I started to notice this last year after following the Mtn Qhubeka team and as this season begins the same thing is pretty prevalent; most of these teams are not using aero road bars.
Last year MQ was sponsored by 3T cockpits and rode one of the standard round tube road bars, not the AeroNova. This year they have Enve as their wheel and cockpit sponsor but are riding the standard round tube road bar, not the SES aero bar. This is just one example but its not an uncommon one in the pro peloton. Also noticed that Tiffany Cromwell road a regular 808 FC on her Canyon for Australian Nationals. I would think that such a high-profile athlete would be best seen on their top of the line 808 NSW wheels.
We all know that companies like to exploit minute differences in performance as a way to sell more product but is this concrete evidence of that? Why would a world tour team give up any potential speed? To me this is a bad marketing move by Enve, 3T, etc… as these bikes are ALWAYS front and center in photos and if a world tour team doesn’t seem to think there is any benefit to them then why should I, as an every day consumer, feel any different?
Well here’s the thing, I understand a lot of pro cyclists ride what they do because of sponsorship details, but these companies are not putting their “highest performing” gear on the athletes in the most spotlight. It’s just odd to me.
I have no idea, but do aero road bars remove one of the favorite hand positions from a pro rider’s arsenal? Perhaps they like straight, round road bars.
you will see the aero road bars in place for Trek, Katusha, IAM, and those select Tinkoff and Etixx riders on the Venge Vias.
Other potential reasons you may not be seeing them more widely used are:
superstition
pain in the ass to work on
lack of usable tops position (depends on the model)
weight (maybe…?)
I had the Zipp SL-70’s for a year or so, before turning them in for a smaller size. They did look amazing, but were an absolute pain to work on and the wing section was pretty useless as a grip position unless you cover it in tape, which negates some of your aero benefit. With the wide (and slippery) wing, you had to grip the bar with your thumbs rather than just resting your palms on it - not impossible, just less than ideal and easy for your hands to slip off.
Another reason that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is that these guys crash quite a bit and don’t want to deal with having to wait for a bike change because their (carbon) bars broke in a crash.
I run the aluminum Bontrager RL aero drop bars on both of my road bikes. Their aero time saving claims are only seconds over many km but in my mind they look fast so they must be. The internal cable routing really cleans up the front end and gets a measurable bit of cable out of the wind. Also I have come to find that I really like the flat bar profile on the tops as it is a comfortable place to rest my palms when climbing. It helps me avoid the death grip that I find I get sometimes on really steep grades. I also like the price point and that is why it is on two of my bikes. YMMV.
This question pops up in many different contexts so I asked Chad Haga, who has a degree in mechanical engineering and rides in the ProTour, about why he rides a TCR over a Propel and why pros don’t choose the best bike for the day.
These guys are fully aware of the benefits of one bike over the other, but their decisions to switch bikes are pretty complicated. Areo bikes (and in this context aerobars) tend to be less compliant and less comfortable, so those back-to-back 5 hours days of racing are a little less punishing. Braking is generally more predictable with the non-aero stuff (think Dura Ace calipers vs anything else).
The one thing that had not occurred to me was the value these guys place on the consistency of riding the same bike everyday, which is why he doesn’t switch. It makes total sense when you watch something like the Tour. These guys are going crazy fast through corners that they have never even seen before in all sorts of weather conditions. These aren’t crits, so you get 120 miles of unfamiliar roads every day. Image trying to follow a really good descender, who may be familiar with a road, in a major stage race. This is not the time to realize that your choice of brakes for the day aren’t the best and you are uncomfortable with a different fork rake or chainstay length on a rainy or bumpy descent.
So, long-story-short, people who ride a bike for a living have a different set of objectives. Physics, however, are immutable. Aero handle bars are faster. If going faster or saving watts is a priority, then an aerobar is the best choice.
One thing I’ve noticed about these aero-shaped handlebars is that most people don’t put bar tape over the aero portion of the bars. If so then that pretty much rules out riding with your forearms on the bars (see pic below). I mean - no way your sweaty forearms are going to maintain any grip without bar tape, correct?
I mean - no way your sweaty forearms are going to maintain any grip without bar tape, correct?
One flat layer of grip tape can do the trick. Without interrupting the shape of the airfoil much at all - it doesn’t wrap around. And the flat surface can be more comfortable. At least for me.
When riding in the pack the advantages will be pretty irrelevant. However, comfort and resilience may be very relevant.
Also, and I don’t know if this is something worth considering, are aero bars more likely to cause injury to the rider in a pile up? I have no idea if this is a valid concern or one the riders might worry about, just a thought.
The biggest safety concern is the integrity of a carbon bar after a crash. Lots of crashes and if you can you just grab your bike and get going again. An alloy bar will bend, but it will probably get you to the finish OK and you would probably notice that the bar is damaged. A carbon bar might develop a crack so that the bar fails in the sprint.
The biggest safety concern is the integrity of a carbon bar after a crash. Lots of crashes and if you can you just grab your bike and get going again. An alloy bar will bend, but it will probably get you to the finish OK and you would probably notice that the bar is damaged. A carbon bar might develop a crack so that the bar fails in the sprint.
Agreed. However separate to that is the question of whether the shape of the bar makes it more or less of an injury liability during the initial crash. This is what I was unsure about. I doubt there’s much in the way of objective evidence, but is there a general perception? If riders are worried they’re more likely to end up injured with an aero bar and know the benefits are minimal, they’re unlikely to chose to use one. As you say, however, the more likely differentiator is carbon versus alloy. And most if not all of the fancier, high end aero bars are carbon.
The biggest safety concern is the integrity of a carbon bar after a crash. Lots of crashes and if you can you just grab your bike and get going again. An alloy bar will bend, but it will probably get you to the finish OK and you would probably notice that the bar is damaged. A carbon bar might develop a crack so that the bar fails in the sprint.
I don’t want to debate the characteristics of carbon and alloy but I’ve had a secondhand alloy handlebar snap on me during a ride. I hadn’t crashed it (not sure about the previous owner, but I had put thousands of miles on it before it snapped) and it just gave out without any warning whatsoever. It might have been metal fatigue or something else, but I was just riding along (really) and from one moment to the next wham the right part snaps off.
So the scenario you ascribe to carbon bars can happen all the same with alloy bars. Alloy bar can develop invisible damage just like carbon bars.
On the flipside, I’ve crashed carbon handlebars and they are still going strong.
I think generally speaking, alloy is likely to distort prior to catastrophic failure unless it subject to extreme work hardening/fatigue or was poorly manufactured. Assuming the bars used in the peloton have not already been used and abused over vast distances it’s unlikely they’d snap as opposed to bending. Whereas, again in general, though carbon may be more resilient in many circumstances, when damage does occur it may be less evident without close inspection.
