Fitting tri/aero bars to a hybrid

NickGi

Hoping to tap your knowledge on a problem: I want to fit aero bars to my hybrid, but not sure what issues I'll have.

Long story short I had my very nice Ribble road bike nicked from my shed in south London just three weeks ahead of doing Ride London, and can't afford to replace it in time.

My solution is to put some oomph into my hybrid, including fitting aero bars. Now at the moment I've got these bars https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-PwlTx0JB8zw/UecHeznDUyI/AAAAAAAAAGs/XuI2icWwAqM/w743-h557-no/IMG_2643.jpg

I'd like to fit something like this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tranz-X-Tri-Bar ... ds=Tranz-X

I'd like to buy a flatter handlebar, but both mine and the replacement bar (eg this http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... yId_273951) have the tapered bit either side that might make it difficult to fit the aero bars securely.

Any thoughts gratefully received!

junglist_matty

for £50 you'd be better off buying a secondhand retro road bike looking at the photo you uploaded to show your handlebars!

apreading

Again, looking at your photo I think you would be better spending your money on something to make it lighter, not adding to the weight... or putting your £50 towards a new bike.

NickGi

Thanks for the replies, but this is the route I want to take. Ride London only a couple of weeks away now and I know my machine, heavy though it is, works well.
Can anyone advise on the bar change plan? Ta

nferrar

If I were in your situation I'd buy a new bike from Wiggle, do the event and return it after under their 30-day returns policy - ofc if one of the other 25000 people cause you to crash and break it then you can't return it...

As for the bar - they'll all taper, the one you linked from Halfords looks good for what you want as the taper is pretty severe and close to the middle so should mean you can mount the tri-bar extensions on the thin part of the bar. I reckon it should be pretty secure as the tri-bars you've linked have 25.4 shims and you can pad them out with bits of cut-up inner tube. Given it's a bog standard alu bar you should be OK torquing the extension clamp up pretty hard to (it would be more how much torque the extension clamp/bolt can take rather than the handlebar). Given the main weight is over the pads which are over the bars there's not a bit leverage on the end of the extensions whilst you're riding so I can't see them moving.

smoggysteve

Given the position and width-weight of your handle bars. Trying to steer with tri bars attached to them is going to make the handling terrible possibly even dangerous. I would like to see a pick of the whole bike as I am pretty sure your seat is not going to be much higher than the top of the bars meaning you would be resting your chin on the headset nearly. That is not an aero position no matter what you decide to cobble onto it.

Barbarossa

Apart from being a bad idea - riding with aero bars in a group. Do the organisers allow them?

Why not just fit drops with the shifters and brakes on the tops?

NickGi

Interesting replies - thanks. A friend of mine is lending me a decent road bike for the Ride London event, so don't need to do the aerobar thing now, which is a relief. Well done everyone for not pasting in Rule 51!

vorsprung

NickGi wrote:

Interesting replies - thanks. A friend of mine is lending me a decent road bike for the Ride London event, so don't need to do the aerobar thing now, which is a relief. Well done everyone for not pasting in Rule 51!

Probably spending £50 on some nice tyres would give a better performance increase than tribars

After the event you can swap back to your usual tyres and keep the good ones for when you have a road bike again