Bike Ahead has a new lightweight, ultra-premium The Unit ICR 1-piece carbon mountain bike handlebar & stem combo for riders looking for an extra sleek cockpit setup. With boxy, angular styling to match your spoked BiTurbo RSX wheels, the German carbon experts at Bike Ahead tuck your brake lines out of the way for the smoothest internal routing into the headset of your modern trail bike.Bike Ahead The Unit ICR ultralight 1-piece MTB cockpit(Photos/Bike Ahead)Taking their already lightweight, manta-inspired The Unit combined carbon mountain bike handlebar and stem to the next level. Bike Ahead created an even lighter version with integrated internal cable routing channels. They call this new 1-piece carbon The Unit ICR bar+stem combo. The perfectly integrated cockpit solution for the high-end modern mountain bike. Its even rated for enduro an eMTBs!Its now a surprising 10% lighter, while routing cables into the bar just 80mm before the center, so they can then smoothly curve inside the stem, down into the headset. Of course, since mountain bike brakes almost exclusively have external hoses, youd want something like the latest SRAM Stealth brake levers or another brake like the Trickstuff Piccola that allows you to adjust the angle of the brake lines to tuck closely to the bar. But with more and more bikes featuring cable routing through their headset, this looks like one of the most tidy setups you can get when money is no object.Picking the right MTB bar for youThis new Bike Ahead bar is all about creating a sleek and lightweight mountain bike cockpit, shedding 16g off the previous version without internal routing. Its super expensive, but claims to balance its light weight with ride-tuned stiffness.Does your mountain bike bar need to be ultra-light or ultra-stiff? Earlier this year we took 42 different MTB bars out on the trail, then into the test lab to empirically see how material, clamp diameter & rise affect how your mountain bike rides. If you havent checked that video out, you really should. I think the big takeaway was that stiffness wasnt the only metric you want in an MTB bar. But even the most expensive bar in that test was less than 1/2 the price of this unit. Although we didnt test any 1-piece bar+stem combos.Now, we didnt include any Bike Ahead bars in that test. And weve not laid hands on this new Unit, so lets take a closer look at what sets it apartTech detailshandmade in Germany from UD carbon, with raw unpainted matte finishultralight carbon layup optimized for good damping with the best possible torsional stiffnessweight claims from 199g (44mm stem x 800mm wide) up to 210g (77x800mm)ICR internal cable routing compatible2 cables/hoses per side making it work with mechanical or electronic shifting, dropper posts & brakesdesigned to work with 1.5 Acros IS52 integrated routing headsets9.5 backsweep0mm rise for all sizes, except 15mm ride for the shortest 44mm virtual stem4 stem sizes available: 44mm x 0, 55mm x -4, 66mm x -8, 77mm x -10 titanium stem clamp hardwareNo-Slip brake lever clamping area treatment for lower required clamping pressuresincludes integrated top cap & steerer tube spacerdirect face-mount, 9.5g out-front GPS mount available separately for ~140 more!ASTM4 standard tested, approved up to enduro & eMTB use with max 130kg rider + gear weight limitBike Ahead The Unit ICR MTB handlebar Pricing, options & availability Maximum tidiness and super light. The new Bike Ahead The Unit ICR integrated MTB cockpit sells for 639. Thats 90 more than the regular external routing Unit. It is wildly light though, and made entirely in-house at All Ahead Composites HQ just outside of Wrzburg, Germany. Four stem sizes are available now (44, 55, 66 & 77mm), each with its own effective stem angle and bar rise, but all 800mm wide. Just dont forget, if you want the ultralight out-front GPS mount, itll add a shocking 20% extra cost to the price of this bar!Bike-Ahead-composites.deThe post Bike Aheads The Unit ICR is Sleek, Light & Maybe the Most Expensive MTB Handlebar appeared first on Bikerumor.