Anyone know what, exactly, are the armrest fixing bolts on a Vision Trimax set of aero bars? Mine are the alloy “Team” version. I only have the bolts that work with the single 12.5mm spacer and would like to get rid of that to lose a little stack, according to the manual I need the 16mm long fixing bolt rather than the 30mm bolt that I assume I have. But it doesn’t say what type of bolt it is, if it is indeed generic and not propriatory. It’s probably just an M5, but is tapered to sit into the countersunk plug, if that makes sense.
I’ve done all sorts of modifications to vision bars. Yes, the proprietary bolts fit well in the recessed holes, but I’ve used other kinds that did not look as pretty and they worked just fine.
Let me know when you find some for sale…mine are rusted.
Side note, I think you need a short spacer of some sort in order to make those arm rests work. I tried to slam the armrest cups in a wind tunnel test one time and I realized that the spacer sits on a machined surface but that the entire upper surface of the aerobar extensions is not machined–you need a 1-2mm spacer to flatten out the upper surface of the extensions. I think this is also necessary to prevent the bottoms of the pad cups from sitting on the basebar. Either way, there’s not much utility in doing this unless you want effectively taller extensions or you already have your stem and steerer slammed. If neither of the above is true, you have a better option besides lowering the pad cups…
Zack, interesting about the need for a shim/spacer, will look into that. I tried it with no spacer the other day and it seemed to sit ok but obviously not torqued up without the correct length bolt. I already have a -17 stem and no spacers on the steerer tube. Even on a P3 I seem to need more reach for less stack, guess I could have sized down and ran a longer stem than the 90mm I am using but at the time I was trying to adhere to the ST mandated “better more frame less accessories” approach, and anyway, that ship has sailed. Have toyed around with seeing about a super low stack aerobar like maybe the Felt Devox or Pro Missile, not sure I would gain much vs the Vision without spacers which looks really low to me anyway, if I can do it.
Thanks for all your help guys, saved me taking the dremel to these bolts in a moment of irreversible madness.
Zack, interesting about the need for a shim/spacer, will look into that. I tried it with no spacer the other day and it seemed to sit ok but obviously not torqued up without the correct length bolt. I already have a -17 stem and no spacers on the steerer tube. Even on a P3 I seem to need more reach for less stack, guess I could have sized down and ran a longer stem than the 90mm I am using but at the time I was trying to adhere to the ST mandated “better more frame less accessories” approach, and anyway, that ship has sailed. Have toyed around with seeing about a super low stack aerobar like maybe the Felt Devox or Pro Missile, not sure I would gain much vs the Vision without spacers which looks really low to me anyway, if I can do it.
Thanks for all your help guys, saved me taking the dremel to these bolts in a moment of irreversible madness.
Rich.
That was my experience too, but if you look underneath you’re only pressing the pad cup onto the curved upper surface of the aerobar, not onto the machined surface that the spacer sits on because the pad cup is a bit wider than the spacer. I think you can kind of see that in this picture.
The exact design of the aerobars may have changed over the years, but I’ve had 2 pairs of these (about 5 years apart too) and neither of them came with the tiny little spacers you see in the picture above.
I’m as curious as you are. I have a pretty wide variety of machining equipment at my disposal at work. If I can lay hands on my 50mm spacers I’ll bring them to work and see if I can’t cut them down into a couple pairs and grind them to that minimum depth. If it works, I’ll send you a pair.
Ahhhh, you are looking at the clip ons, mine is the SI semi integrated jobby, should have said. The arm pads mount slightly differently I think, whether or not the difference is enough to make it possible to mount direct or not I’m not sure, possibly not but it does look like the mounting surface is raised a bit more relative to the basebars/extensions.
As a general update, I’ve been in touch with the UK FSA distributor and I can get the 2.5mm riser with bolts for £3.95 through my LBS, so problem is officially solved! I had an instant response back from FSA, if you need some I’d go that route with your US equivalent. I assume Vision is an arm of Full Speed Ahead.
