I'm doing a half ironman triathlon later this year so just started looking at tri-bars. There's so much difference in price, shapes, style etc. Ican't work out what the advantages/ disadvantages of various ones are, other than weight.
So educate me. Why are there so many different designs of clip on pipe and should i be bothered? just buy the optimum price/weight ratio and get done?
Will you be sticking them on a road bike or will you have a TT bike by then?
Are you using bar end shifters in the end of the extensions or using normal STI levers
weight isn't important. buy a pair that are adjustable, so you can alter length, rise, elbow pads etc, and get a proper bike fit with them on, with a place that sets up TT bikes.
Weight/aero/adjustability.... how much bling you like.... triatheletes luuuuuve the bling.
Me.... I used a pair of £35 Rayleigh RSP.
They weigh a fair bit and a fuff to get on your bike/adjust... but I found they did the job and where comfortable once set up.... they have loads of adjustability, just a bit of a pain to do it.
Would a super duper set of tribars costing 10x as much save me 10mins of a HIM ... doubt it ... and so what if they had ???
The crucial question is what you are clipping them to. The rough guide is you want your upper arms in a vertical position with your hands on the correct position on the extensions and your forearms well supported.
A lot of folk just putting clip-ons on to normal drop bars on a bike with a top tube the proper length for a road bike use way too long aero bars and would be better served with short uci legal style extensions like the Vision Tech Mini Clip Ons. The other issue with a lot of clip ons added to road bikes with drop bars is the cups are too high.
My aero bars don't seem to make any difference
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If you are new to it all... adjustability. Can recommend the Zipp Vuka ([url= http://zipp.com/bars/vuka-alumina-clip/ ]clips[/url] and [url= http://zipp.com/bars/vuka-alumina-extensions/ ]poles[/url]). You can have them under or over the bars. Poles are not fixed to the clips so fore and aft movement only really limited by length of the poles. You can have a big stack of risers. Straight or bendy poles. Loads of options.
As Rosey, I reckon you'd save more time being comfortable on normal drops
As Rosey, I reckon you'd save more time being comfortable on normal drops
You can be comfortable on the poles too. You just need to work on position and practice/adapt. You will be quicker.
Clip on bars are hard to get right, maybe a decent bikefit would be a good idea?
If you do it right it is much faster than normal bars.
Maybe try in combination with an Adamo saddle? It makes a steeper seat angle easily do-able and stops your bits from being crushed.
For a full aerobar I found the 3T Vola dead comfy, even after 12 hours. Full bar can be found for less than £100
If you're chucking them on a road bike I'd get something cheep and cheerful first. You can adjust the angle of them by spinning them on the bar and play about with what feels good. Unless you have a full base bar + extensions I'd not be bothered about height adjust-ability as I find clip ons on the road bike quite high with a normal drop bar height setting and to get ones you can mount under the bars costs a fair bit.
Adamo's are good for getting a bit more forward on the saddle and opening the hip angle which I always found a right pain with road bike and clip ons. It would probably need to be accompanied with a change in saddle height and a bit of fore/aft relocation though.
If you want to go down the road of chopping and changing settings on you road bike to get as comfortable as possible in the TT bars then this app [url= http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2013/10/automated-measurement-review.html ]DC Rainmaker Reviewed[/url] is very helpful.
Iain
J or S bends, or straight poles. I like the S bends myself. Nice thing about putting them on a road bike is that they won't be too low. A very low position may be more aero, but only whilst you are in it! This sounds obvious, but surprisingly it isn't - higher bars and a shorter reach mean you can stay on the aero bars longer without discomfort and hence on average remain aero for longer. Practice that. There is aero with a long flat back, and then there is the rest of us 😉
I'm using profile t1s pretty happy with them. I have some vision mini ts in the spares box I could do with getting rid of. Used for 3 tts before I got the profiles. Email in profile if you are interested....