Was watching the Lance chronicles last night, and they were talking about all the effort that went into making Lance and his TT bike aerodynamic.
My stupid question of the day is why do they ever bother with the handlebar extensions for the TT? Seems like if the TT rider spends most of his time, if not all in the aero posiiton, those cowhorns can create a fair bit of unecessary drag. I know they’ve developed some kinds brakes wo be integrated into the aero bars, so why the need for the handlebar extensions? Does TT require what amount of handling?
A quick perusal of the UCI rules didn’t indicate that a TT bike had to have both. Or maybe I just missed something.
Remember that many TTs have turns (some of them pretty tight), and the extensions are there (in part) for stability in those turns. I don’t know about you, but I use the extensions a lot on technical courses.
My guess is for safety / out of the saddle power for hairpin turns, etc. The amount of drag over a 40kTT is probably less than what they’d lose if they weren’t able to stand up and accelerate out of a sharp corner/hairpin turnaround, coupled with the safety factor of being able to make the turn with more control.
I’m no expert but IMHO I think that they use the bullhorns a fair amount. I think many of the roads especially around the starting and finishing towns are very narrow and have sharp corners that will require good handling. I think that they also use the bullhorns to be able to sprint at the beginning to get up to speed and at the end. I think this added speed is more then they would gain by not having bullhorns (you can barely see the new UPS bars from the front)
well, seeing as how they are averaging over 30 miles and hour, and travel through round-abouts and take 180 deg turns (like the prologue), as well as making 90 degree turns on cobbles in the rain (like the team TT), I’d say they do require a little bit of handling.