After I participate in a IM next year, I am debating whether or not to sell my TT bike or just put road handlebars on it. I know I will have to make certain adjustments if I put the road bars on it, just curious if anyone out there had tried it before. By the way I have a lower end TT bike. Tell me what you think.
I am going to do the exact same thing. I want a more variety of hand positions for training. Depending on what you have set up now, you might need brake levers and shifters. If your shifters are on your aero bars then you a set up there. Old brake levers should be easy to find.
One thing you might want to think about is the size of the “fat” area on the road bars. Make sure it is wide enough to accommodate aero bars.
It will handle different than a pure road bike, but if you are just ridding it for fitness you should be ok.
I’ve done road races on my mountain bike with drop bars and it worked too.
Good luck!
i put road bars on my p2sl when I got a new tri bike. it was a bit big for me in the first place so it works well. handles a bit differently than other road bikes i’ve had. not that hard to do, good luck.
I think the biggest problem you’ll have is that the drops might not be usable depending on how low your front end is.
Chrissie Wellington has done it. Didn’t seem to slow her down much…
Jodi
take a look at this thread for some hints:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2235221;search_string=;#2235221
.
Wouldn’t it matter what brand tri frame and how well it fits you now?
I would think that if it’s a smaller frame or more aggressive geometry than what you would need for a road bike, that it would not be that comfortable or handle very well.
I did it out of practicality…it’s too dangerous to ride in the Alps with TT bars and I’m too cheap to buy a new bike yet. So my custom Lightspeed with 78deg. angle was refitted with traditional bars and clip on aeros. My fitter said a longer stem might be good but the current length is OK. He lowered the bars a bit as well.
He did say it’s not optimal at all as a climbing position due to muscle engagement (he’s ex pro with TdSuisse stage wins) but said it will work OK otherwise.