I had forgotten about those tiny Vision "blade" brake levers. Those things were certainly ahead of their time in the aero department.

But really it's your point above that I find most interesting. A super cushy aerobar with big pads and convoluted extensions with lots of hand positions is going to get slaughtered in bike only testing vs something more minimal - e.g. PRO Missile - but that's total misdirection.

Without having any insight into the actual process, I can *guess* that this was how the PRO Missile bar was designed - on its own. That certainly explains the straight extensions by default and the extraordinarily minimalist pads. And I also wonder if that isn't why we've lost certain extension shapes - like the "wrist relief" bend - because they did poorly in standalone aerodynamic tests...

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

how aero is that aero extension shape, versus a non-aero shape, inside the grip of your hands?

i don't know if you remember, but when cancellara used to use ventus bars he put big grips on the pursuit hand-holds. i didn't. they were fine for me. but it doesn't matter how good you are, in time trialing or in triathlon, even at the highest level, if handling and ergonomics are sacrificed it's very hard to realize the aero advantage.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

All this talk about bars and how they limit the Andean and or help the Tactical, but no one is asking about a cleaner setup on the b-series. If Kiley swaps bars to something like a bayonet 2 devox (non-UCI), which I think should work for his fit, where does that leave the B-series sitting in this test?

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That was my point. By "standalone" (poor word choice maybe) I meant without a rider holding them. What's interesting is that in some of the testing (I forget who did it) straight extensions were faster without a rider but slower with a rider holding them because to hold them (versus a skin bend) the rider ended up exposing more frontal area with his hands. So in that case, ski bends are both more aerodynamic AND more ergonomic than straight extensions. But you'd never know that if you simply put the bar inside of a tunnel (which is a lot easier and cheaper to do, because you can use a much, much smaller tunnel).

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I bet it moves up for sure. That was sort of my point. We're all talking about this as a test of frames. And yet based on what I see on the margins between these frames, it could just as easily be a test of aerobars.

However, as cyclenutnz has said, for a long time it was a choice (with aerobars) between comfort and aero. That's changing now. For example, it's amazing to see that Zipp has now really put fit above (or at least on par with) aerodynamics. For a company built around aero, that's a huge change. But Ben Waite (waitebe on here), whose the lead bar engineer there is also a very good - and regular - bike fitter.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

Because it had an ENVE bar setup already

Not sure if that is supposed to be in pink?

ENVE makes a great bar and I am not discounting that it is fast; however, what I am saying is that if you look how Kiley has it setup, to hit his numbers, it looks less than ideal and likely not the fastest configuration for the ENVE cockpit. Kiley likes a "low" pad stack and a high hand position. He's already running a pretty negative stem so he chooses to go with an under mount setup for his extensions to hit his pad stack numbers, but to get his hands in the right place he has to run the tilt kit for the ENVE bars. It ends up putting a lot of gear under the bar in not the most fluid looking arrangement. Whereas the Felt bars move the extensions even with the bar which should allow the higher hand position without requiring any tilt (assuming here) and a low pad stack as the pads mount to the bars.

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Hello Slowman and All,

What are your thoughts on a paradigm shift with http://www.morf-tech.com/ making the bar/extension part of this thread obsolete?

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

i don't stipulate yet to the morftech making pursuit bars obsolete. i think we're a long way from that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

What many are forgetting is that we had to make compromises to his position to get all the bikes within mm's of each other for pad Y/X. It's waaaaaaaaaaay (and no that is not misspelled) harder than it looks.

If we put the devox on there we may have to change the other 5 bars as well to get the same Y/X. Nothing in this test operated in a vacuum. 1 change on a single bike often meant a dozen other changes between the 5 bikes to normalize everything.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

And yet they test surprisingly fast in that config

As Slowman has been harping on about since the biggest bikes you and I could fit had 20" wheels - the point of tri bikes is to get the bars in the right place. And the point of aerobars is to allow the rider to relax into an aerodynamic position. Missile Evos (which I hate with a passion) definitely not 'rider first' design. Tririg have followed the same principle of minimising frontal area but have managed to make adjustment range larger and simpler to achieve.

Evo 110 extensions aren't my favoured shape - but for some riders they're ideal. A bar with those on and the awesome curved Zipp pads is at a disadvantage in the tunnel compared to a low FA bar, but results will change with rider. And that's before we consider interaction effects like the distance from basebar to armrests and flow between the pedestals.

When I've tested bars only I stick cut off (and closed end) extensions in so there is no impact of different grip heights on the result. Given that the hands hide that part it's not really relevant to answering the question of which bar setup is faster


The argument made by complex systems like Missile Evo and Aduro is that you only need to set the bars once, so who cares if your mechanic ages years in the process. But a rider seeking their optimum position is not going to set and forget. Which is why I'm a big proponent of have a lot of adjustment just moving the pads - no changing stems, recabling etc. Just undo the pads and move a small increment in the desired direction.

Wrist relief extensions are still around (PD T3) but they're not big sellers. If you hold that far down the bar you're probably doing it wrong.

The point Tom A. and others have repeatedly made is not that disc brakes are slow. It's that no one has proven that they're faster than a rim brake version of the same frame. The P5-x is fast with disc brakes. Kiley proved that in an independent test. Great. But what nobody knew before and what nobody knows now is how the P5-x would have performed if it had been designed and built around rim brakes and THAT'S the problem we have with it. As Kiley said, disc brakes were an input to the P5-x design process, not an output.

The P5 and P5-x are drastically different frames, yet they are a whisker apart in performance. So, either the disc brakes are the reason for the gains, the disc brakes are a wash and the frame design alone produced the difference, or just MAYBE the discs hindered performance and the frame design would have done even better with rim brakes.

The P5 and P5-x are drastically different frames, yet they are a whisker apart in performance

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So then the next question is, if there is no performance advantage or disadvantage then why not go with the better braking technology...which is what.......disc brakes?

Is that a fair point to make off what you just said?


ETA: (I have no dog in the fight....just taking what you said about the data had me wondering)

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

So why don't you put up the money to fund Cervelos engineering team to spend resources developing a rim brake P5-X? Disc brakes are here and why Cervelo would waste time on rim brakes makes no sense. Just like Apple removing the headphone jack, you will be okay. The bike market is changing. You can't stop the disc brake movement

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

And based on my friend's bike shop the 2018 lines are going to pale in comparison to the number of bikes in 2019 that come with discs

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

2 things:
First is that if you've used Jet Blacks you'll know that rim brakes can be every bit as effective as discs. Second is that the P5 is easily made faster with a cockpit upgrade, which you can't do with the P5x.

Not everyone wants to use HED Jets. You can't make something like the Zipp 454 with a fairing.

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

They should...

And if someone did, it would be heavier than the carbon version and you wouldn't stop complaining about the wheel weight.

Why do you think Flo wheels are heavier than HEDs?

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

So what? aero > weight

It's an endless circle......

I can't wait for the new Shiv to come out. The responses should provide plenty of laughter

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Make Inside Out Sports your next online tri shop! http://www.insideoutsports.com/

Yup. And in the end that is all that matters.

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