I used to ride a Cervelo P3 until it got mangled/ripped in half during a triathlon (see http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=806641). I ended up replacing the Cervelo P3 with a Felt S22 frame I found on ebay for $400. I really wanted to replace it with another P3 but I’ve had to use most of the money from my settlement to pay medical bills. I had my Felt built up to match my position as close as possible to my position on the P3:
vs
and here they are merged:
I know I’m setting myself up here for the typical ST comments. My seat is probably too high and there’s probably something wrong with my furniture or something
What I’m dealing with is a drop of about 2mph in average speed between my setup on the Felt versus my setup on the P3. In my last full season on the P3, I was consistently in the 23 - 25 mph range, I have yet to average greater than 21.5 since then. I’m certain part of that is simply a result of surviving a collision with a van and subsequently losing 25 lbs of muscle mass. I actually think the two positions look very similar. It does appear I’m a little more stretched out on the P3, the Felt looks like it actually might “fit” me better. It also looks to me like I should maybe get a different stem and get a little lower up front? Fire away…
The most obvious difference is that your seat is farther forward on the P3. Can you make similar adjustments on the felt? If not, try getting a forward seatpost. You don’t need anything radical like the Profile fast forward, but you could get the thomson “setback” and flip it so that the slight bend is forward.
Overall both positions appear similar to mine, which was set up by a FIST specialist. I am looking to make adjustments in my position. It is very comfortable, but not optimal from an aero standpoint.
If you get an adjustable stem, you can easily make adjustments to go lower and more forward for a more horizontal back. See how it feels. If it is not uncomfortable, try it on a ride and see how the new position affects your performance.
Are you completely recovered from your accident? My guess is that you are not. Are you comparing times from May 2006 to May 2007? Etc, etc… See how you are doing in a few months.
Also, its hard to see but I think it looks like you might have been lower in front on the P3.
Do you have any pics of your position? I’m definitely looking for more aero than comfort right now. I think I have my seat as far forward as it will go. I do find myself sliding out onto the nose of the saddle frequently. I’m probably going to head into one of my LBS and see if that have some stems I can swap out with it to try and get lower up front…
Ah, yes my leg isn’t all the way down so it would be hard to tell if my seat is too high… I checked my camera and I just so happened to have taken one with my pedal down:
I wish I could just flip the stem but I think there is no rise on the stem I have, I’ll have to check that when I get home…
1.) I’m looking at all your bikes right now and no, you can’t flip the one on the tri bike or the road bike. Your mountain bike has what looks to be a 6degree +/- stem but I can’t really tell.
2.) Are you triathleteguru or tonythetriguy? What’s with switching names?
3.) I believe your girlfriend has already said exactly what these folks are saying last night
Yeah, the very first login name I created was triathleteguru but then I decided to go with tonythetriguy… I accidentally logged in as triathleteguru yesterday to reply to someone and didn’t realize my mistake until after I posted today. Consequently there are only two posts attributed to triathleteguru and I decided I should switch back to tonythetriguy my “active/preferred” login…
Seriously though, I understand your point. I paid good money to get fitted on the P3 by a professional fitter and fully realize a lot of the advice dished out on ST regarding positioning is worth exactly what people pay for it, nothing… but I do like the position critique threads and almost always look at them when they are posted. They give people ideas on what to look for and what is possible. Also, I’m fishing for excuses to get some new components and maybe eventually a P3C or something… what I’m really looking for is something along the lines of “you’ll never be very aero on that setup, you need to get a new tri bike”
Yeah a 300 dollar fit is really worth it… This fitting stuff is not that complicated. That was not directed to you just a general statement.
Anyways. With your foot all the way down it does look like you seat is too high. One way for me to test if my seat is about the right height is by trying to stretch my calf with the toe pointing up to see if my heal can get close to the ground or on the ground if it can’t most likely your seat is too high.
It looks to me like you need more top tube. My “gestalt” on your position is high, tight/cramped, and forward. A longer stem would open you up but get you even further forward. If you look where your upper arm meets your axilla and drop a vertical, it looks like you’re ahead of where you were, though the old pic isn’t from straight lateral angle which could account for some of this.
