Riding with aerobars - second attempt.

With just over a week to go until the Squiggy TT I decide to get in some practice with the aerobars. The TT is said to be 7.1 miles and I know a nice stretch of road about 8 miles from my house that is almost that long (6.9 miles) and since it will have a slight headwind today it should be perfect for a dry run.

I ride out to the starting point just spinning with one "effort" in their to open things up a bit and get ready. I "zero out" my cyclometer and get the stopwatch feature ready and off I go into a slight (4 or 5 mph) headwind. I'm feeling pretty good.

There is a small hill just a little bit out from the start and I get out of the aerobars, down shift a couple of clicks, and sprint over the top. I upshift more than a couple of clicks and settle into the aerobars for the downhill and the run-out. When rolling at a decent clip I hit some rough pavement and it seems like the areobars rotated down a bit. Hmmm.

A downshift or two and I tuck in for some more.

About 3.5 miles into the ride I hit some rough pavement and the clip-on bars go though a large rotation. I don't crash, but now I have zero confidence riding on them. I shift to riding the drops for the rest of the planned TT simulation.

For the remaining 3+ miles I notice no decrease in speed, but there are a number of mitigating factors. Now the wind is more of a crosswind and less of a headwind, I'm much more comfortable riding in the drops because I have a lifetime of experience doing it, and the jolt of adrenaline when I was riding at 27 mph and my bars starting moving was still working. All told I am happy with the time over the distance given the wind conditions.

Now I've got to torque those mothers down and try it again.