I am looking at swapping out my aged C2 aerobars for something more accommodating to my hand position. Current candidates are Profile’s T2 Cobra & Vision’s…whatever r-bend model it is that’s made of carbon.
Profile appears to have a more ‘natural’ position, while the Vision comes across as more aggressive. Vision also sports a lighter weight and more sexy base bar (and wouldn’t require a new stem), but am curious if others out there have done more extensive comparison of these setups. Feedback would be appreciated.//d
I had C2’s and can only speak for the Profile T2+'s. I find them very comfy, but no more so than the C2’s, and ironically have them mounted on a VT base bar. They have a lot of adjustment which is very nice. The aluminium ones are only 20 gms heavier than the carbon version so it doesn’t make a lot of performance sense to pony up the extra for the Cobras IMO.
I have some R bends and they work great. One thing I must caution you on is that you cannot cut the carbon bars. You may want the shifters right at your fingertips.
In general, I am a big fan of Profile’s adjustability in most of their products. The Visions certainly are a sleek setup, but lack the rotational adjustment, pad fore/aft/rotation, length adjustment, etc of bars like the Profile T2 or Carbon Stryke. With Visions, you must pick the correct size, and then do fine adjustments via stem length. The nice thing of having a highly adjustable aerobar is that it can “make up” for less-than-optimal frame geometry. For example, let’s say you need a size L Vision to have a perfect FIST fit on your optimal sized frame. But what if you bought your frame second hand and it is 1 cm too large? With the Profile bars, the fix may be as simple as taking out the arm pad risers and shortening up the bars. Yes, you can do this on the Visions by cutting them down and removing the risers, but the problem then becomes that you effectively have a set of “shorty” (ITU) bars- the arm pads will fall in the middle of your forearm. This is the real beauty of the Profiles- highly fore/aft adjustable on the arm pads. You can bring them back along with the extensions. On the flip side, if the pads are too far back (i.e. knees hitting them while out of the saddle), just scoot them forward. On Vision bars, you’d need to get a longer stem, which would also effectively lengthen the extensions.
FWIW, I also think the T2’s have a “natural” hand position as far as s-bends go.
I don’t follow that you “can’t cut the carbon bars”? See the description from Trisports on the R-bend carbon below. “The Vision Tech R-Bend Carbon Clip-on Aerobar is the newest in the line of quality Vision Tech Clip-on Aerobars. These R-Bend Clip-on bars designed for the pros are now available to athletes of all types. Available in 26.0 or 31.8 clamp size. Extensions are designed to be cut according to rider size and positioning.” I also cut a one piece carbon R-bend this weekend without issue.
I had the C2’s and the standard VT’s. When I went looking for S-bends, I started with the VT’s, but the adjustability was just not there - couldn’t get the bend right. I looked at the Profiles, but in the end, I opted for the Hed bars and could not be happier with the hand position. I did raise the pads 12.5mm, then cut about 4 inches off the extensions.
Over this past weekend I replaced my C2’s with the VT TT clip on bars. I like them very much as the arm rest sits right on the base bar and is wider and more comfy than my syntace bars. I actually prefer a bar with minimal adjustment since all that adjustment requires more hardware, more weight and more points of failure. That is actually one of the things I liked about the C2’s…very simple and very elegent design. Sometimes Profile tries to over engineer everything.