As far as bikes go, I’m more on the road race/gravel side of things at this point. I’d love to see a little more in the “one bike to rule them all” category, something with clearance for ~45mm tires, relatively light, some aero touches. Think specialized crux with some more aero shaping. Would be a pretty incredible all-rounder.
Next bike purchase is likely to be a Crux for that reason. Talk a lot with my teammates who are very interested in buying something along those lines as well.
Your new bike is super cool btw!
And why ignore the Exploro? Wouldn’t that be considerably more road-able than the Crux?
The biggest issue right now is integration for storage, “aeroness” and cabling are all a bit in their infancy. The front end of the Cervelo P5 is nice, but running cables for Di2 or ETAP is absolutely horrible. The wireless etap is a big help, but not quite fully baked yet. Still no wireless buttons that fit in a 22mm diameter. Flat gear in the frame is hit or miss. Argon did a reasonably good gob, the new Trek is flimsy and not well thought out. The older Trek with with storage behind the rear triangle was a better design. NONE of the bikes are long enough. Most of us are riding a larger frame than necessary to get the reach we want, and then struggle with stacks being too high. The Argon for instance is at least an inch too short.
All the new aero style aerobars / more comfortable pads is a nice to have for sure, but it makes getting the proper length difficult. Trek’s teliscoping design is interesting, but they didn’t take it far enough aero wise. Integrated calipers ala Argon seem like a good path for aero, but they are the only ones doing it.
These bikes are not just race bikes for most of us. Most ride them on the trainer and on the weekends so they need to be easy to live with and travel with as well. A lot of these new designs are not great in that regard.
No press fit bottom brackets as well.
My vote would be something like:
Argon 18 brake integration with Tririg Alpha style front end but with Aerocoach style bars that telescope like a trek speed concept. One - two inch longer frame with storage behind the saddle ala 2nd generation Trek. T47 bottom bracket. Have integration for DI2 buttons, SRAM ETAP, garmin mount, BTA water bottle, bottle behind the saddle. Red blinky Led on back of bike. Well engineered to be able to travel to races / fit into a case. Premeir bike had/has this right. And of course needs to be aero.
The biggest issue right now is integration for storage, “aeroness” and cabling are all a bit in their infancy. The front end of the Cervelo P5 is nice, but running cables for Di2 or ETAP is absolutely horrible. The wireless etap is a big help, but not quite fully baked yet. Still no wireless buttons that fit in a 22mm diameter. Flat gear in the frame is hit or miss. Argon did a reasonably good gob, the new Trek is flimsy and not well thought out. The older Trek with with storage behind the rear triangle was a better design. NONE of the bikes are long enough. Most of us are riding a larger frame than necessary to get the reach we want, and then struggle with stacks being too high. The Argon for instance is at least an inch too short.
All the new aero style aerobars / more comfortable pads is a nice to have for sure, but it makes getting the proper length difficult. Trek’s teliscoping design is interesting, but they didn’t take it far enough aero wise. Integrated calipers ala Argon seem like a good path for aero, but they are the only ones doing it.
These bikes are not just race bikes for most of us. Most ride them on the trainer and on the weekends so they need to be easy to live with and travel with as well. A lot of these new designs are not great in that regard.
No press fit bottom brackets as well.
My vote would be something like:
Argon 18 brake integration with Tririg Alpha style front end but with Aerocoach style bars that telescope like a trek speed concept. One - two inch longer frame with storage behind the saddle ala 2nd generation Trek. T47 bottom bracket. Have integration for DI2 buttons, SRAM ETAP, garmin mount, BTA water bottle, bottle behind the saddle. Red blinky Led on back of bike. Well engineered to be able to travel to races / fit into a case. Premeir bike had/has this right. And of course needs to be aero.
Good suggestions.
As I’m aware there are no modern bottom brackets that don’t use press-fit bearings. Can you think of any?
Seems like a pretty imprecise way to go, but the marketing behind T47 is hard to ignore. The last gravel bike I did we did T47. I also like the universal compatibility with older BB30 cranks which can’t be installed in a 68mm threaded shell.
As far as bikes go, I’m more on the road race/gravel side of things at this point. I’d love to see a little more in the “one bike to rule them all” category, something with clearance for ~45mm tires, relatively light, some aero touches. Think specialized crux with some more aero shaping. Would be a pretty incredible all-rounder.
Next bike purchase is likely to be a Crux for that reason. Talk a lot with my teammates who are very interested in buying something along those lines as well.
Your new bike is super cool btw!
I’m looking at a Crux for all the same reasons.
The Factor Ostro Gravel meets all those desires. Right now I have an Ostro Gravel, a P5 disc and a new Soloist. Honestly, the Factor rides so well with road wheels and tires that I struggle to find the place for the Soloist.
