-VELOCITY-

Please excuse my lack of knowledge but I figure this would be the best place to get answers. Why is it that when a race is a Time Trial, they use a Time Trial bike, and not in any other stage? If the TT bike makes you faster, or more aerodynamic, shouldn't it be used all the time?

Thank you in advance.

dutret

it makes you more aerodynamic. That's not necessarily faster. Also it's not allowed.

KevinF

UCI regulations. Aerobars, etc. are banned in mass-start stages.

voltman

And they aren't as maneuverable as standard road bikes.

merlinextraligh

1) the aerobar setup isn't legal

2) they handle like crap

3) they tend to climb worse than road bikes.

4) they're insiduous, uncomfortable tools of the devil.

MONGO!

Using aero bars in a tight peloton would result in multiple deaths.

Also time trials are considerably shorter than a regular TdF stage.

Regular bikes are more maneuverable.

-VELOCITY-

Wow that was fast. Thanks everyone. Now it makes total sense.

Jinker

A pictorial answer:







Different tools for different jobs.

EventServices

The TT bike is designed to do one thing: go fast.
A road race asks a lot more things from a bike.

But I'm just re-stating what's been said.

draxine

I believe TT bikes also tend to be heavier than a road bike, considering the extra amount of material needed to construct the aerodynamic frame

ryanhulce

Although I bet more people would watch the tour when the entire Peleton is on TT's Wow talk about crashes! The one to win the tour would be the guy who didn't break something.

ratebeer

I know several people whose TT bike is their primary bike. They tend to be less invested in road racing though than simply going fast and pulling their own wind.

* The safety concerns here are unreasonably overstated. Because the UCI declares something "unsafe" to rationalize Ludditism doesn't make it so

* Americans tend to be collectively sold on the idea that many bad options are better than few good ones. If you can get your Burger King/Starbucks/Grand Slam breakfast any way you like it then it must be better than the no option stuff cooked by your personal chef. Ergo, many bad hand positions are better than few good ones

* Cervelo has included aerodynamic features on their road frames, which have given their riders as much as 10 meter advantages (huge) over a single 1 km breakaway.

* Jens Voigt's road position (check out his hands and back) has been modeled after his excellent TT position

merlinextraligh

^^^^^
1. Take a rolling stage of a road race, and allow the riders to choose their equipment, without UCI constraints, the riders would pick a road bike.

2. Put a so so bike handler on a TT bike on a rolling course with some twisty descents, and you get Michael Rasmussen, playing on the pavement.

The modern road bike is used because it works; contrary to your belief, it's not just just an artifact of UCI rules.

ratebeer

"Modern" is the century-old design that holds absolutely zero speed records in non-UCI-regulated events?

Take a look at any triathlon -- even busy ones with circuit courses -- and they're loaded with tt bars. No mad increase in wrecks, plenty of cornering. The curly bars are only in the pro peloton because they are mandated.

In all of bicycle racing, as competition and the need for speed increases, and mandated vestiges of bygone eras are relaxed, the curly bars are the among the first things to go.

AGGRO

Hills suck on a TT bike as the geometry is pretty harsh. They are made to haul butt and that's about it.

Dragster vs race car.

patentcad

Somebody posed this question to me recently.

I had no answer. And I own a TT bike and a regular road bike.

ratebeer

You can make it happen with cassette/chainring, stem, seat position changes but then of course there are new and significant advantages, disadvantages.

1. You don't have the best possible road bike, TT bike
2. Your single position means you are stronger in that position because you don't require postural/positional adaptations

botto 

Please don't feed the Fred.

merlinextraligh

They don't draft, they don't typically have a lot of hills, and they don't sprint.

I think it is highly unlikely that Boonen, Mckewen, Hushovd etc, would use a TT bike with bullhorns and aerobars if you let them for a typical flat to rolling stage of the TDF likely to finish in a sprint.

I've resisted asking this for awhile now, because I don't think discussions should degenerate to personal attacks. However, opinions can have more or less credibility depending on the experience of the opiner.

So 1) have you raced, particularly crits in a large tight pack, and contested mass sprint finishes?

2) do you have a full on TT bike, and have you done competitve time trials on it?

I would wager that most folks who have done these things understand the proper tools for the particular jobs.

-VELOCITY-

Hey!

dutret

Yes bike racing would be much better if it was done on fully enclosed recumbents

When riding in a pack, up hills or sprinting aerodynamics become less important then they are when you are trying to set a speed record or tting.

DocRay

those will all kill mice effectively.

ratebeer

I'm not saying that bullhorns/aero would be the exact selection of the entire pro peloton but that the curly bars would be dropped, excuse the pun, for a superior, non-mandated design. Can you can cite any examples of the contrary?

I've provided real world examples of conditions where the rules have been relaxed and the bars have changed.

In today's TdF "sprint" among non-sprinters, dropping into aerobars would probably have been more advantageous. Standing up to sprint, if you don't have a real one in you, can often result in a loss of time due to a loss of aerodynamics. Case in point is the 1989 time trial out of the saddle "sprint" attempts of Laurent Fignon, each of which lost him an estimated 2 seconds.

As far as triathlons being flat, you're not completely right there. Many tris feature brutal climbs. A local triathlete does his on his P3. The same one he time trials on.

ratebeer

Drop the ad absurdum as an intro?

Can you even imagine anything in between?

ratebeer

Yeah, I'm fat enough already.

And yeah, although I enjoy MEL's thoughts, we've been down this road before and it pretty much falls apart as it ventures into the land of the hypothetical.