Funny you mentioned track pursuit. My bike and position that I use on the track has huge risers that I made by cutting down some 70mm chunks of aero seatpost and bolting through them to the base bar. On our Tk1 that uses UCI legal tube shapes we cannot build a sail to the same degree that we can on the IA. We can squeeze ~160mm depth and push just past 4:1 on the airfoil shapes but that's not nearly the same high lift generating 8:1+ on the IA.

In this case I run a custom 54cm Bayonet road fork on my 57cm Tk1 that has been cut down so the custom Bayonet stem mounts in front of, not on top of the fork. Here I am trying to do as you suggest and make a bike with little to no head tube and get the stack I need using 19mm seatpost shaped risers, not 45mm wide ~4:1 airfoils.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Yeah, I know the Profile Aeria begins to de very well with 40mm of spacers.

Andy is also correct - when you angle the arms up properly, it's almost 10 watts for everyone. Even when we angle up an entire bar like the TriRig, we see enough of a net gain to make it worth hurting the shape of the bar. In the end, it's about getting the athlete in the best position because you'll see far more gains from that than anything a frame will give you.

Always remember the top 10 Heiarchy of ERO. Numbers 1-5:
1. Position
2. Position
3. Position
4. Position
5. Position

:-)

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

Would there be the same benefit of angling the bars upwards if there are no spacers at all? Since the vertical distance between the hands and the base bar wouldn't be as much, if there were no spacers.

?? Could argue it is the original super bike.

I think the GT SB1 was the original superbike.

SD

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Gonna disagree and counter with Look from the early 90's. Integrated fork, huge aero tubes & cutout ST to shield the rear wheel....and an ergo stem to boot!!!

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

I'll defer to your market knowledge, but it was certainly ahead of the recent curve with integrated stem along with integrated bars & both brakes "hidden".

In any case, the above was the first time that I have seen anyone say it wasn't among the SB.

What makes a Superbike? A super marketing, or a frame that lets you achieve your individual fastest setup / package?

With a Scott Plasma III TT Size S you can reach a stack of 50.5 cm (I just measured it by my own).

Hi Jim, do you mind me asking is the underlined caveated by what combination of frame stack vs pad stack you are using? Is that mainly correct only when you are using a bunch of aero pad spacers like the Aeria?

Reason for asking - my setup is the opposite. I needed a tonne of reach due to my preferred seat tube angle and apparently short legs, so at 5'9" I'm on a 56 P3C but with a -17 stem, low profile headset cap with no spacers and Felt Devox Bayonet bars (the carbone ones) with the lowest pad spacer. So I'm on a really low pad stack bar sitting right on top of the head tube. And I'm wondering where to put my hands!!

Appreciate all the info coming out on this thread, really interesting and thanks to you guys who do this for a living sharing some of the knowledge. I'd be booked in to aero camp .... if you did one in the UK! Of course if I could get Andy to come over to run some sessions at the Manchester Velodrome I'd happily take him on a guided tour of this years' TDF stage 2 main climb which is right on my doorstep, and treat you to some proper yorkshire ales.. ;-)

Cheers,
Rich.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...bikes_Fit__3266.html

Ok...the Tririg Alpha gets you a lot of adjustability if you are racing non-UCI events.

I calculate that you can get Pad Stack: 544mm Pad Reach: 544mm with a 54cm P5 with 5 mm of steering spacer, a 110mm -17 stem, and a tri rig Alpha Bar with the pads mounted on the bar and all the way forward (so 10mm of stack 30mm of additional reach).

A superbike is one with extremely low drag.
It may or may not let you get in your best position. If it doesn't, don't ride that superbike.

The OP wants a superbike that he can ride.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I thought about a superbike which enables low stack without a down pointing stem and for 28" wheels.

what stem is only 7mm from base of stem to center of bar at -17deg? that's is all you have 544-522(54 p5 stack)-10(rest stack above center of clamp area)-5(cap you specified)=7mm. considering alpha is 31.8 dia/2=15.9mm to center which is greater than 7mm you have and includes nothing for the clamping dimensions of stem, you need more drop than a -17 stem will give

I forget if OP was measuring to top of pad or top of rest, but if pad is included you have nothing left.

even a 51 might be a tad too tall for that experiment

Putting an alpha on a p5 takes away the integration that gets the P5 some of its gains over the p3 and p4. Maybe all of the gains. I can't see spending $7k plus to remove the integration and MAYBE get faster.

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Currently accepting limited number of new athletes

Jim@EROsports wrote:

There is nothing more fun for me than dropping the aero bars on the fit bike and watching the client's face as they're shocked at how much more comfortable the position becomes. Favorite part of the fit! Not something you can do without a fit bike - not very well anyway.

From the other side: I still remember my first race on a triathlon bike very clearly. It was on a "shop fit" administered immediately after purchase, and the fitter pushed me back ("Your knees will implode") and up ("Can't sustain that height"). It seemed alright on the trainer, it seemed fine when I trained with friends - but up against a headwind, I felt so frustrated that I couldn't "just tuck lower" like on my road bike that I gripped the extensions below the basebars before realizing how stupid that was. I started fiddling with the fit ever since, eventually finding a comfortable spot far lower and further out (and despite sitting over the BB, my knees never blew up!). Whenever I sink my arms into the extensions - even after 6 months away from that bike - it just "clicks" right. I'd love to tweak it properly with a good fitter once I move to Europe since I feel like I could go lower, but I'd rather have a professional do that.

