Is it possible? Does it yield a benefit? I posted here about a month ago and got ripped b/c i was upset I wouldn’t be able able to get a new road or tri bike and all I own is a mountain bike. I didn’t feel I would be able to compete and place in tri’s on that since it needed a major overhaul. Yet tonight, being home, I was able to take the broken fd off and turn it so it would give me the large front chainring instead of the small one. After a quick test ride ot make sure all 5 gears worked w/o any scraping of the derailleur, I already see a huge speed increase. If there is no way to acquire a road/TT bike (still hopeful), can aerobars be added to the mtn. bike to give that aero benefit? The top tube is rather short already and i actually place my wrist inbetween the brake levers and the hadlebar b/c I am too scrunched up. Any thoughts?
I’m torn because you claim to have taken your front derailleur off and put it on backwards and that has somehow improved your bike performance. You’re either nutty and I’m wasting the life of my keyboard or your brilliant and I want to party with you…but not alone!
In 2003 I raced this…first ever… off road ironman distance triathlon (Park City, Utah, Mountain Extreme Challenge). I didn’t think the bike would be technical at all but wasn’t sure so I (and former pro triathlete Scott Shumaker) installed some clipons on our mountain bikes. The first 50+ miles of the bike was super technical, single track that ran the Mid Mountain Trail across Deer Valley, Park City, and The Canyons (nee Park West) - plus tons of gnarly stuff before, after and in between. I was pretty annoyed by the extensions as they bobed and weaved in front of me - it was a distraction. The second half of the bike was on a flat, smooth, “rail trail”. I stopped and spent a Co2 to go as hard as possible in tire pressure and then settled into “aero” (such as it was). It worked in the sense that I got to rest my arms that had been beating to a pulp on the techie portion and get me out of the wind a bit - but it’s not a quality position for racing triathlon. It’s a kin to saying: “I don’t own running shoes so in the 5k coming up should I run barefoot or in a pair of dock siders” Well, okay tough call.
Ian
I’m torn because you claim to have taken your front derailleur off and put it on backwards and that has somehow improved your bike performance.
I didn't actually put it backwards. It was stuck on the small chain ring in the front and wouldn't shift. I tried manually putting the chain on the large ring, but it was push back down to the small one almost immediately. So after an hour of trying to get the derailleur working to no avail, I said forget it, turned the derailleur and adjusted it so when I manually put the chain on the large ring, it wouldn't shift back and just taped the cable up so it wouldn't get caught on anything. So, to put it simply, I turned the OLD (almost as old as me) 10 speed mtn bike into a 5 speed using 6-10 to maximize speed, rather than the 1-5 i currently had and was spinning with.
I think your best bet is to work some overtime to get some money to buy a cheap entry level road or tri bike.
I met a guy who used to show up at local club crits on a mountain bike with slicks, and would hang on just behind the main pack for a good 1/2 of the race.
I wouldn’t bother with aero bars, but if you can find some slicks that will do you a fair amount of good. Then work on getting a cheap roadie. A few hundred bucks ought to do it.
i know a guy that beat me at powerman ohio on a denali road bike, you can find them on ebay brand new for about 250…