I think its hard to say whether its £100 worse without knowing how it operates when tested under full load (eg 200 kg) and also sub optimal conditions. It might be better than North, it might be worse. If it doesn't operate efficiently under full load (as you potentially experience in an emergency situation), then to my mind, its absolutely worthless and I wouldn't touch it. As I said, maybe the starkites bar is great on all these counts, I don't know.BigPaul wrote: I'm not saying in anyway that these bars are as good as North cause they are not. I used to ride north up until Christmas and I loved the Iron Heart. But it is not £100 worse by any means.
It would be pretty helpful to have transparency around this issue (ie full and current test data available). Then if I could find a bar for €150 or more less that I knew performed as well as North, I'd be the first to switch. I also think this would stir up pricing (and mispricing).
Damn hard to sell a bar for $400+ that people can see doesn't work properly. Also hard to sell a bar for $600 that doesn't provide a meaningful benefit over a $400 bar that does work properly.
But without that data, I'd rather pay more to use a bar that has been tested - and has performed better than all others, some of which failed altogether, than to guess whether my primary safety is up to the job when push comes to shove.....