P.S: On the subject of old women going comfortable & low: My mum was finally convinced to let go of her old slack-geometry bike, and this beauty seems to fit her quite perfectly. With no large change in fitness, she's been setting PRs across the board and a fastest split in her AG at IM Frankfurt on this position:

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

With the alpha/sigma you get really close to the exact same integration.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

It also never ceases to amazing me how people have been conditioned to accept less than optimal positions, or buy into the flexibility or aggressive is less comfortable myths. Flexibility has nothing to do with it, it doesn't take significant adaptation time (if any), lower is almost always more comfortable

Glad to get some confirmation from an expert.

I'm 54 with an f'ed up back and neck and I don't have any problems getting low. Er... what I mean is that I don't have any problems that going *higher* would fix.

The important thing for me is to RELAX the lower back. Once I figured that out I could rotate my hips. It also required that I change my pedaling style, how my muscles engaged through the stroke... I wonder if that is something that is often missed? Because unless I do that, going low is nothing but painful.

I think a lot of riders get habituated to a pedal stroke that requires an open position and a tense back... really bracing with the back muscles on the downstroke. I know that was the case with me. It was impossible to go low for any length of time until I changed that.

The point is that pretty much all the bikes fit the same. The only difference is aerodynamics and price. How many more bikes with the same characteristics do you need on the market?

The other thing that is wack way frames are sized. We often see tiny and unnecessary steps in stack and reach between frame sizes, but they both change in concert. So you are stuck with whatever the company decided should be the progression of stack and reach.

A much better system would be 3 or 4 reach sizes and 2 significantly different stack options for each. That's only 6 or 8 sizes and you can accommodate everyone. You could even make the "tall" option taller than what is currently typical.

Yeah, if a client wants a P5, I almost always tell them to stay away from the P5-6. Better to get the P5-3 and have a wider range of adjustment/options. Then again, why not a P3?

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

I find getting a p5-3 as low as the p5-6(with swapped fork) in a uci configuration is a lot tougher. for instance, the lowest pad stack on zipp stealth is over 30mm higher than the aduro. other uci set ups might require down sloping stems(not aero) or mounting extensions below basebar.(is that as aero as only having stuff above?)

For arms angled up? No, that's about position, and is not (that we've seen) contingent on spacer setup. When you get the arms angled just so, there's typically a 10 watt gain (understand these are averages) for the athlete even when you maintain the same back angle relative to the horizon. Unless, of course, you're forced to angle the entire aero bar up, then your gain will be less, but you're still likely to see 4-6 watts. The other benefit is it's more comfortable, too, as it allows you to rest into the pads much better and your shoulder and upper back are more relaxed. This might actually be a big part of the gain, by the way...a more relaxed rider, I suspect, has less lean/steer, and, therefore, a lower CdA.

I could be wrong, but I believe lean/steer has a pretty significant impact on CdA - perhaps more than we've realized. When you angle the arms up too much, you destabilize the rider and get more lean/steer. We typically see higher CdA's when this happens, which you wouldn't see in a tunnel since the rider is being held in place and there is no lean/steer. The question we haven't yet answered is, "If given enough riding time, will the athlete adapt and have less lean/steer resulting in a reduced CdA?" The same question could be asked of narrower elbows. I'll be working with a name many of you will remember from the not-too-distant past, Sergio Escutia, over the Winter to answer some of these questions. For those of you who remember from his days as a junior with his Father posting quite often here on Slowtwitch, Sergio has grown into a fine young man and road cyclist, and is an excellent test subject due to his ability and track experience.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

Well you get a watt or two savings from the hidden brake and seat tube maybe!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Jim,

Could you define precisely what you mean by "properly" (in terms of angle and/or anatomical landmarks)?

This was one of the 1st things I tested for myself back when I first started doing a lot of field testing 10+ y ago, and at least for me John Cobb's rule-of-thumb (haha!) for forearm angle proved to hold true (see below - "down" and "up" from that "level" position represent changes of 5-10 deg). (Note that these experiments were performed using a bog-standard spoked rear wheel and my wife's venerable P2T...hence the high baseline CdA.)

But if the goal is to get lower than the stock P5 allows, does this configuration get you there? Since the sigma is only flat (or rise) and not negative? Obviously the alpha can get you less stack than the aduro, but in that configuration, the alpha extensions are under the bar and thus more in the wind (I THINK).

I did ask nick about working something up where I could put the pads on the base bar and the extensions right ABOVE the pads. His response left me thinking he wasn't interested in working it out with me.

I sometimes think about going with the alpha on the p4, but I just don't think it could be much better than the older devox that I have (pads almost bolted to base and extensions integral into base, not under it or over it). Only reason the pads are not literally on the base bar is that I had to modify them to bring them narrower and doing so requires that they come up 5 mm.

I probably would have bought and tested this on my P4 (even with Nick's discouragement), but from all the conversations (for the price) the alpha is a little "rough around the edges".

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Ironman Certified Coach

Currently accepting limited number of new athletes