I’m hoping for a little advice on the front end of a TT bike. My wife and I both come from road racing backgrounds. The wife is a couple of points away from an upgrade to Cat 2 and is hoping to have a breakthrough year this season- maybe some NRC level races. She’s mostly focused on road racing, but several key stage races have time trials. So we broke the bank and bought a dedicated TT bike from a well known online retailer. We chose a 51 cm Cervelo P2C (she’s 5’ 8", 115 lbs) and I just selected the shop’s standard Dura Ace build (without wheels as we have many). However, in looking over the default components on the front of the bike I see
aerobars: oval concepts 710 clip on
base bars: oval concepts A700 cow horn TT bar
Clip on aerobars? That doesn’t seem very pro. Should I send this back and get something integrated? Is there any advantage to the clip-on set-up? How does this set-up compare in terms of aerodynamics/weight to other set-ups in this price range (or perhaps a little higher)?
It really depends on your wife’s optimal position with her arms, hands & shoulders. That is to say, you want to select equipment that accomodates what is the fastest position for her body (her body being a bigger source of drag than any bars), and then once you know what will accomodate her body you get the lightest/most aero/stiffest/whatever setup that you want to afford. Plenty of fast pros use clip ons (Leipheimer, CSC) as clip ons with a separate basebar offer more adjustability than most 1 piece setups, with minimal frontal area or weight penalty.
Bontrager and Vision Tech both make nice aero basebars, for clip ons it’s really hard to do better than Hed, although the Oval is also pretty good.
I’d either get a local TT fitter (if you have one) to do a TT fit, after which you’ll know better what components you need, or if you don’t have a good local fitter, or if you just want to do it right the first time, go to one of the reputable wind tunnels (LSWT in San Diego, the one in Ft. Collins, etc) and spend a grand but get it done right the first time.
If you’re not using a powermeter to optimize position with home field testing, and you don’t have a really good local TT fitter, the wind tunnel is essentially your only cost-effective option.
Once she’s set up properly (which can often be a process), she’s got to actually train on that bike, but that’s a looking forward issue.
Thanks for the helpful comments. Didn’t realize that riders at such a high level went with clip ons. Sounds like the adjustability factor might be very helpful while we get the position dialed in. Yes, we have power meters up the wazoo and there’s someone good locally they that can work with her on fit. Many thanks!
Actually… the A710s are pretty nice. The cow horns on the other hand…
The Clip ons are good because you can play with the forearm angle without changing the angle of the base bar. Get yourself a flat base bar (vision) and you’ll have a sweet set up.
“Thanks for the helpful comments. Didn’t realize that riders at such a high level went with clip ons. Sounds like the adjustability factor might be very helpful while we get the position dialed in.”