A Bar? What Bar?.Black Diamond crampon connecting bars?

My new BD Stingers may or may not come with a flex bar.  They are lighter, but it seems counter productive as we are talking a new technical crampon. I'd want a rigid bar, a rigid crampon and rigid boots.

So I pulled the bars off my Cyborgs to use on the Stingers.  But that left me one pair of bars short if I wanted to try some crampons side by side.  Or like with the Stingers one with a Flex and one with a solid bar.  So locally I run down to REI and buy a spare pair of bars.  But these are long bars as there are no reg bars in stock.  No worries just wack them off, right?

But then I realise if I want the most rigid crampon I can get from Black Diamond, what I really want is the long bars and wack them off on all my crampons.   Well may be I do?  Less holes and more rigid if your boot size will allow them for size.  Mine will.   I use rigid or nearly rigid boots to climb in it shouldn't be a durability issue even in my size 12s.   The more rigid the crampon bar is the more rigid the crampon is.  And on pure ice the better they will climb.  The tighter the bar/crampon inner face is the more rigid the crampon.   To keep from breaking connecting bars you add a flexible bar.  To allow more flex you loosen the crampon/bar inner face.  Reliability?  Flexlible things generally don't break unexpectantly?

Know your bar is the answer.  Mix and match accordingly but pays to be cautious!

BD stainless crampon connecting bars

Flex bars 1.6mm
Asymmetrical bars 2.6mm
Standard bars 2.6mm
Long bars 2.47mm (1/25th less material strength than the standard bar)

You get the idea :)