I have to admit this emerging trend crept up on me.

Let me put it this way…you may have heard the saying, “Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time Is A Pattern.”

That’s kinda what happened to me when I looked around recently and saw more and more companies bringing back the v-bar handlebar.

Long a staple of old school BMX, v-bars fell out of favor decades ago in favor of straight cross-bars.

Sure, v-bars would pop up here and there over the years but they were definitely outliers in the BMX world.

But, then they started creeping back.

NoWear BMX’s Candy Bar was one of the first modern-day v-bars that started appearing on new school bikes.

Still, they were very much a niche product (and notably given the name and design…probably pretty handy if you were into candybar tricks).

Next to come across my radar was the Knight Retro V-10 Bar.

Sporting old schooling but a very contemporary 10″ rise and 30″ width, these bars were lookers.

With a sweep of 11 degrees back and  1.5 degrees up, they could easily work on both old school and new school rides.

The third example is the DK Chamberlain bar.

The thinking behind this one seems similar to the Knight bar above, according to the DK site, we shouldn’t be swayed by the retro-inspired “V” crossbar, the DK Chamberlain bars are “modern-day marvels”.

Butted cro-mo construction, a modern 9.8″ rise and 29.5″ width are right where they should be for a modern day ride. 11 degrees back sweep  and 4 degrees upsweep are also current. The V bar is what gives them their swagger (and the copper colorway even more so!)

The V-bar on the Chamberlain bar is also functional.

According to DK, the V crossbar serves to help reduce the “box” size of the bar, giving you “more room to move” (vs. other boxier big bars).

Are these modern-day V-bars the thin edge of a V-shaped wedge poised to disrupt the world of traditional looking handlebars?

I don’t want to make any wild predictions….but I can’t be the only one noticing these new options and contemplating on what they would look like bolted to their ride.