I bought a new handlebar called the Profile Canta Race.
About the title: Setsuko's brother is Seita, and
Canta (Kanta) appears not in Grave of the Fireflies
but in My Neighbor Totoro.
↑This one
Canta is a pet name
that was used for Profile's drop bars from two generations ago.
I learned about it from the wholesaler's new arrivals on May 20th,
and the day after ordering, I went to pick it up from the wholesaler.
The reason I bought this was because
of its width—C-C (center to center) 330mm.
After that come 360mm, 390mm, and 420mm in 30mm increments.
At the time I noticed it on May 20th, the wholesaler had
1 unit of 330mm, 2 units of 360mm, 4 units of 390mm,
and no stock of 420mm.
The 420mm either hasn't arrived on the first shipment yet,
or maybe they're not even stocking it at all—it might be made-to-order only.
The 330mm sold out because I bought it—sorry about that.
The above numbers seem to have barely moved since the first shipment arrived.
That's because this handlebar costs ¥69,800 including tax.
Aside from aero bars,
nobody's even considering Profile drop bars
as an option, so stocking up more on niche specs
isn't contrarian—maybe it's actually with the trend?
↑That's a pretty outrageous thing to say
I'll promote this with this article, so forgive me!
Every time I see a new drop bar,
I research the narrow width lineup, but
I often get disappointed like: "Oh! 360mm you say!? But wait, that's the bracket section—
the drop section flares out 15mm on each side to 390mm,
so outside-to-outside it's over 400mm!"
when it turns out they're talking about the bracket width.
But with this handlebar, the stated width
is the C-C of the drop section. The bracket C-C
at the point where the handlebar extends furthest forward
measures about 290mm in actual measurement,
and around where the brake bracket clamp goes it's about 295mm.
The reason the upper part is 5mm wider is
because the drop section curves slightly inward
before flaring outward.
↑Drop section shape
I wrote an article before called "Ridiculously Huge Levers" (→here),
and while the levers are indeed large,
the handlebar drop is even smaller than that.
If it were just a matter of narrow width, bars like this
for junior racers have existed for a while,
but a C-C 330mm bar with normal drop amount
is pretty rare.
Maybe in the future, as handlebar widths around 360mm
become trendy for European body frames,
narrower lineup options like
340mm and 320mm width bars will proliferate.
If that happens, and cheaper bars with better design
called narrow drop bars come out,
I might regret buying something
priced at ¥69,800 including tax,
thinking I should have waited a bit longer.
I might end up regretting it, but I hope it happens anyway.
Though it probably won't.
Also, Profile tends to drop drop bars from their catalog
in what seems like spot production runs,
and I currently use an older Profile
DRV-series drop bar with
C-C 360mm, but the window to get it was short
and it's already discontinued—I can't even buy more.
The upbar has a forward-swept airfoil shape unrelated to bathing up to your shoulders,
and the flare (V-shaped spread of the drop section) is
as shown in the image above.
You can see it dips inward for a moment too.
I hate the recently trendy practice of setting
lever brackets inward (I don't grip the bracket section continuously anyway),
but I think another reason it's popular
is that when you bend the bracket parallel
to the flared drop section—which is also common lately—
the bend looks less obvious.
The step indicating where bar tape wrapping ends
and the cable hole on the bracket side
The cable hole on the stem side
lets you choose whether to route the cable inside the stem or out.
The Canta Race is a Profile drop bar,
but it doesn't support the mounting of
aero bars that the company specializes in.
The previous DRV-series bars
and even earlier models like the Canta Ergo Carbon drop bar
could accommodate aero bar mounting.
With the Canta Race, the truly round portion
of the stem clamp section is
extremely narrow,
measuring about 47mm even with a bit of forcing.
Other than the stem,
REC-MOUNTS® Type-19
and similar dual-mount brackets are probably the limit.
I placed it on the corner of a desk so the handlebar wouldn't contact anything but the scale,
and measured its actual weight.
The stated weight is only published as "205g at 360mm,"
but my 330mm actually weighs 208g,
and with 30mm increments after that,
there's a high chance most units are fibbing.
That said, anything under 250g is pretty decent in my book,
so I'm not unhappy with this weight.
