I’m 1 week from a tri I’m thinking about putting a fast forward seatpost on my road bike with aero bars and lowering the bars. My Question is is this a good or bad idea with 1 week to the race?
I’m gonna go with bad idea on this:
The assumption that a lower front end is somehow “faster” is usually not a safe bet. Low does not equal fast. Powerful, stable *and *aerodynamic equal fast. By shifting your weight forward you may transfer a hefty amount of weight onto your front wheel and adversly affect your steering. That may rob some stability. Not good. It may make the bike enough more work to keep going in a straight line that you may actually be slower. You may run better off the bike if you this correctly but then again, you may not…
I think I would take a little more time than just a week to tinker with this and really try to get it right. Even if you nailed it on the first try getting accustomed to it will take more than a couple rides. I say go with what you know for now.
Best of luck My Friend.
Like Tom sez, it may or may not be a good idea BUT it’s a particulary bad idea this close to raceday. An old coach of mine used to say, “ya gotta practice the way you’re gonna play”. Different sport but the idea is sound. Don’t try anything new on raceday and changing your bike set up that much 7 days out is probably not the best idea simply because you don’t have enough time to practice with it.
FWIW, when I started I had a road bike with clip ons and did fine. I think the most important thing is to be comfortable in the saddle and that is just a function of time spent in the saddle. Good luck!
Fight the temptation…its way too close to race day!
Good luck,
Travis
Your right I switched every thing back to how I’ve been praticing. I’m trying to get every detail ironed out. I’ve got a pretty good shot at winning my clydesdale division.
It can be done. This is the principle behind the Cervelo Soloist and Kestrel Talon with their dual position seat posts.
I personally would not recommend a Profile fast forward seat post as it will put you too far forward with too much weight on the front wheel thus affecting handling. I used to race a Giant TCR with a neutral seat post that gave about an effective 75/76 seat tube angle. I wouldn’t go any further than this on a road bike. IMO, where some people go wrong on the Soloist and Talon is trying to go too far forward. These bikes weren’t designed to be 78 degree bikes and work better in a 75/76 “multisport” position. I tried the fast forward post on the Giant and the neutral post was better balanced.
With only one week to go my suggestion would be leave it as a road bike until you get more saddle time in the new position. I assume you’re using the shorter road geometry specific aero bars as it’s set up now?
What I’ve got is a Cannondale R1000 with a Cannondale setback seatpost flipped around to kind of a fast forward post. Then I’ve got a pair of Syntace Streamliner C2 aerobars. It’s a 63 and I probably should have went with a 60 but the 63 felt more comfortable at the time. Now I’m getting into more racing I should have gotten the smaller 60cm. frame.