So I need a fast ROAD bike that will be mainly used for sportives, club rides, holidays as well as occasional half / full ironman distance triathlons and the odd local TT.
Switching gears from both the TT position and Hoods is essential, as is the ease of removing the aero bars quickly.
Does anyone have a good solution for this?
The Trek Madone Speed looked like a good option, but Trek have removed the Madones from their website so I’m waiting for a refresh to see what they offer.
I know that I can just add clip on aero bars and clickers with electronic group sets to shift but how does this work when you want to remove the aero bars? Is it a hassle to re-do the cables every time?
I do not have room for two bikes. This is something I cannot change otherwise I would just get a a road and TT bike.
Unless you run true wireless system (sram) there will be cables involved and will be a huge pain in the ass.
Plus, depending on the race you would be better off with a bike that is made for the task.
Depending on what you plan to do the most. I would probably get a TT bike (i train specifically for tri’s) and maybe a used or slightly less expensive road bike.
Or can go the other way…get a nice roadbike and try to get a used TT bike…
If you really really really want to go through the painful process of changing the cockpit of your bike, then maybe the canyon aeroad can do the trick
My local 10 mile TT has lots of mini short punchy climbs that requires shifting in and I want to be fairly competitive at it - well, as competitive as I can be without a dedicated TT bike
Really weird but the UK site is not showing any Madones except for the framesets. Must be updating the model or something?
I looked at the venue but not sure where I would put the shifters on those clip ons.
I will probably have to wait until they release the Madone Speed again and get one with Sram - its going to cost a bomb that’s for sure but I’m certain I won’t need another bike for a long time after this.
Are there any other brands that have done something similar to the Madone Speed?
BMC makes a bike, I think time machine, that you can actually move the seatpost back to comply with UCI rules (more road like) or forward for more tri positioning.
I used to do this with a Felt AR FRD that I owned a few years back. The seatpost is reversible to give you a more aggressive seatpost angle when in TT mode. I also ran SRAM eTap which made it easy to add and remove the TT bars when I didn’t want them on.
The areo bar shifters do have wires but you plug them into the the shifters under the hoods. I would feed the wires through the aerobars and then run them over to the hoods to plug them in. I’d unwrap and re-wrap the bar tape to run the wires underneath so I could get a nice clean look. I suppose you could avoid that step if you really wanted to.
With regards to the Madone and di2, I believe that a junction is put in the stem allowing you to disconnect them fairly easily. I am not 100% sure as I don’t have them personally but have been looking into them on a Madone for my next bike as well. This video was a bit helpful to me so might be of interest to you as well.
My mother-in-law has a Cervelo S5 with the built in aerobar. She uses it without the aerobar on group rides and fondos and plans to use the aerobar for tris (hasn’t yet). Just throwing another option in there. It’s a beautiful bike. Pretty fun for me helping her shop for it because I’m her “knows a lot about bikes” guy.
How about going with clip-on aero bars with electronic shifters (Di2 for example), but having connectors on the Di2 wires connecting to each STI lever? That way you could disconnect the wires, remove the aero bars, and you’re done. You’d have to have small Di2 tails poking out of the bar tape either side of the stem, but they could be left there or a bit of electrical tape/scrunchy slipped over them.
If you don’t want to go with SRAM and you want to keep the cost down, I think that’s a pretty good option.
This sounds like a good option. I presume I can just leave the tails poking out when the aero bars are not attached but do you need to cover them whilst riding?
