Does anyone have hard data on the difference in drag (or even better - time savings) for different aerobars?
A lot of people seem interested in trying to use the new bars from the P5, and recently Bonktown has run some deals on a Ventus 3T bar as well. How much time can upgrading those bars save?
As much as I would LOVE to have a P5, I already have a P3 and just can’t justify spending 10k for the time savings people are estimating. I have the stock bars on my P3 and I understand they are pretty good, but I was wondering if an upgrade of my aerobars would be a good “bang for the buck” upgrade.
I mostly plan to focus on some of the cheaper ways to get speed, such as tweaking my position, making sure I have a well fitting tri outfit etc.
And yes, I WILL be training as much as possible as well.
I went from an aluminum vision aero basebar to a 3t ventus. I am sure the ventus is faster, but honestly I haven’t noticed it just riding around.
I would agree that the Ventus certainly LOOKS faster, and especially since it will get some of the cables out of the wind I expect that the looks are not deceiving. Still, even at 1/2 off you are talking around $500 bucks. Right now I am trying to sort my expenditures according to the best “bang for the buck”, or to be more precise the best seconds/$ savings. It is tough to do that without good numbers, especially for items that are not cheap.
My current setup is pretty good (P3 stock, aluminum rim clincher 808s, zipp disk) , and would be expensive to upgrade substantially. Right now I am looking mostly at stuff like my hydration setup, clothing, etc.
Just curious about aero bars since a lot of people seem to get worked up about them.
I ride on some home made aero bars that cost me less than $4 to make at the hardware store. They weigh 340 grams. I would doubt that they have any real measurable drag difference than a set of $500 bars. They are certainly not the reason I get beaten by anyone.