectional carbon fibre layup with tailored internal and external shaping. Both the rise and the taper start earlier, and the stem clamping area has been narrowed to 60mm. This means that some of the really wide direct-mount DH stems on the market won’t fit the Era, but most stems won’t have that issue.

The result is a compliant carbon bar that Race Face claims has the highest strength to weight ratio of any it’s tested. As such, the Era handlebar comes with the same lifetime warranty that you’ll find on the Era cranks and wheels, which includes crashing. Nice!

Three widths, plus alloy Turbine bars

A crucial and often overlooked aspect to compliance is how much a rider will cut their bars down. In testing, Race Face found that an 800mm wide bar cut down to 760mm increased overall stiffness by 24%. That’s a lot, and it really negates much of the engineering work that has gone into developing the bar’s intended flex characteristics.

As you’ll probably know, the aforementioned scenario is pretty common in the mountain bike world. To save costs, most brands just produce a single 800mm wide handlebar and expect riders to trim it to length as needed. Race Face didn’t want to do that, so it went to the trouble of developing three unique width options; 760mm, 780mm and 800mm. That makes it much easier to get the right bar for your width preferences, with less need to bust out the hacksaw.

On top of that, Race Face is applying much of the same learnings into its Turbine alloy handlebar. New for this year, the latest Turbine bar is made from 7000-series alloy and utilises specific internally butted profiles to achieve the same flex characteristics as the Era, albeit at a considerably cheaper price point.

Race Face Era Handlebar Price & Specs

• Material | 96-Piece Unidirectional Carbon Fibre Layup
• Widths | 760mm, 780mm & 800mm
• Rise Options | 10mm, 20mm & 40mm
• Sweep | 8º Back & 5º Up
• Clamp Diameter | 35mm
• Claimed Weight | 220g (800 x 40mm)
• Actual Weight | 193g (760 x 10mm)
• Colours | Grey, Stealth, Orange, Red, Blue & Kashmoney
• Warranty | Lifetime (Crashing Included)
• Price | $299 AUD

Race Face Turbine Handlebar Price & Specs

• Material | 7075 Alloy
• Widths | 760mm, 780mm & 800mm
• Rise Options | 10mm, 20mm & 40mm
• Sweep | 8º Back & 5º Up
• Clamp Diameter | 35mm
• Claimed Weight | 315g (800 x 40mm)
• Colours | Black, Stealth, Orange, Red, Blue, Purple & Kashmoney
• Warranty | Lifetime (Crashing Included)
• Price |$169 AUD

Testing the Race Face Era handlebar

As part of the 2025 Fox and Race Face launch over in Scotts Valley, California, we had the chance to test out a variety of new components including the Race Face Era carbon wheelset and the new Fox 34 and 36 GRIP X forks.

We also had our bikes fitted with the new Race Face Era handlebar. Mick put a 780mm wide bar on his Santa Cruz Tallboy, and Wil fitted a 760mm wide bar on his Pivot Switchblade. No cutting-down was necessary, which was particularly appreciated by Wil who finds it rare to find a dedicated 760mm wide bar these days.

We rode all week on the steep and flowy terrain around Santa Cruz (holy mackerel, those trails!), before returning back home to carry on testing.

In short, neither of us have thought at all about these bars, and we mean that in the best way possible. The Race Face Era bar features a great sweep profile, and after the initial setup we haven’t needed to mess around with bar roll or stem height. Both bars have been comfortable right off the bat, offering good vibration absorption and no harshness to speak of.

Initial impressions would suggest that this is one of the more compliant bars we’ve ridden, even compared to the excellent OneUp carbon bars. We’ll see if we can verify that experience with some back-to-back testing in the near future.

Flow’s Verdict

The Race Face Era is a high-end carbon bar with a suitably high-end price. That’s to be expected given all the testing and engineering work that went into this 5-year development project, and we think it’s justifiable given the trouble that Race Face has gone to in producing three specific widths and three rise options.

We love the fact that you can buy the right width to suit your requirements in the first place, with less need to chop the bars down. The result is a compliant ride quality that allows the Era to flex and effectively filter out high-speed buzz, improving comfort across chunky terrain.

If you’re looking for a cheaper option, the Turbine boasts the same flex properties while being offered in a huge array of options with numerous colours to choose from. It also gets the same lifetime warranty, which offers great peace of mind.