Sleepyluke wrote:
Dgconner154 wrote:
But I can tell you that for me personally, the amount of work required to swap my road bike back and forth between a decent TT position and a comfortable road position would make it very unappealing from a convenience standpoint. I ride both bikes at least once a week (usually more) and some days it's just a matter of which one I feel like riding on a given day.
HERE is a recent thread about a road bike that appears to be pretty well optimized for aero riding - but as you can see from the photos probably not great for regular road riding. I think the OP mentioned he swaps everything over for the whole race season. If you ride aero all the time maybe that's fine for you, but if you plan to ride in a lot of different conditions and sometimes in groups, it's nice to have dedicated bikes.
This is a very good point. Swapping over for every ride is not a great motivator to go ride. Thanks for the link
Hey, that's me! :D
Yes, set up like that, it's not fabulous for road riding, downhills are entertaining and I wouldn't ride in a bunch like that. But it's acceptable for commuting.
It's surprisingly stable, though as a road bike it was never a super twitchy bike anyway (geometry is middle of the road between aggressive and enduro).
Yes, it would take me a while to switch from "road mode" to "tri mode" - swapping stem, remounting and aligning bars, adding and adjusting aero bars - lots of fiddling.
But I've just bought a base bar for it, which will cut down the number of bolts to do from 11 (7 stem, 4 aero bars) to 7 (3 stem, 4 cables), as well as any need to adjust things as the whole cockpit will be pre-set (once I've done it the first time). Maybe the added complexity of adjusting cable tensions, but that's good to check once in a while anyway.
So, not as instant as wheeling a TT bike out of my garage, but *much much* cheaper. That's the compromise... I certainly wouldn't do it for every ride.
The saddle is on a different seatpost to my normal one, so only one bolt to swap over. Post height is marked with electrical tape so I don't have to spend any time adjusting it. Literally a 1 minute swap.
FYI my costs in AUD (~US$0.80):
Saddle: ISM Attack - $75 new off ebay from the UK
Seatpost: "Toseek" carbon, 25mm offset - $60 new from china. fully pivoting so it can be reversed.
Aero bars: 3T Clip On - $45 used on ebay. Basically the lowest bars available - pads are right on top of the handlebar.
Stem: Origin8 110 x 35° - $20 used on Gumtree. Absolutely necessary for slammage. Gets me pretty well into the midrange of Slowman's Pad XY chart (sorry, can't recall numbers right now)
Base bar: Profile Design Viper Wing. $80 used (almost like new) on Gumtree
Brake levers: Profile Design ABS carbon - free with bars
Shifters: Dura Ace 10 speed - $30 used from LBS
+ Cables, bar tape etc...
So about US$250 invested.
Disc cover (maybe DIY) and helmet (definitely not DIY) will be next on my list.