bbdude wrote:
Thanks for the response. Bike is a Giant 2020 Contend 3 w/ stock seat post (Giant D-Fuse). No setback. When I bought the bike I had no intention of doing triathlon, much less a full IM.
I may take the bike in to be fitted professionally if the tweaks are too much, but was hoping to adjust myself :-)
Bad news is your fit looks awful. Looks like you're about to fall off the back, though part of that is the bike isn't level in the video.
Good news is you can make it a lot better (on the assumption that that is a round seatpost, which it appears to be in images). 90% of it is that you just need to rotate your whole body forwards. You're stuck with the road bike geometry which may not be as stable as a proper tri bike, but it isn't that bad.
In this order I would do:
1) a triathlon saddle that you can sit on the nose of and rotate your hips forward, like an ISM
2) a forward offset seatpost (or one that can be reversed to the forward position).
The above two will get your hips a long way forward, which will open up your hip angle and flatten your back out.
3) With the above done, you'll probably find that you can flip the stem and drop it down a lot. (I used to run a 35 degree stem pointed down on my road bike.) You won't be crunched up (hip angle) because the saddle is forward.
4) tilt your aero bars up - the ideal to me is to just create enough pad tilt that balances you comfortably - horizontal and you tend to slide forwards, too steep and your elbows slide down/back. You should be able to ride along without having to grip the bars to hang on. Elbow angle should end up about 90-100 degrees (currently you're much more open than that).
Note that with the setup above it won't be a good road bike setup, but that's something that can be switched quickly - drop in the different seatpost/saddle and a few stem bolts