Bike mods

Hey there!

So, did a little bit of work on the bike; I added a set of Profile Design GT Aerobars. Thanks to a coupon for participating in the Chicago Triathlon, I picked them up at a deeeep discount from an online site. Basically Amazon has them for around $79, I got them for about $39. Gotta love combining clearance and discounts and coupons.

So the idea behind using Aerobars (they came out in the 1986 Tour De France, and are pretty much de rigueur in triathlons now,) is that instead of keeping your hands up 'on the horns,' (the black 'horn looking' part of the handlebars,) or staying low 'in the drop' (the downward curved part on road bikes,) you can rest your upper body weight on the elbow pads, grip the forward part of the bars, and accomplish 2 things: Rest your body, and achieve a more aerodynamic position.

Now, on a road bike, this gets a little dicey. The seat post is slightly aft of where you would want to sit to get proper leverage in the forward 'aero' position, and your body would still be elevated, as opposed to the slightly head down profile you get on a dedicated tri bike.

You can reduce this a bit by removing a spacer or two from the gooseneck of the road bike, and on the Trek 1.2, the seat post is designed to be reversed 180 degrees, allowing you to have that more forward, aggressive, tri-bike type of position on the aerobars.

So after installing the aerobars, I reversed the seat post, rebalanced the seat, and started doing quick bikes to adjust the aerobars to my body size.

I found a pretty comfortable position, but there will be lots of small adjustments. The idea is that you spend the majority of your time once you are in the aerobar position, so that you can rest your body and have a less dragg-y position.

More to come on this as I experiment with it....

Cheers!

Scott