If you’ve been mountain biking long enough, cast your mind back long enough and you’ll remember that Italian company 3T used to produce a range of mountain bike components, when the company partnered with Salsa Cycles.

It wasn’t long before the 3T brand was hitting the headlines. At the 1994 World Championships in Vail, Colorado legendary Frenchman Nicolas Vouilloz won the junior downhill race with a pair of 3T downhill handlebars bolted to his bike.

After many years without a mountain range the company is rebooting its off-road offerings, with the release of handlebars, stems and seatposts for 2011. 3T has gained a lot of publicity when it launched a range of carbon fibre road products in 2008. Despite the light weight of the road components many mountain bikers asked the company if they would stand up to off-road riding, if they fitted the road-specific components to their mountain bikes.

Yes, was the answer that came back after testing by 3T, and so the ARX stems and DORIC seatposts from the road range go straight into the mountain bike range, with no changes. They’ve been joined by a pair of handlebars, the XIDA straight bar and the ERYX riser. In the latter stages of development is the EXTENDO, a big, wide flat bar for the burliest riders and the most extreme terrain.

3T describes the XIDA and ERYX as compact because they offer more space for the usual clutter that gets attached to the centre of the bars, even when cut down by XC racers, so you want have to leave your cycle computer at home because that lockout lever has used up the last of your handlebar real estate.

Weight is impressive for this new range, as we’d expect with a company with firm roots in the high performance road market. The XIDA LTD (£91.90 ) weighs just 162g for its 640mm width, and even if its cut down to 570mm, 3T says there’s still 190mm of space for attaching lockout levers, computers and other paraphernalia. The ERYX LTD (£102.1) is also 640mm wide but weight increases to 186g, along with a 31mm rise. If you want a properly wide flat bar, as befits current bar width trends, then the 740mm EXTENDO LTD (£91.90) should satisfy. It weighs 225g.

All prices above are for the range-topping LTD products, which are made from high-modulus carbon fibre. TEAM and PRO are also available, with the latter using aluminium to keep costs down. The ERYX Pro, for example, costs £40.84.

More info at www.3tcycling.com and available from www.i-ride.co.uk