For my winter project, I’m looking at building a tri bike via a compact geo road frame. Perhaps along the lines as Simon’s bike at LP…but my original thought was to build a Giant TT (a la Mich Jones or Like Bell). The reality is that I’m road biking MUCH more than TT and don’t want to keep fiddling with different seat angles. It’s just too difficult to jump from a 73 road bike on to a 80 degree tt. (My road bike is a Felt F1, my TT is a P2k, but it’s getting fired and no hope of pushing the seat back)
So, I’m looking at different frame options and hope you STers can add to my prospect list or chime in a few cents. Ideally, I’m looking for a 54 to 55 cm top tube while at a 73-74 degree seat angle.
Thus far:
Giant TCR Composite 1 (small) Is this the right size? Approx $800 via ebay, $1400 new
Cervelo Soloist (53) perhaps a bit small in the headtube area, but could use a lil rise in the stem. non existent on ebay, $1400 new.
Merlin Agilis - (s or m?) bling, bling. $1950
Look 486 - some say its compact, some don’t. Not much an option at the price, but worth investigating.
Moots Compact - $2300
Seven Elium or Alta
Klein Aura - $1300
Worse case scenario, I have another road bike, I but would hope it will work out for tri.
I know nothing about most of the frames you’ve mentioned, so take this with a grain of salt. But the Giant is a nice bike. Very nice, in fact. A local club member just bought a carbon Giant and it’s quite a ride. You couldn’t go wrong with it.
I road a Giant TCR2 the last couple years with a set of clip-ons and loved it. It came with a stem that was adjustable so you could move the rise around to fit what you wanted which gave me the ability to lower or raise the bars if I was riding Tri or road. I bought a discounted caliente this year, but I still use the Giant as my road bike.
So, I’m looking at different frame options and hope you STers can add to my prospect list or chime in a few cents.
There are currently seven bikes hanging in our garage with frames made by Giant (3 TCR Composites, 1 TCR Zero (Alum), 2 TCR Aero (Alum), 1 ATX 890 mtb) so fromt that you can probably tell that I like their products a lot (currently patiently awaiting the release of the TCR Advanced frameset). My recommendation is to go with a TCR Composite for road riding and a TCR Aero for TT/Tri but seeing as you did ask for us to add to your list: Specialized has a number of options in both Carbon, Aluminum when it comes to compact frames. Quatro Assi (sp?) - not often mentioned but nice paint jobs. Orbea Marin (probably made by Giant) Merx has a couple compact designs but may be cost prhobitive Scott USA (soon available in US) Storck - high end carbon made in Germany that looks similar to the TCR
airo international is the wholesale branch of Nytro. It is where the X-lab products come from. Dave over there is pretty cool, give him a call. I believe the geometry is road on that bike. The guys in Holland arent too into the steep seat tubes since their races are held under UCI rules.
Check out Kuotas also.The Khan is available in all cm sizes from 48 to 61 and check out Kredo. Also the Guru Racelite. Thanks for the nice eye candy.I am also a dealer for Airo and will be looking forward to seeing this bike at Interbike.
I don’t understand this fascination with compact road frames as tri bikes. I mean , yeah, I suppose it’s nice to have a low top tube so your boys aren’t resting on aluminum when you are straddling it, but is there really a performance benefit? What makes a compact road frame a better candidate for aero bars than an normal road frame?
Simon’s bike was not a “tri bike” really, just a road bike with aero bars clipped on. If this is what you are looking for then just buy some clip-ons for the Felt. On the other hand, if you are looking for a pure time trial bike, with a UCI legal geometry, there is no reason to limit yourself to compact geometry - there are plenty of other options out there that have amazingly normal top tubes and seat stays.
Nice post. Of course there’s a difference in set-up. As you mention, Simon’s Soloist is clearly set-up as a “road” bike with aerobars. Whereas, Luke Bell’s (Giant TCR Com) is set-up as a tri-bike with a slacker position.
The big difference is Bell is riding one size smaller than he would in a “road bike”.
I’m not advocating a compact frame for everybody, but in my situation…it appears to be the best route. 5’11, 170 with a shorter torso. Quite simply, I can’t find a bike with a short enough top tube at 73-74 degrees. Right now, I’m using a 60mm steam on my TT and it’s still not where I’d like to be. So, rather than use “duct tape and visa grips” to weasle a good position, I’m finding a frame than works well. Since I already have a road bike and can easily slap aerobars on it…I’m not really interested in going that route…but rather with a more aero set-up. (i.e. - more drop like my tri bike while retaining around a 74 degree position).
With that in mind, the compact geo fits as sizes vary less. Those darn cheapie manufactures developed a ploy to make less frames! I have found “in general” CG to be a be more nimble in the corners, but that’s not really my reason for going that route. It’s purely about top tube length and headtube space (drop).
I’m curious to hear from Soloist owners out there. Did you buy your bike according to TT position or Road bike position. I’d take a 54 for TT, but a 56 for road.
Thanks for that link. Looks like they charge extra for the post and decent fork. However, this may very well be an option in the short term. If the “project” works, I can then upgrade materials to ti or carbon. Very interesting…
I can relate to the top tube problem, and I can even relate to the problem you are trying to solve. I am 6’0 with a shortish torso, and looked at the Giant TCR as a possible road/tri bike last year, but there were some issues with it that I couldn’t overcome.
In my search, which included the Kestrel talon SL, Bianchi Carbon, TCR composite, and the Yaqui DL, the only two that made it to the finals were the Talon and the Yaqui. After talking with Ves and testing the Talon, I decided to go with the Yaqui because Ves had actually designed it with aerobars in mind, so it handled really well with the extra weight on the bars - some bikes get very twitchy or descend very poorly when you add the extra weight of aero bars. The STA on it is 74.5 degrees, but I ride it at 73. It wasn’t cheap, $1600 for the frame and fork, but it worked out for me - I love the bike and ride it all the time. You can see the specs here http://www.yaquiusa.com/frames/dl/dl-pge.html
Of course, no bike is perfect, right? Around six months after getting this bike, when bonuses came around, I decided to get a pure tri bike and went back to Ves. He set me up with a 55cm 78 degree bike with a nice, low head tube and a short top tube (happened to be stock) which I do all of my long IM or 1/2 IM training on.
One more thing about the DL. In general, it has a longer head tube than a typical tri bike - because it was designed for ITU racing - so if you are trying to get really low, it could be a problem. But you would run in to this same problem on a Giant medium or really any road bike/compact frame you are looking at.
Litespeed makes a couple very nice, and very light compact road race frames. The first is the titanium sienna. This bike has the Litech carbon seatstays. The top tube for the Sienna is 54 for the Medium and 56 for the M/L.
The Mira is the Aluminum version so to speak. We have outfitted the Group Health Women’s Cycling team with this bike. The top tube is 54 on the Med and 55.3 on the M/L.
Finally, might I suggest the Cervelo R2.5. Top tube is 54.5 on the 54 bike. I rode this bike and WOW! What a smooth, buttery ride! The light frame made the climbs so easy. The bike built up with record and euros wheels was just around 16 pounds. You have to ride one before you make your decision. In fact ride as many of the bikes listed here as you can (the whole tread that is).
