I’ve only been racing traithlon for two years and so far i always rode my road bike. This winter i decided to get my first TT/tri bike. I have experience riding and working on road bikes and XC/MTB bikes but have never owned a TT or tri bike.
So i got a used Felt IA16 model year 2016, put some new wheels on it, new saddle and so on and so on and it has been inside on my indoor trainer (Tacx) where i have been tweaking seat hight/fore-aft/tilt and the earobars.
When i bought the frame, it came with a Profile Design HC Aerobottle with holder. On the back end there’s space for a computer like my Garmin. However, it is placed so far back that it’ s not easy to look at it while riding in the aero position. I really appreciate having my Garmin on my bike in training and in racing so i can monitor my cadence and distance among other things.
I also have place for two 0,5-0,7 liter bottles behind the saddle and one on the frame. I expect to be doing several different races 1/8, 1/4, 1/3 an 1/2 distance this season.
So the earo bottle is easy acces to hydration but less easy view of Garmin. I have plenty space for bottles but those are less easy to access…
My question is: how would you set this up and why…
Any ideas and advise wpuld be much appreciated.
I would recommend some form of bottle with a straw on the aero bars so you can drink without getting out of aero. IMO you can get away with all those race distances with just a refillable bottle between the bars, and a single cage behind the saddle. The really short ones, I would just not bring the saddle bottle.
I have had a lot of luck with the Speedfil A2/Z4 over the past few years. I also want my garmin more forward so I can see it, so I mount the Z4 “backwards” (the open end of the bottle faces me) and it works quite well. If I was in the market again I would also look at the Profile Design FC25 or FC35 or maybe an xlab torpedo versa system.
I’ve only been racing traithlon for two years and so far i always rode my road bike. This winter i decided to get my first TT/tri bike. I have experience riding and working on road bikes and XC/MTB bikes but have never owned a TT or tri bike.
So i got a used Felt IA16 model year 2016, put some new wheels on it, new saddle and so on and so on and it has been inside on my indoor trainer (Tacx) where i have been tweaking seat hight/fore-aft/tilt and the earobars.
When i bought the frame, it came with a Profile Design HC Aerobottle with holder. On the back end there’s space for a computer like my Garmin. However, it is placed so far back that it’ s not easy to look at it while riding in the aero position. I really appreciate having my Garmin on my bike in training and in racing so i can monitor my cadence and distance among other things.
I also have place for two 0,5-0,7 liter bottles behind the saddle and one on the frame. I expect to be doing several different races 1/8, 1/4, 1/3 an 1/2 distance this season.
So the earo bottle is easy acces to hydration but less easy view of Garmin. I have plenty space for bottles but those are less easy to access…
My question is: how would you set this up and why…
Any ideas and advise wpuld be much appreciated.
can you run the bottle backwards? so the garmin is in front?
I have an IA16, and I love it. Here are my quick recommendations from my personal experience.
Get rid of the bottle & cage inside the triangle. You don’t need it. I had that in my first HIM, and later learned that I can get everything I need from the between the arms and behind the seat bottles.Put an XLab Torpedo Versa 200 or 500 for your BTA hydration. That has a Garmin out front mount that is simply awesome.
I have since upgraded my cockpit and made it incompatible with an XLab Torpedo Versa. I experimented with a number of Garmin mounts to try to get back to that out-front configuration. Another form member eventually invented a custom extension stick & mount to get me back to awesome.
I run an xlab bottle cage between the aero bars backward with the Garmin on a mount in front of it. Pretty common setup. I like the simplicity of changing bottles instead of refilling. But that’s just preference. Then just one a single xlab bottle behind the seat. That’s up through a half. For a full I add a bottle on the frame.
Keep the HC bottle and mount you already have. I use the same bottle, and it works just fine.
Keep the bottle cages behind the seat and use none, one, or both of them depending on the distance. It might be handy to have the ability to carry three bottles (one up front and two out back) on long training rides.
For the Garmin, that rear mount on the HC bottle carrier is pretty useless. Instead, get a standard quarter-turn mount ($15-$20) that attaches to your aerobars out in front of your HC bottle. There may be just enough room in a little triangle of space between the front of your bottle and your two hands. Then the Garmin is shielded from the wind by your hands. It is easier to see, and you can operate the buttons without moving your hands from the bars. You’ll need to make sure you get the mount the attaches to a 22.2 mm aero bar, not something that attaches to 31.8 mm road bike bar.
Similar issus for me. Used to have a profile bottle, but swapped that to a torhans with a front mounted tray (Torhans) for the garmin. Now means I still have the hydration, the straw reminding me to drink and constant vision of the Garmin.
One recent change is to swap the 510 screen layout for racing to one with a lot less data. Time (with 15min alarm beep to eat), 10s power both in large in the first two screens, then cadence, HR (only there as a backup in case I lose power data for some leftfield reason, lap average power (I’ve moved back to this from NP) and distance (only needed for training). The reason I mention this is that when I had too much data it meant the position of the garmin was more critical as the text was small. Now, time (to eat) and power are the only things I really need to see consistently, the other stuff is just there for occasional checks.
In my process of hacking together a cheap BTA bottle and Garmin mount for my bike (sprint events, don’t need to refill), I made this genius journey of discovery last night:
There wasn’t enough room to mount the bike computer in front of the bottle without getting in the way of my hands (due to stem setup I can’t easily move the bottle back)But with the bike computer on top of the bottle, it is still shielded by my hands, so no aero compromise.The Garmin 910XT quick release strap mounts a bike computer sideways if you wear it on your wrist (I already knew this from a while back before I got the 910XT and used my 500 for running).My quick release strap is just long enough to fit around a small bottle (there’s also a strap extension if you had a bigger bottle).
And the rest writes itself. Just picture this in a cage or (as I will) just velcro strapped to the extensions, and with a straw added to the bottle.
Can you post a pic of your set-up. I have Torhans but Garmin mount behind which is a pain to see. I would like to see yours with the mount in front. Thanks.
Yes, I know my saddle is too high, my room needs tidying and I need to cut all my gear and brake cables to be more aero and save 11 seconds on an IM bike leg…
I solved the problem by getting a Garmin mount that is meant for aerobars. I informed at LBS but they only had a €75 mount. Bit steep for just a bit of aluminum. So i ordered one online from China for $15 which works great. So i can use that for shorter races when i don’t have my bottle mointed in the aerobars.
When i do have my bottle mounted i attach my Garmin to the bottle itself using the standard handlebar mount and a rubber band. Sits on there quite rigidly so probably pretty potholeproof.
I’m at work right now. I’ll try to take some pics when i get home.
they make a front mounted tray? I think I have the rear mounted tray.
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Similar issus for me. Used to have a profile bottle, but swapped that to a torhans with a front mounted tray (Torhans) for the garmin. Now means I still have the hydration, the straw reminding me to drink and constant vision of the Garmin.
One recent change is to swap the 510 screen layout for racing to one with a lot less data. Time (with 15min alarm beep to eat), 10s power both in large in the first two screens, then cadence, HR (only there as a backup in case I lose power data for some leftfield reason, lap average power (I’ve moved back to this from NP) and distance (only needed for training). The reason I mention this is that when I had too much data it meant the position of the garmin was more critical as the text was small. Now, time (to eat) and power are the only things I really need to see consistently, the other stuff is just there for occasional checks.