I’m sure this isn’t your focus but I’d like to see something like the Planet X stealth or Exocet with reasonable priced full builds in stock in all sizes!
In the uk it’s almost impossible to find an XL size bike in stock without spending £1000s
I’ve got a Stealth in XL fully built up, in the garage. (It’s sat on the turbo). I dithered too much in late 2020/ early 2021 when there was a good deal on a P-series, and was too late when I’d stopped faffing. Since them the only bikes I’ve seen available and in my size are huge wedges of ££ (not helped by Fhexit) and with sod all races for 2 years (3 counting this year’s planned A race cancelled) I’ve decided to stick with it until things level out, and I get fit enough to justify a new bike !
(I blew the ££ on a hand built steel gravel bike instead ðŸ˜)
the telescoping aerobar design has been patented by LOOK. their aergo triathlon bar design. Thus why everyone is doing a work around
Scott did a 30 mm adjustment design with 10 mm spacers. My design is CUT to length and then you can install your hand grip with an expander. etc
as you see, as far as full arm support with true adjustment, unless LOOK licenses their design(and why would they) you won’t get that full easily adjustable length you are seeking. I have seen an open mold design from china which is a copy of wattshop and look length adjustability but it infringes patents… It also had no angle adjustment or toeing in or out.
so. thus the aerobar landscape is a bit more explained and why you have to choose your size or get custom at this point in time.
I’m sure this isn’t your focus but I’d like to see something like the Planet X stealth or Exocet with reasonable priced full builds in stock in all sizes!
In the uk it’s almost impossible to find an XL size bike in stock without spending £1000s
A category (or categories) I think are untapped is in the adventure tri space.
You can take that two ways:
Alpine tri (norseman, swissman etc). Current bike choices between regular TT or converted roadie neither of which are optimised. Lots of space to play here with aerodynamics (very polarized low- and high-speed sections); bar design (drops + access to tops for climbing); geometry and weight distribution, and nutrition/storage (particularly again how it impacts weight distribution).Gravel tri - no real races yet (at least in my part of the world) but if I was designing my ideal race it would have a tro-bro style bike course linking on- and off-road sections. Capacity for large-volume slicks, again with the bars needing drops, tops and aero positions, probably a tighter rear-centre than most existing gravel bikes and better aerodynamics and integration for nutrition etc.For a lot of us, particularly post-Covid and as we get older, we look for races to be more of an ‘experience’ over different terrain rather than chasing performance over fast courses, but part of the challenge is still optimising equipment choice to suit the task and these two don’t have quite the same amount of choices available to do that yet
I’m curious how you’d change what is already currently available.
A real aerodynamic TT bike will almost always be faster aerodynamically than a converted road bike. For a triathlon I’m not sure why brake hoods are necessary, especially now with disc brakes. I’m not sure how a Norseman bikes would need to be a different bike design than what’s currently available and if “Alpine-specific” is a category of a subset of the tiny niche of triathlon specific TT bikes.
For gravel tri, I’m similarly curious how you’d change the 3T Exploro, Ridley, or Factor aero gravel bikes - all of which are a tiny sliver of the gravel bike market. I can’t imagine a tighter rear center than 415mm (Exploro) and how many more calories you need to stuff inside a frame that the Diverge couldn’t manage. Not sure where the “drops” fit in as a “need to have” once you’re in an event where aerobars are permitted.
Can you elaborate on what’s missing? What bike are you using now to contest these events.
the telescoping aerobar design has been patented by LOOK. their aergo triathlon bar design. Thus why everyone is doing a work around
Scott did a 30 mm adjustment design with 10 mm spacers. My design is CUT to length and then you can install your hand grip with an expander. etc
as you see, as far as full arm support with true adjustment, unless LOOK licenses their design(and why would they) you won’t get that full easily adjustable length you are seeking. I have seen an open mold design from china which is a copy of wattshop and look length adjustability but it infringes patents… It also had no angle adjustment or toeing in or out.
so. thus the aerobar landscape is a bit more explained and why you have to choose your size or get custom at this point in time.
I’m a Look fan and I wish they’d produce a good triathlon bike. The 796 as well as the 796 prototype have zero storage to go with those great aero bars.
They used to sponsor Dennis Chevrot but that has ended. I don’t know whether they sponsor any other triathletes. So I guess their focus is pure cycling.
That’s probably not doable (some have tried before and there’s always too much of a compromise one way or another) but to democratise the sport of triathlon a bit more and ensure triathletes can do all kinds of triathlons available with the one bike, I’d like a road race bike (think optimised for draft-legal triathlon, or crit racing) that I can easily change into a Triathlon./TT bike in a matter of seconds (or at most a couple of minutes) and not feel like I’m losing too much compared to someone on a dedicated TT/Triathlon bike. And it climbs well too
