About

Coefficient Cycling builds carbon handlebars and wheels around one stubborn idea: the parts that connect you to the bike should be engineered for comfort and speed together, not one at the expense of the other.

It started with a wave

The company's first handlebar debuted as a prototype at the Sea Otter Classic in 2016 — an aluminium-alloy "Wave" bar, machined locally, that swept and sloped the bar tops instead of running them straight across. Founder Don Sheff had spent years chasing a hand position that stayed comfortable hour after hour, and the Wave was the proof of concept. The production carbon bars that followed carry the same shape, now called SWOPE.

The science of the shape

SWOPE pairs 12 degrees of rearward sweep with 15 degrees of downward slope to seat your shoulders, arms and wrists in a more natural position. Coefficient benchmarked the design in the San Diego Low Speed Wind Tunnel against the Zipp SL-70 Aero, and studies its bar-top geometry with the performance-science lab MotionMetriq and bike-fit specialists Cyclologic. The bar-top design is protected by U.S. Patent No. 11,505,275, "Ergonomic handlebar systems." You can read the detail on our science page.

Made to be ridden hard

Every Coefficient bar is molded from Toray unidirectional carbon. The RR is the firmer, road-leaning bar; the AR is the more compliant, gravel-leaning one — both built for pavement and gravel alike. The results back the approach: Ian Boswell won the 2021 Unbound Gravel 200, the marquee race in US gravel, riding a Coefficient RR, as the independent pro-bike checks from Bike Perfect and Gravel Cyclist documented.