Switching from road to TT

Triathlon Forum
1

I am thinking about selling my road and tri bike and purchasing a soloist from cervelo to take over both of their jobs. I read through Mr. Demerly’s review and it seems that if you are not racing but three or four times a year then it would work just fine. My question is how long would it take to switch from road set up to a TT cockpit? Also, say you had a older Specialized Allez, which is a tad small, with an even older 7 speed groupo as you road bike and a pretty sweet Gianit Trinity with full ulegra, but is not as steep as you would like would you switch to the do it all soloist?

Thanks

2

the soloist is probably a better tri bike than the old giant
so yeah this sounds like it might be a good move for you.

to switch to TT move I would expect you just bolt on some clip ons and maybe remove a spacer or two, and flip the seatpost head.

you could just leave the clip ons on always too. It can be a nice relief on your hands to go aero from time to time =)

3

I know that you can just throw on some clip ons and reverse the seat but, which is most likely how I would trian, but would it be worth it to put on a full TT cockpit up front?

Thanks

4

no, it is a huge pain in the ass to switch a whole cockpit out. all the cables have to come off the derailleurs and brakes and such, you probably will need a different set of cable housings to swap in and out as well.

There are a couple brands of bullhorn bars that are semi aero. FSA makes one and the Shimano PRO line has one.

I know that you can just throw on some clip ons and reverse the seat but, which is most likely how I would trian, but would it be worth it to put on a full TT cockpit up front?

Thanks

5

the time and effort to switch back and forth bewteen the two set ups would not be worth the hassle imho.

6

Is it worth it? Yes. With the caveat that you invest in a high end setup. I’m not talking $1000 for a set of aerobars, but $400 would do it.

I’ve done a setup like that before that took less than an hour to change out. That only works with frames that have a good internal routing setup like the Soloist. It doesn’t take long to fish the cables through if you do things correctly.

Chris

7

Do you strip the endcaps off the cables each time you do this, or just buy new cables?

You never have problems with the cable ends catching in the housing?

For me there is no way I would bother with this, unless you could show me something like a minute per 40k time savings

maybe it would be that much though =)

Is it worth it? Yes. With the caveat that you invest in a high end setup. I’m not talking $1000 for a set of aerobars, but $400 would do it.

I’ve done a setup like that before that took less than an hour to change out. That only works with frames that have a good internal routing setup like the Soloist. It doesn’t take long to fish the cables through if you do things correctly.

Chris