General response, while it might appear like the UCI boys and girls have reaches well out there testing mechanical strength of parts, it’s partly optical illusion. The elbow is still largely over the stack on the basebar. They do that to get more extension tilt angle given how they measure the pad to extension tip.
I see a lot of tri folks going for mega reach with lots of extenders. Just get a size larger bike or buy a “long” reach bike. Or if your bike accepts different length stems, do a longer stem.
That’s a really interesting point. It makes sense that in many pro setups the apparent reach is more about extension tilt than actual load displacement relative to the basebar.
In my case, the additional reach was achieved through extensions, which likely increased the bending moment significantly.
It does seem that achieving the required position through frame geometry or a longer reach front-end would be a more structurally sound approach.
Ganna is a good example - overall extension forward protrusion is limited by the UCI rules. And then the tilt is limited by the UCI pad-shifter height rules. So the pad is moved forward on the extension to get around those rules. The rider would be more comfortable with the pad further back, but just has to suck it up in pursuit of his fastest position.
This is why new generation frames are so much longer. A V-PRi XL is 30mm longer than an X-Pr 58.5 (and neither of those frames are UCI legal on length). In your case, it looks like you may not have the largest frame size, so that would be a possible solution.
Or, as mentioned, your other problem is the way a 31.8mm clamp rotates around the bar.
the target shows roughly your setup with standard pads on the blue dots of the sonic bracket.
The red dots show that a bracket (A3) which has the tilt behaviour engineered to avoid reach loss with tilt makes a big difference to the forward options.
The A3 would still not be the right solution for you as it wasn’t designed to carry extension loads on the pad mount. The graph is just to show the impact of equipment choices.
I’ve only fitted Ascalons on a Shiv Tri, so I’m not familiar with the 31.8 adaptors. As I said - I don’t recommend mix and match of aerobar parts, just looking at options that may be better than the OPs current setup.
Good to hear that you are dynamic testing, just using the static ISO test is another one of the problems with some aftermarket brands.
I’ve tried the ‘Ganna approach’ by using a set of Vision TFA extensions 2 sizes smaller than they recommend. My longest races these days are a whopping 20km, so while the approach isn’t comfortable, it’s the best workaround for the UCI rules. If you’re constrained by UCI rules and need a high hands position, then you gotta do what you gotta do.
I can’t even imagine trying to do a 40km TT or heaven forbid, an IM with that sort of setup.
That’s extremely helpful, thank you for taking the time to break it down in this level of detail.
The point about frame reach makes a lot of sense — I may indeed be compensating for limited frame reach through hardware rather than addressing it at the system level.
Also, your comment about the 31.8 clamp rotation is very interesting — I hadn’t fully considered how the tilt mechanism itself changes the load direction and affects the effective reach.
The graph really helps visualize where my QR PRfive2 56 setup sits relative to more modern configurations.
Definitely gives me a lot to think about in terms of a more robust long-term solution. That’s extremely helpful, thank you.