About the title: Setsuko's brother is Seita, and
Canta (Kanta) appears not in Grave of the Fireflies
but in My Neighbor Totoro.
↑This one
Canta is a pet name
that was used for Profile's drop bars from two generations ago.
I learned about it from the wholesaler's new arrivals on May 20th,
and the day after ordering, I went to pick it up from the wholesaler.
The reason I bought this was because
of its width—C-C (center to center) 330mm.
After that come 360mm, 390mm, and 420mm in 30mm increments.
At the time I noticed it on May 20th, the wholesaler had
1 unit of 330mm, 2 units of 360mm, 4 units of 390mm,
and no stock of 420mm.
The 420mm either hasn't arrived on the first shipment yet,
or maybe they're not even stocking it at all—it might be made-to-order only.
The 330mm sold out because I bought it—sorry about that.
The above numbers seem to have barely moved since the first shipment arrived.
That's because this handlebar costs ¥69,800 including tax.
Aside from aero bars,
nobody's even considering Profile drop bars
as an option, so stocking up more on niche specs
isn't contrarian—maybe it's actually with the trend?
↑That's a pretty outrageous thing to say
I'll promote this with this article, so forgive me!
Every time I see a new drop bar,
I research the narrow width lineup, but
I often get disappointed like: "Oh! 360mm you say!? But wait, that's the bracket section—
the drop section flares out 15mm on each side to 390mm,
so outside-to-outside it's over 400mm!"
when it turns out they're talking about the bracket width.
But with this handlebar, the stated width
is the C-C of the drop section. The bracket C-C
at the point where the handlebar extends furthest forward
measures about 290mm in actual measurement,
and around where the brake bracket clamp goes it's about 295mm.
The reason the upper part is 5mm wider is
because the drop section curves slightly inward
before flaring outward.
↑Drop section shape
I wrote an article before called "Ridiculously Huge Levers" (→here),
and while the levers are indeed large,
the handlebar drop is even smaller than that.
If it were just a matter of narrow width, bars like this
for junior racers have existed for a while,
but a C-C 330mm bar with normal drop amount
is pretty rare.
Maybe in the future, as handlebar widths around 360mm
become trendy for European body frames,
narrower lineup options like
340mm and 320mm width bars will proliferate.
If that happens, and cheaper bars with better design
called narrow drop bars come out,
I might regret buying something
priced at ¥69,800 including tax,
thinking I should have waited a bit longer.
I might end up regretting it, but I hope it happens anyway.
Though it probably won't.
Also, Profile tends to drop drop bars from their catalog
in what seems like spot production runs,
and I currently use an older Profile
DRV-series drop bar with
C-C 360mm, but the window to get it was short
and it's already discontinued—I can't even buy more.
The upbar has a forward-swept airfoil shape unrelated to bathing up to your shoulders,
and the flare (V-shaped spread of the drop section) is
as shown in the image above.
You can see it dips inward for a moment too.
I hate the recently trendy practice of setting
lever brackets inward (I don't grip the bracket section continuously anyway),
but I think another reason it's popular
is that when you bend the bracket parallel
to the flared drop section—which is also common lately—
the bend looks less obvious.
The step indicating where bar tape wrapping ends
and the cable hole on the bracket side
The cable hole on the stem side
lets you choose whether to route the cable inside the stem or out.
The Canta Race is a Profile drop bar,
but it doesn't support the mounting of
aero bars that the company specializes in.
The previous DRV-series bars
and even earlier models like the Canta Ergo Carbon drop bar
could accommodate aero bar mounting.
With the Canta Race, the truly round portion
of the stem clamp section is
extremely narrow,
measuring about 47mm even with a bit of forcing.
Other than the stem,
REC-MOUNTS® Type-19
and similar dual-mount brackets are probably the limit.
I placed it on the corner of a desk so the handlebar wouldn't contact anything but the scale,
and measured its actual weight.
The stated weight is only published as "205g at 360mm,"
but my 330mm actually weighs 208g,
and with 30mm increments after that,
there's a high chance most units are fibbing.
That said, anything under 250g is pretty decent in my book,
so I'm not unhappy with this weight.