As I posted elsewhere, we had a time trial last night. I spent maybe 1-1.5K of the 10 K in the aerobar position, because I found I was quite wobbly when in the aero position. How much of that could be lack of experience, and how much of that could do with the bike position itself?
I don’t know how your bike fits, but I do know that when one first tries the aero position it can be quite unstable. Relax your grip a bit and peddle smoothly. As you gain experience you should gain stability. Then you will be able to hammer and still be relatively stable. Take your bike out for some AIS time, and ride in the aero position.
Most often due to poor bike fit.
road bike or tri bike?
Fit and experience can both be issues, but given your other post, I’d guess that you just need a lot more time in the saddle to gain comfort. Do you train on your TT bike in the aerobars?
Tri/TT bikes are typically a bit more squirrely then a road bike because you have more weight on the front wheel and you’re steering from a narrower position resting on your aerobars (as compred to a nice wide sold grip on your road bars). BUT if you’re set up well your aero position should still be pretty darn stable and with practice you should feel very comfortable. You’ll get there, it just takes time, before you know it, you’ll be taking corners in the bars and drinking from your H2O bottle while barreling down a decent with your other arm still on the aerobars.
Poor position or ill-fitting bike can also be factors and you might get someone you trust to look over your set-up. I consider myself a good bike handler but when I throw aerobars on my road geometry bike, slam the seat forward and try to “make it work”, then it is much more unstable feeling than riding my tri bike built with a 78degree seat angle.
The most common problem I see with wobbly riders is their aerobar pads are too close together. Your elbows need be no narrower than your hips/thighs.
I was started with relatively wider aerobar pads for the same reason. I then gradually narrowed them. Make sure your headset is ok, wheel is straight, all that stuff. Pedal in circles.
Just the other day I was thinking how squirrily my bike was acting, while I was down in the aerobars. Only then did it occur to me that I was riding with a 15 mph crosswind with two deep dish (HED jet 60) wheels. Even a light wind can destabilize aerobars that weren’t too stable to begin with.
In one sprint, we were having 40+ mph crosswinds, in a 3 ft wide bike lane on the coast hwy with tons of traffic and my H3s were getting me blown all over. I finally got on the horns for that leg, because I kept getting blown toward the dirt one second and the cars the next.