A milling machine is needed for the stem and composite lay-up supplies for the handlebar. A 2,5 axis NC-milling machine and vacuum bagging system is recommended. We made use of laser cutting, water-jet cutting and 3D printing, but they can be replaced with manual cutting and sculpting.
The handlebar consists of a sandwich structure with two identical curved skins or faces, two mirrored corrugated cores and two mirrored tubular handles. The stem consists of a main body, clamp and face plate. The design shown here has two rearward facing 3x3 red LEDs, one 4x4 white LED array facing forward and a push button switch with a blue background LED. The system is powered by four CR2032 button batteries. The whole package is very light and has excellent torsional stiffness even-though it is not a tubular structure.
Updates etc. will be up on the project's website later this year http://www.ideas2cycles.com
Step 1: Design
The stem was designed to accomodate batteries and LEDs inside and also to provide a surface for bonding the handlebar onto. A 2"x2" 6061 aluminium alloy stock was used for the main body and the clamp. The face plate was water-jet cut from 1/8" aluminium alloy sheet. Eight M4x0,7 mm steel bolts were used for hardware.
The handlebar uses a (pseudo)aerodynamic open sandwich structure with curved faces (or skins) and a transverse corrugated core. The design process started by setting a center-to-center dimension of 420 mm for the handles and placing them to where a bullhorn handlebar would be gripped. A mild forward sweep and a shallow drop was selected. The faces are 50 mm wide at the stem and taper to 35 mm toward the handles. They are fabricated identical and both have a 250 mm radius of curvature that results in the drop of the handlebar. The faces are 40 mm apart at the stem and become closer each other towards the handles. The handles themselves are 25 mm in diameter and morph into a near square shape between the faces. They can be made to accomodate time trial brake levers if needed.