I would like to add road bars with clip-ons for the off season to make it safer and more comfortable to get to-and-from the closest cycling paths on busy roads.
I’m happy with my tri fit, so the idea is to keep the saddle, extensions, and pads in the same location for the sake of consistency. The goal then is to get the hoods in decent position, optimized given the saddle position which isn’t ideal for road. Handlebar, stem, and clip-ons will be selected accordingly. Don’t have room for a dedicated road bike and a paid road bike fit would be overkill for the amount of time I will spend in the hoods.
So my question to all the fit experts:
Relative to my hand position on the pictured 38cm wide basebar, where should the hoods be? How much stack, reach, and width should I add/subtract to get in a decent-to-good road bike fit, given my saddle position?
Its just for off-season training rides. Aero bars back on during race season.
Don’t have a car, busses don’t allow bikes, don’t have room for a road bike. I don’t feel comfortable riding on busy roads with aero bars. My alternative is to continue riding exclusively indoors.
I understand why it will look blasphemous but it’s the best option for me, currently.
Can you force a reasonable road bike fit out of a tri bike frame? It’s possible, in some circumstances, but pretty improbable if you insist on not moving the saddle from your triathlon position.
Seems to me like you need…
A. A “base bar fit” that will help you find the most comfortable base bar position. I’m guessing a switch to 400 or 420 mm base bars would be a good start. From there, back your current pad/extension fit in.
B. An upgrade to electronic shifting, so you can shift from both positions.
I don’t understand the purpose of changing the bars when you will still be in the same position.
As I understand you, the saddle, extensions, shifters, etc, will stay where they are. What do you want to gain from putting on road bars?
If I was nervous about using the extensions due to traffic or terrain conditions, I’d simply stay on the basebar. Fitting a road bar won’t give you road bike handling, or suitable selection of positions (tops, hoods, & drops) unless you change your position which you don’t want to do.
I’d just stick with an aero bar, but perhaps improve the basebar grip or tweak the height for the fit and security you want in traffic. I’m not clear how a road bar will improve on that unless you re-configure the bike considerably.
Can you force a reasonable road bike fit out of a tri bike frame? It’s possible, in some circumstances, but pretty improbable if you insist on not moving the saddle from your triathlon position.
Seems to me like you need…
A. A “base bar fit” that will help you find the most comfortable base bar position. I’m guessing a switch to 400 or 420 mm base bars would be a good start. From there, back your current pad/extension fit in.
B. An upgrade to electronic shifting, so you can shift from both positions.
The term “reasonable” is subjective, of course . If I’m going to get a dedicated road bar and stem, I figure I might as well make the most of it. Getting the pads and extensions where I need them will be easy since there are so many clip-on options out there.
I’m not trying to make it a great road bike. Just add some confidence before I get to the bike path. Hoods feel better than basebars in that regard.
Regarding you suggestions:
A. I’m fine with the base bar for what it is. What do you mean by base bar fit? Where should it be? There’s little I can do about the basebar independent of the pads, but that’s another topic (I’m maxed out in multiple dimensions). The grip of basebars in general isn’t as confidence inspiring as hoods.
B. Valid, of course, but I’m not looking to upgrade to Di yet, and it wouldn’t change the grip.
All in all, what’s so wrong with wanting hoods? It’s a cheap and easy 20 minute swap back and forth. I’d be right back to aero bars for races. Hoods make me feel more confident and my question in “where should the hoods be, if I get them?” Add X mm reach? Drop Y mm stack?
All in all, what’s so wrong with wanting hoods?
Nothing in particular, but it’s not obvious why your basebars can’t offer the confidence of hoods. Bullhorns and hoods are, in concept, very close to being the same thing, just with some variation in implementation. If you think that hoods in some position other than where your basebars currently are would make for better confidence, why don’t you move your basebar hand position to that higher-confidence position (and perhaps make some adjustments to the grip setup)?
I don’t understand the purpose of changing the bars when you will still be in the same position.
The aero position would be the same. But the hoods would be in a better location compared to my bullhorns.
I feel the grip of hoods is more secure than the horizontal basebar. Not an issue in races, but for busy cities the basebar doesn’t inspire confidence
The hoods are part of the shifters not the bar. Will you also be swapping the TT brakes for road STIs? That will make things rather more expensive (though there are reasonable options), and will make the swap over and back a bit less convenient.
Have you already considered a basebar with an upturned grip, or simply adding a hood type rise with a Felt rubber grip or layered grip tape? Seems to me those options offer similar security of grip on the existing bar or an alternative TT basebar, with much less inconvenience and potentially very little cost.
The TT bike can handle very poorly with a road bar due to the geometry but that is bike dependent. The problem with giving fit advice is the front end setup will impact the handling and it will be a personal tiral and error process to get it dialed in.
The key question is do you really really not have space for a road bike? It will also cost you as much to do the conversion you are talking about as to buy a second had road bike. You don’t need new wheels so you are talking about storing a frame plus bars vs storing the TT bars if you do the conversion. Most people can find a place to store an alloy frame and in the long run it will save you time and money in terms of parts and swapping things around. Most conversions seem to be people who had an old TT frame laying around and just wanted a project bike.
If you must do the road bike conversion I would start by finding short reach bars. You then have more room to play with stems then if you start with a long reach bar and are limited to extremely short stems due to long top tubes on TT bikes.
Nothing in particular, but it’s not obvious why your basebars can’t offer the confidence of hoods. Bullhorns and hoods are, in concept, very close to being the same thing, just with some variation in implementation. If you think that hoods in some position other than where your basebars currently are would make for better confidence, why don’t you move your basebar hand position to that higher-confidence position (and perhaps make some adjustments to the grip setup)?
Hoods limit fore-aft movement during braking and bumps, and there’s just more to hold on to. They just feel more secure to me than a small horizontal tube.
