At 777mm wide, the Spike bars seem made for the downhill and freeride set, but at 290g for the 15mm rise version we tested they’re light enough to complement any aggressive trail bike build.
Spank make their bars from their Super Six aluminium, and have invested a lot of money in tooling to allow for serious metal manipulation. They call it Dual Extreme Gradual Taper (it’s extremely gradual!) and it means the bars have thicker walls at high stress points and thinner walls elsewhere to keep weight down.
The ends of the bars do thicken up to resist damage. The result is a wide, stiff but light bar with excellent vibration absorption. Switching from our old alloy bars, the Spike made a noticeable difference to the amount of harsh and tiring chatter we felt through the grips.
With a four-degree upsweep and eight-degree back, it feels spot on, and it comes in a load of rises from a 29er-friendly 5mm to 50mm. You can choose from black, blue, red and white, but we reckon the highly polished chrome finish may well be the most popular.
This article was originally published in What Mountain Bike magazine, available on Apple Newsstand and Zinio.