Control Tech toward the end of 1993 introduced two handlebars, an Aluminum alloy model made in the United States, and a Russian made Ti handlebar. The aluminum model is made from a 7075 aluminum tube that serves a blank The piece of tubing has a 25.4mm outer diameter which is reduced as the piece is cold worked through a process called swaging, which squeezes the tubing between rotating rollers of a smaller diameter, forcing the tube to gain length while it reducing the outer diameter to the 22.2 required for the grips to slide on. The swage process also tapers the wall thickness from thick at the middle to thin toward the ends. Once the piece has been swaged the handlebar is bent, in this case Control has chosen 4 degrees as the compromise for the bend in all of their bars. After bending the bar, Control sends the handlebars out to a heat treat facility to elevate the temperature just below melting so the alloy can gain a temper from solution heat treatment, (read our Metals section to learn more). To eliminate any slight surface imperfections, the handlebar is "shot peened", which is a process of shooting tiny steel balls at the surface to make a fine, tiny dimple giving the piece an even texture. The shot peening process also relieves any remaining surface tension from the cold work. Finally the bar is anodized in one of 5 colors, Blue, Black, Green, Lavender or Silver. We cut a Control aluminum bar in half lengthwise to make some wall thickness measurements. In the front and rear bulge walls we found the wall thickness was 1.86mm. At the bend the thickness was 1.62mm front and 1.64mm rear. Over the remaining 7 1/4" (185mm) the wall thickness tapered to 1.15mm The Control bar is 23" (585mm) long and weighs 158 grams.
Color-B-BK-GN-L-S $ Price in Catalog
