I’m sure this has been discussed, but I couldn’t find anything via search.
I’m currently working on doing the top tube cable modification on my P2. While I was looking at my bare head tube, I thought about rotating the brake levers and aligning them with the aerobar.
Has anyone done this? I know USE Tula bars are setup in a similar fashion. Cpuld there be any aero advantage to this? Besides potentially making it more difficult to grab the brake levers, is there any potential negative?
Imagine this. You’re cruising down the road 24MPH in the aero position. Suddenly, a car flys out in front of you, and you have to slam on the brakes to not hit it. You go to grab for your basebar, but your hand gets caught in the inside groove between the brakes that you’ve rotated around. You crash and you die.
This could easily happen.
Yeah, not saying I’m planning on doing. Just wondering if anyone has done it and what their experience was. Also if there could potentially be any aero advantage.
I think if your basebar has upturned ends, it’ll probably be worse from a drag perspective in addition to being unsafe. My brake levers are shaped to have wind hitting them from the front. If I turned the brake levers inward, the a component of the wind would be hitting the side of the lever.
In a triathlon I would not do this as the courses are for the most part never a closed course. For safety in training and racing I would not do it. NOW in our local TT on a closed course with zero chances of auto issues, I would be willing to rotate my brakes inward and level with my DEVOX aerobars IF it was proven that it was more aero. I have run them this way in a test ride on a local area with very little traffic and they work fine.
I’m running the same basebars. Where I noticed the idea. Just not sure if it’s ever been tested.
Lets get the guys at Specialized to test it in the tunnel. They are always looking for cool ideas to test. How do we ask them such a question. SH!T, we should have asked Nick at TriRig since he just tested a bunch of aerobars.
Yeah I did it — and someone commented that it increased drag:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=2820107;search_string=jeremyb%20levers;#2820107
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There is the noted issue with brake activation (since you now can only use your thumb to squeeze); braking will probably suck.
If the bullhorns don’t curve up there should be a very small drag decrease (since the basebar can draft the levers); I’d guess the savings is in single digits (probably lose more than that on cornering).
Just go with the 3T levers. Super small lever profile, and they act as a nosecone for the bullhorns.
http://www.slanecycles.com/images/3T%20aero%20brake%20levers2.jpg
I knew a guy who raced with his brake levers rotated inward.
It did look a little faster, but I thought it was a dumb idea.
I guess you could get used to brake usage like that, but I wasn’t gonna try it.