Talking on this forum about turning a road bike into a tri bike is a bit like sticking one’s head into the mouth of a dragon (I’ve read Tom D.'s article on this at least 4 times, and I’m still stubborn enough to swim against the tide), but here goes …
I’m looking at a road bike with a seat post of 74.5 degrees. Let’s assume the top tube and stem fit me nicely in a road configuration. Let’s also assume I’m working with a great fitter who is wise enough to warn me regularly about “compromises.” I can run these ideas by him, but feedback from y’all is also appreciated:
What if, when it comes time to tri, I (1) put on clip-ons that are adjustable so that I don’t end up too stretched out; (2) scoot the seat 2-3 cm’s forward; (3) replace the stem if necessary to either shorter (for reach purposes, but the adjustable bars should take care of this) or longer (to steady the handling a bit); and (4) outfit the bike with a fork that increases the trail a bit, again for handling purposes (unlike the stem and seat position, this would be permanent); and (5) have Mr. Excellent fitter confirm that I’m positioned okay.
Still going to have bad front/back weight issues? I’m 5’7", 81 cm inseam, and would prefer 700c wheels, so there’s not much room to move around on the rear triangle even if I were to find a tri bike with 700c in my size. Other handling concerns? HT angle is 72.5.
You may ask, why not just get a tri bike? Why the aversion to 650s? Reasons include local terrain (very hilly), ability to swap wheels with friends for free, prefer drops and STI to bullhorns (the hill thing), like to move around a lot on the bike, already own nice 700c training wheels … AND, I can only afford one bike!
But, it sounds to me that you just wanna set your bike up like ITU triathletes…which is basically a road bike with “jammer” aero bars (that dont extend past the Sti levers)
If that’s the case, I wouldn’t monkey with the bike at all…just set it up and you’re ready for road or tri.
Well Sparky, first off, you get credit for being dilligent. Well done. If you have a short torso and long femur bones I would say you may be OK.
Here is what to look out for:
Reach measurement: F.I.S.T. and Empfield show your bicep/torso angle at 90 degrees for a reason. Defy this at your own risk. chances are, if your bike isn’t configured to facilitate this riding posture, your body will migrate toward it anyway, putting you on the nose of your saddle, which is miserable, and throwing the handling of your bike off- probably making it very unstable and too responsive to steering input. So be sure you are as close to compliant with that as possible.
Saddle fore/aft or effective seat tube angle. It doesn’t matter where YOU put your saddle, as Greg Lemond and Kent Gordis said in Lemond’s fine (but antiquated) book on bike fit, what matters is where you pelvis winds up to pedal most effectively. In other words, and Lemond said it best, “Athletes tend to gravitate toward their own best position.”
That means you can position your saddle at whatever seat angle you want, but it doesn’t mean you’ll actual pedal there.
Make sure your weight distribution is good. If you suddenly find yourself needing a Jetstream style drinking system becasue reaching for the water bottle from the aero position is too scary, that is nature’s way of saying “You position needs work” (or your riding skills do- or both). So pay attention to the weight distribution. 47% front, 53% rear in a perfect world.
It sounds to me like you are doing a fine job with this. You did research, you have access to a good fitter, I predict you will do fine. Good job.
You know, I’m pretty new to this forum, but I was so mad at the local bike shop the other day that I was seriously considering flying with my bike to your shop Tom. I’ve only read what you’ve written here and on your website, but I must say that your efforts here are respectable and appreciated. I wish you lived in Dallas.
If you’re only going to have one bike, IMO a road bike is a much better choice.
Not sure what road bike you’re looking at but 74.5 degrees is steep for a road bike. Slide the seat forward for tri and you should be in the neighborhood of 75/76 “multi-sport” position. I used my Giant TCR with a neutral seat post at about this angle for tris and it worked great. For roadie riding I just swapped back to the back set seat post. I think it’s fine to do this with road bikes, especially compact frames like TCR, Soloist,etc as long as you don’t go beyond 75/76. I tried a forward seat post on the TCR and it effected the handling quite badly.
Another option to consider is Cobb’s big slam position. Essentially this is sliding the seat back, dropping it a 2-3 cm and getting shorty aero bars. This position works great for some people if set up correctly. It’s described here:
I don’t know how much or even if a compact frame really be that much better , but the advantage sems to be in the smaller rear triangle. Cervelo used a compact frame geometry with the Soloist which is designed as a dual purpose road/TT bike. It also seemed to work better on my TCR than with my regular geometry road bike.
Gerard is an engineer so maybe if you emailed him at Cervelo he might be able to tell you why they chose the compact geometry for this type of application.
I’m able to get a comfortable & fairly aggressive position on my compact TCR with profile Jammer short-bars and a straight-block thomson seat post. My saddle is fairly far back on the straight post, so I think I’m fairly close to what they’d call the “slam” position. The key is the short bars - if I slide the bars out too far & extend myself, my hip angle gets too acute to generate power. But the shorties are nice in that I can choke up on them when climbing for the leverage that Dan has often preached about.
I also tried my TCR in the slam position with Jammer GT’s. It worked better for me in the multisport position, but my wife has her road bike in the slam position go as fast as her tri bike.