I'm as aero-obsessive as the next person, but also extremely adverse to spending $. So, while there are all sorts of elegant-looking solutions out there to "clean up the front end", I thought I'd see what I could do with my existing gear and minimal outlay of cash.
Setup: old Vision/FSA 26mm basebar & HED Flip-Lite clamps, pads, and extensions, both of which I bought used in 2008 to put on my Cervelo P3-SL (also bought used then).
HED sells a riser kit using aluminum cylinder sleeves at either 12mm or 24mm, and M5 bolts:
One can easily find similar at a local hardware store, and indeed I tried this out. But it exposes cylinders to the air (GASP!), and doesn't look very nice (I may be cheap, but I have some pride!) Then I stumbled across these spacers that are used for the standard Chinese open-mold carbon aerobars (ignore the armrest and extension photos included)--these have the same 25mm c-c bolt spacing as the HED armrest bracket attachment.
After ordering a pair of 10mm and a pair of 20mm spacers and waiting about 12 days for delivery from China, the photos below show the result on my old P3-SL (I also recently did a very inexpensive BTA addition involving some zipties and an old plastic Trek water bottle cage (probably from the 1990s) that I had sitting in my parts bin). $20 was kind of pricey for the spacers, but they are very nicely made and look reasonably aero at least. With more surface area clamping to the carbon armrest, they are also more stable than the cylinder risers that had a lot of armrest flex.
Note: as seen in the photos, I bought M5 bolts at the hardware store purposely long to extend below the HED bracket attachment and sit on a pad on top of the basebar I cut from vinyl tubing. This provides a slight amount of cushioning and keep the armrests tilted slightly together for more narrow forearms.
An aero note: one poster in this thread from earlier this year claimed that "If you can't get the 60mm separation [between basebar and armrests], you're better off raising the base bar to make the gap as small as possible. https://forum.slowtwitch.com/..._Faster__P6878773-2/
My solution with the ~33mm spacer stack, plus the HED bracket below, and the slight lift provided by the long bolts gets me to about 55mm.
I hope this serves as some inspiration for anyone wanting to do some equipment mods on their own!
Setup: old Vision/FSA 26mm basebar & HED Flip-Lite clamps, pads, and extensions, both of which I bought used in 2008 to put on my Cervelo P3-SL (also bought used then).
HED sells a riser kit using aluminum cylinder sleeves at either 12mm or 24mm, and M5 bolts:
One can easily find similar at a local hardware store, and indeed I tried this out. But it exposes cylinders to the air (GASP!), and doesn't look very nice (I may be cheap, but I have some pride!) Then I stumbled across these spacers that are used for the standard Chinese open-mold carbon aerobars (ignore the armrest and extension photos included)--these have the same 25mm c-c bolt spacing as the HED armrest bracket attachment.
After ordering a pair of 10mm and a pair of 20mm spacers and waiting about 12 days for delivery from China, the photos below show the result on my old P3-SL (I also recently did a very inexpensive BTA addition involving some zipties and an old plastic Trek water bottle cage (probably from the 1990s) that I had sitting in my parts bin). $20 was kind of pricey for the spacers, but they are very nicely made and look reasonably aero at least. With more surface area clamping to the carbon armrest, they are also more stable than the cylinder risers that had a lot of armrest flex.
Note: as seen in the photos, I bought M5 bolts at the hardware store purposely long to extend below the HED bracket attachment and sit on a pad on top of the basebar I cut from vinyl tubing. This provides a slight amount of cushioning and keep the armrests tilted slightly together for more narrow forearms.
An aero note: one poster in this thread from earlier this year claimed that "If you can't get the 60mm separation [between basebar and armrests], you're better off raising the base bar to make the gap as small as possible. https://forum.slowtwitch.com/..._Faster__P6878773-2/
My solution with the ~33mm spacer stack, plus the HED bracket below, and the slight lift provided by the long bolts gets me to about 55mm.
I hope this serves as some inspiration for anyone wanting to do some equipment mods on their own!