How do the top tube lengths of the 2 bikes compare at an equivalent seat angle? Can you move your saddle back?
“you’ll never be very aero on that setup, you need to get a new tri bike”
You can tinker around with your position. You may even want to get a second opinion on your bike fit. It never hurts to try a more aggressive position, but I would not get the new bike until you resolve the position issues. Then you can decide on the exact size and shape of your new bike.
You may not be comfortable in such an aggressive position, but you never really know until you try it. Most bike fitterrs tend to assume that the average cyclist simply cannot get into one of these positions, and they tend to prescribe positions that are conservative. In reality, it is highly individual, depending on your overall dimensions, flexibility, etc.
Thanks everyone for the replies! Thursday evening I did 3 x 3mile intervals with this position on a 1.5 mile out and back course. My average was 24.9, 24.5, and 24.2 which isn’t that far off from my pre-accident days. Still though, if I can get more aero and even have better results I want to. So I switched out the stem from my mountain bike which has a greater rise and put it on my tribike inverted. I’m not sure on the “correct way” of measuring rise, but my original stem raised the handlebars 1.5 cm, the mtn. bike one 3.4 cm, so by inverting it I’ve lowered the aero bars 4.9cm.
From this:
To this:
My knee angle with this position appears to be 147 degrees. I’ve raised my seat up since I originally got fitted, I find it most comfortable and efficient for me to have a slight toe point at the bottom of my pedal stroke. I’m not sure if this is proper or not… I also tense up and arch my back, if I were to extend my reach with a longer stem or move my seat back, I don’t think my back would flatten out, I would just lose the 90 degree angle I currently have with my arms… Anyways, this second setup looks better. I’m racing a triathlon tomorrow with a flat 20mile bike course. I’ve done it the last five years and have tried to but have never averaged 24mph on the course, I’ll see what happens tomorrow!
While I hesitate to give advice to someone that’s faster than me (you got me by 38sec in the swim and 42sec on the bike/transition, we won’t go into the run…), here’s what I think anyway…
Your new position (with the stem “flipped”) definitely looks like an improvement. However, there are two things that jump out at me.
First, I still think your seat is a little high. Your reference points at your knee and especially at your hip are not correct, and it is throwing off your angle measurement (ie. with the correct reference points, your angle will be larger). If you send me the bottom pic without the green lines, I’ll show you were you should be measuring. (Shoot me a PM with your e-mail address, if you’re interested.)
Also, you would gain a lot by working on “turtling” better. Ideally, you want the angle between horizontal and your face to be ~45 degrees (so that you’re looking up out of the bery top of your glasses to see down the road). Yours is at almost 90 degrees, which is presenting a big, flat surface to the wind.
Edit: I forgot to mention… Lowering your front end ~5cm in one shot is a fairly tall order. I know we’re “in season” and you don’t have time to mess around, but… Don’t leap to judgement on the new position from a few training rides or a single race. It will take a little time for your body to adapt and to truly determine wether or not the new position is an improvement.
Hi Steve! Nice race to you as well! It got a little hot out there, I’m glad I had an early start time…
Funny you would mention the angle of my head/face. It’s way more comfortable for me to “turtle” as you put it, but I was under the impression I should have the point of my helmet pointing back more. If I look down and over my glasses like you said, the point basically sticks straight up in the air. Maybe it’s a poorly designed helmet? Or maybe I don’t really know what I’m doing out there… I’ve looked at some of the new LG aero helmets, but I hate to spend close to $200 when my current one works fine… Plus, my last LG Prologue helmet saved my life…
Anyways, I’m definitely open to your advice even if I might have edged you on the bike split, we’re both chasing some crazy fast times by guys like Richard Wierzba and Shawn Oneal! I’m going to swap back to my training wheels tonight and try and get some solid training in with my new position this week and then see how Octomax feels. Are you going to be out at Innsbrook for Quartermax or Octomax?