The hoods are part of the shifters not the bar. Will you also be swapping the TT brakes for road STIs? That will make things rather more expensive (though there are reasonable options), and will make the swap over and back a bit less convenient.
Have you already considered a basebar with an upturned grip, or simply adding a hood type rise with a Felt rubber grip or layered grip tape? Seems to me those options offer similar security of grip on the existing bar or an alternative TT basebar, with much less inconvenience and potentially very little cost.
Yes, the plan is to buy a used stem, used road brakes (1x and 105/force would suffice), and clip-ons aren’t going to cost much more than a second TT bar, which would be a half-way solution.
I have a really nice tt bar. If I get a second one for training, might as well go all the way and get drops with clip ons. Upturned ends with Felt grips would help some, but still short of hoods.
The key question is do you really really not have space for a road bike? It will also cost you as much to do the conversion you are talking about as to buy a second had road bike. You don’t need new wheels so you are talking about storing a frame plus bars vs storing the TT bars if you do the conversion. Most people can find a place to store an alloy frame and in the long run it will save you time and money in terms of parts and swapping things around. Most conversions seem to be people who had an old TT frame laying around and just wanted a project bike.
If you must do the road bike conversion I would start by finding short reach bars. You then have more room to play with stems then if you start with a long reach bar and are limited to extremely short stems due to long top tubes on TT bikes.
A second frame still takes up too much room. If the P5 stays on the trainer and I want the beater on saturdays, then it can’t be in storage (which is already full)
Since I’m intentionally keeping the TT fit, a road bike might be just as tough to get into a good tt fit (they’re taller and shorter).
I figured it would take some experimenting, but I was hoping someone would be able to give a good starting point.
The key question is do you really really not have space for a road bike? It will also cost you as much to do the conversion you are talking about as to buy a second had road bike. You don’t need new wheels so you are talking about storing a frame plus bars vs storing the TT bars if you do the conversion. Most people can find a place to store an alloy frame and in the long run it will save you time and money in terms of parts and swapping things around. Most conversions seem to be people who had an old TT frame laying around and just wanted a project bike.
If you must do the road bike conversion I would start by finding short reach bars. You then have more room to play with stems then if you start with a long reach bar and are limited to extremely short stems due to long top tubes on TT bikes.
A second frame still takes up too much room. If the P5 stays on the trainer and I want the beater on saturdays, then it can’t be in storage (which is already full)
Since I’m intentionally keeping the TT fit, a road bike might be just as tough to get into a good tt fit (they’re taller and shorter).
I figured it would take some experimenting, but I was hoping someone would be able to give a good starting point.
you asked your question. you got your answer. and the answers are sound. if you don’t have more room, find more room. you’re a good athlete. you need a road bike. get a road bike. this is what will go on your trainer in the winter, and you’ll ride a fair number of rides on it during the summer. if your space is that jam packed full of stuff you don’t have room for a second bike, get rid of some of your stuff. i got rid of my couch a couple of years ago. boom! done. room for another bike.
With all due respect, my question was “if I do this, where should the hoods go?” But the answers were along the lines of “don’t do it.” If I have a basebar there now why why can’t it be a drop bar instead? I’m not trying to make it a road bike or change any thing other than the grip interface when I’m sitting up.
I should have just asked where my existing basebar should be fit, since that’s how it’ll be used. Would have been less distracting.
I don’t need or want a road bike. I want to ride my tri bike in a tri position. I just want it to be comfortable/safer for the first and last 10 minutes of my ride when I won’t be in aero.
Your point is well taken but a road bike would defeat the purpose because then my whole ride is in a different position.
With all due respect, my question was “if I do this, where should the hoods go?” But the answers were along the lines of “don’t do it.” If I have a basebar there now why why can’t it be a drop bar instead? I’m not trying to make it a road bike or change any thing other than the grip interface when I’m sitting up.
I should have just asked where my existing basebar should be fit, since that’s how it’ll be used. Would have been less distracting.
I don’t need or want a road bike. I want to ride my tri bike in a tri position. I just want it to be comfortable/safer for the first and last 10 minutes of my ride when I won’t be in aero.
Your point is well taken but a road bike would defeat the purpose because then my whole ride is in a different position.
here are the reasons why you should not do it:
if you don’t move the saddle waaay back, and change the saddle if you’re riding a split nose, you’ll have too much weight coming down on the handlebar.
you’ll almost certainly need to change the stem. your bars are too low. the pursuits are probably not where your hoods would go; they’re probably lower than that.
this means if you simply replace the pursuit/aero bars with road bars, the drops will be so low as to be unusable. because of this, in the very old days, mike pigg used to simply cut off his hooks, right below the place where the hood mounted to the road bars. this was his version of pursuit bars: road bars, with the hooks cut off and dumb brake levers, which made some kind of sense really.
there’s a guy on this forum board to whom the invention of the “tri bike” is widely attributed. while he’s an asshole, the fact remains that road bike geometry was so ill-suited to aerobars that a geometry of wide departure from road bike geometry was required. the opposite holds. if the tri bike frame needed to arrive on the scene because road bike frames were so ill-equipped, then road bike geometry is needed for road bikes because tri-frame geometry is so ill-equipped.
now, the aforementioned mike pigg won races on his set up while on road bike geometry. mark allen won several ironmans using tri bars on road bike frames. but, 65 or 70 percent of their weight was on their front wheel when in the aero position on those bikes, and mark allen himself has a talk about how his position morphed from 1989 to 1995, moving more and more forward, and as that position morphed the road bike geometry became less and less tenable.
you have a bike that is designed around aerobars. it’s designed to be a front recumbent. you are riding a front recumbent right now. you’re trying to change a front recumbent into a road bike. this is the problem.
