I have a new triathon bike so I have to decide what to do with my other bikes. Two in particular, a 2003 QR Kilo and a very very cheap road bike. I use the road bike for rain and off season (trainer) riding, but I hate the frame, the components and the way it fits. I thought it maybe I should sell the road bike and put drops and STI shifters on the Kilo as well as take off the Thompson seatpost I have on it now. It has a 76 degree seat tube so it will never have road geometry but I believe I can be comfortable on it.
Is this totally wrong? will this be a horible ill handling ride? Will the cycling gods strike me down? Will I be laughed at? Please keep my needs in mind, rain and trainer. I ride in groups at most 3 or 4 times a year.
It can be done, but may raise a few eye brows with the roadie purists. We had a guy on our group rides a few years back that converted a early model QR Kilo to a road bike complete with 650c wheels. He had a set back seat post and added STI, drop bars and a bunch of spacers under the stem. He hung with the group no problem at all this way, so it can work just the same way some people going in the other direction can do very well on tris on converted road bikes.
What I find useful in a situation like this is Cervelo’s Soloist geometry charts. Take the most comparable frame size(by top tube length) in the 76 degree STA chart. In this case it’s a 56cm frame, with a 53.5 top tube in the forward facing setting.
Now compare the remaining figures. Look at the 73 degree numbers to see what your kilo would be approxiamately with the seat slammed back.
This is not to say the Cervelo soloist is the best road bike ever. But it does give you an idea of how the geometry changes as you move the saddle back.
In your instance, I say, watch your head tube length. My example of a 56cm Soloist has 5cm more head tube than a 55cm QRoo.
I think the 72.5 HTA is workable in road geometry but thats a whole lot of spacers stack wise.
I raced for YEARS on a Softride where I never checked the effective STA, I just set it up by feel. Did pretty well as a Cat 3.
A couple years after I dropped out of USCF racing (and all competetive sports), I got a bug to measure the bike up. Turned out that I’d been riding an effective 77-degree STA all those years.
Depends on you, but I think you can do it, though you’re not going to get it to a “European standard” 73-degree STA set-up.
I temporarily converted my 81 degree seat tube bike to a draft-legal road bike and it worked fine. I used a longer than normal stem, flipped up with a 25 degree rise to give me the extra height.
I prefer riding steep, even on a road configuration, so when I finally bought a new road bike this year, I had it built at 76 degrees. Not what I would call very steep, but perfect for drop bars and STI.
If you do it, I would recommend you try to keep your dimensions close to where they were while elevating the height of your drop bar.
Chad
I’m going to do this to my QRoo shortly (it’s a nice titanium Picanti). It’s got a 76 degree seat tube angle; I’m going to put a set back seat post on it, flip the stem, and put drop bars and STIs on. My current road bikes are already set up with a lot of drop, so I think it will work well for me. I’ll post some pictures and riding impressions when it’s done.