Does anyone use mini clip-on aero bars and are they comfortable? Doing Savageman and looking for a low weight clip on for my roadie. Noticed the ITU guys have short extensions on their road bikes and wondering how they work out and where to get them.
I use a set of Profile Design Jammer GT’s on my road bike and haven’t had any issues. They’re relatively adjustable and I didn’t have to change my position to accommodate them. As for comfort the only time I had issues is when I forgot the pads for a sprint race and had some screw digging into my forearm.
Not really designed for long stretches. The short length means that the pads hit midway on your forearm, and you can’t really put much weight on your arms without having to pull on the bars.
The shorty’s aren’t that much lighter than full aero bars (look as Vision’s and Profile’s for example). I’d recommend just going with lightweight clipons like the HED.
I have the mini Vision ones and they’re an evil version of the standard clip on.
I took them off and put on a cut down pair of Profile T2’s. They’re much better mainly cuz the pads are a little further back and a bit wider. That works better for me.
jaretj
I have Spinacci’s on both my road bike;
http://crev.vo.llnwd.net/o42/roadbikereview/images/products/product_28683.jpg
Double bar tape on the tops, very comfortable.
The issue I had w/ mine (PD jammers) before I gave up and sold 'em is that the shorter length (and the angle at which they were set up relative to where I contacted the main bar) meant that I had more weight concentrated on a smaller patch of the outer edge of my forearm ~ which was very uncomfortable after only short instances. On a normal longer aero bar, the weight is borne closer to the elbow, which is better suited to supporting more weight for longer, plus of course there’s usually a more robust cup/pad set-up since you’re typically not concerned with interfering with the base bar grip positions like you would with a road bike/bar.
Alternatively, it’s more comfortable on the forearm if you can rotate your hands down so that the weight is more on the ‘meat’ of your forearm instead of the outer bone (you even see straight-up roadies doing this occasionally soloing or leading a steady pack even without mini-bars, just resting on their forearms to get lower), but it’s also hard to do that for very long without a wider elbow position than what I’m accustomed to on my TT/Tri bike, so that didn’t suit the rest of my set-up/position as I’d have liked.
I really like my vision mini TT bars, happy with them up to Olympic distance. They work well on a road bike as you can keep your road fit as they don’t streach you out too much. I use them in the winter to keep my tt skills up when its not nice enough out side for the TT bike.