I’ve been reading the words about the mini here and the main issue I have is comfort. I used to have syntace streamliners which were comfy but too long (wrong size). Then I tried the Profile Jammers which I found a good position on but they were nowhere near as comfy as the syntace.
Do I blow 2x as much on a new pair of syntace XXS or Smalls or just try the visiontech mini’s or the regular ones at one size down? I haven’t seen the minis in person unfortunately. I do have a problem getting them low enough so the mini’s definitely seem like the choice to me…
I’m not one of the many bike gurus that frequent this site, but I can tell you about my own personal experience.
I tried using the Visiontech minis on my road bike (my only bike), but I couldn’t get comfortable for stretches longer than 10 minutes no matter what I did.
Since then, I’ve gone to the Visiontech regular bars (which I found for only $10 more than I paid for the minis) and they’ve been fantastic. I’m probably a little more stretched out than ideal, but I haven’t experienced any problems. I’m doing IM Wisconsin this year, and I was more concerned with comfort than the perfect position (which probably isn’t going to happen on my current bike anyway). You can get the pads pretty low too.
As an aside, I’d consider going two sizes down. Normally, I’d be a Visiontech size Medium and I went with the Small. They work great, but there’s a little more bar than is necessary (I rest on the pads about 2-3" from my elbows). I probably would have been just as happy with the size XS.
I usually run a 290mm visiontech bar when riding a tri bike setup. Just got some 250mm bars (two sizes down) for my road bike setup. So far there fantastic , I usually hate shorty aero bars but these are great.
Still not as comfortable as a full length aerobar, but about as good as you can get for a road bike.