Aero bars for triathlons or not?

[@ndy]

I have only taken up triathlons this year and as I only owned an MTB I was only intending to do off road tri's. I have got qute sucked in by it all and recently thought I would go all out and buy a TT bike for road events.

 

Having borrowed a road bike for my two previous road Tri's I thought TT bikes were the way to go but now I see some races are not allowing the aero bars. Can anyone advise me of good ways to convert or should I just get a road bike as well?

[BLACKvoodoo]

Which TT bike did you buy?

 

Some of my friends have changed road into TT but never the other way around.

 

It's like those guys who put 22'' rims and super low profiles on SUV's

Edited September 12, 2014 by BLACKvoodoo

[@ndy]

I bought a Felt B14 from a hubber. Although I know very little about road bikes it seems like a good piece of kit. The previous owner said I could change the handle bar set up to make it comply with the road rules. But by the time I have done that i think I might have spent half what I paid for it.

[Bubblez]

All depends on if the race is draft legal or not.

Draft legal races will disallow TT bars, as it is a saefty hazard. (Difficult to slam on breaks if you in a bunch and are on your bars, added risk of impaling someone)

 

Non drafting races (IM, 70.3 & 5150) all allow TT bars.

 

If you on the fence, Go with a road bike, you can buy clip on's and look at changing your seat post. to get into a more aero postion. As mentioned above, relatively easy to go from a road bike to TT set up but difficult to go the other way round

[fanievb]

AFAIK time trial bikes are not legal in normal road races, even if you change the handlebars

[BLACKvoodoo]

I bought a Felt B14 from a hubber. Although I know very little about road bikes it seems like a good piece of kit. The previous owner said I could change the handle bar set up to make it comply with the road rules. But by the time I have done that i think I might have spent half what I paid for it.

Yes , cabling and all that shizzle.

I just got a cheap entry level road bike I only do about 4 road events a year (maybe less)

Get one of those Spez entry ones second hand

[sluiper]

I would suggest just getting a secondhand road bike. Way too much hassle and money taking a tri-bike and trying to turn it into a road bike.

 

The ideal is to have 2 bikes, but for some guys the cost associated with maintaining/buying/riding 2 bikes is too much, which is why they opt for tri-bars on the road bike. NTTAWWT, I've just found that bars on a road bike aren't half as efficient as actually riding a tri-bike.

 

Group rides with friends, road races and draft-legal tris can all be done with a road bike, whereas the tri-bike can technically only be used in non-drafting races,

[gummibear]

You could put drop bars and shifters on the Felt.Handling will be a little twitchy with your body more forward.

 

You can then just clip tri-bars on and off when you need them.

[@ndy]

Thanks for the advice.