Steely Dan

You have to remember that a good chunk of my daily commute is along Chicago's lakefront path where winds can be absolutely savage and car traffic is non-existant. So at times when biker and jogger traffic is light on the path (mornings, when it's cold, etc.) not having direct access to brake levers isn't a huge concern for me.

Drop bars are a great aero mod, but as I mentioned earlier, my bike has hydraulic brakes and no one makes hydraulic levers that fit on drop bars.


In any event, I dialed back the aerobars about an inch and a half this morning and went out for a little ride. What a world of difference! So, so, so much more comfortable. I think the aerobars are gonna be staying on the bike.

Altamont

I like 'em.

scoatw

This is my Trail bike I picked up on ebay in 2010. A Surly 1x1, that I slapped on a pair of aerobars. I've got a 9 mile ride to the trail and the aerobars make it a more comfortable and quicker ride.

Steely Dan

so this morning was my first commute with the aerobars dialed-in correctly. with a 15 mph crosswind the whole way, i was down on the aerobars for the vast majority of the 7.5 miles that i ride on the lakefront path. the more aero posture did make a noticeable difference.

of course, when i was back on city streets with city traffic, i was back up on my flatbar because i'm not comfortable enough with aerobars to be on them among cars. maybe that will always be a bad idea regardless of how comfortable i get with them.




that's my favorite part about this subforum. it's the most wide open subforum on all of BF. we've got folks commuting on all manner of pedal-driven contraptions here, and that's a big reason why i find it such an interesting forum. as they say, the only thing you really need to become a bicycle commuter is a working bicycle.

jeffpoulin

Correct. They're great for cruising, but not so much for city traffic.

CommuteCommando

I like to say that the difference between an engineer and a designer is that a designer is concerned with how it looks, and an engineer is concerned with how it works. I am an engineer who has been called a designer by some who do not know there is a difference.

This looks like some sound engineering to me. I had some home made aerobars on a commuter many years ago, and am considering them for my current bike. I don't care what it looks like. If I did you would never even see my fat arse on a bike.

himespau 

I've thought of putting some on my commuter bike, but that'd mean taking off my bar bag and I like that too much to do it. Might give it a go the next time I re-wrap my bars though. I have a set of aerobars just sitting in a box not getting used, so maybe I should give it a go.

Steely Dan

that's one of the reasons i went ahead and did it. i had a pair of somewhat pricey carbon aerobars laying around collecting dust, so i figured why not see if i could get some use out of them.

i don't have a handlebar bag on my bike, but i do have a bar mounted headlight that i flipped upside down to accommodate the aerobars. i still have to play around a little with that to get it properly aimed and affixed to the bar in the upside down position.

himespau 

Mine just cost me shipping from a pay it forward thread. I really need to use them this year or pay them forward to someone else.

Yeah I will have to see how they affect lighting. I have been thinking of moving my main lighting to my helmet anyway and if my bar bag is off there, that should solve other problems as that's partially in the way of my light and my air zound currently.

My bigger question for mine is my bars are 31.8 mm at the clamp and while I think the aerobars clamp outside of the oversized region (they're the connected type), they might be spread far enough they interfere with the interrupter levers I have on the tops for when I ride there. On the other hand, I've been thinking of taking the interupter levers off as I don't ride on the tops as much anymore and don't think they give that good of modulation. Hmmmm. Will have to try it and see.

Steely Dan

so i've been on the aerobars for about a month now, i've gotten really comfy on them and have found them to be a big help on windy days along the lake, but yesterday was something else. on my way home i was going into a roughly 30-35mph head wind (gusting to 50mph) at my 12 o'clock. so i was down on my aerobars battling the headwind, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, an absolutely savage gust of wind (it had to be well above 50mph) BLASTS me at my 2 o'clock, slamming into me like a falling wall of bricks. because i'm on the aerobars, the bike starts to wobble as i'm about to loose control. the wind blast pushes me laterally all the way across the bike path and right into the sand of north avenue beach on the opposite side, where i'm able to clip out and put a foot down right before falling over.

now, that gust of wind was so stupidly strong that even had i been riding up on the flat bar, i might still have been pushed off the trail, but the narrow purchase of being on the aerobars sure made riding into a blast like that pretty scary.

Burton

Glad to hear you like them! Have aero bars on a TT bike but went in another direction for the hybrid. I have Ergon GC3's installed with taped over barends. The position is almost identical to riding on the hoods and upper bar of a road bike. Thing is, the bar was also cut in width to my shoulder width and mounted on a stem so low that any riding position is both comfortable and aero. In fact, there's no physical space left to attach aerobars even if I wanted to.

Steely Dan

^ i've got ergon GC3's on my hybrid as well, and while i slammed the stem as much as possible, it still feels a little too upright on the GC3 bar ends compared to being on the drops of my road bike. that;s why i slapped on the aerobars. i also can't chop my flat bar down any more than i already have because it's got that stupid road bar diameter clamp area and the sloping transition between the clamp diameter area and the grip diameter area wastes a bunch of crucial bar space. i've got my brake and shift levers pushed in as far as they will go and the bar is still a tad too wide for my liking.

Beanboy

I have the same type of bar. Moving the grips in to add just bar ends has things fairly cramped in the usable bar area. Thanks for posting in my thread SD; gonna ride for another week or so now that I have bar ends on and see what the next step will be... My just join you with aero bars on a hybrid

ThermionicScott 

I hear SRAM is coming out with road levers for hydraulic discs in the near future. Just sayin'.

paperbackbiker

Think I'll try it out. I've got an old Scott aerobar in the basement collecting dust. We had a killer wind today that sat me right down. I've found though that in a cross wind situation, I've got better control on the drops or the hoods. It is good to have one more option.

OP, I noticed the studded tires. When are you gonna change em out?

Steely Dan

SAY WHAT!?!

is there anywhere on the interwebs where i can learn more about this rumor?

Burton

Agree! 'Progress' has its downsides. I had to dig up a stem to use with a 25.4 flatbar and used integrated brake/shifters to get everything as narrow as possible. Perfect for me, but if I had seperate controls I'd have had to trim 1/2in off the grip!

fietsbob

Used to use a Zzipper [thriller model] road fairing on my commuter , so the shape of the fairing
took care of the aerodynamics , and I could just use the aerobar armrests for comfort
set up high and close.

Steely Dan

got any pics?

fietsbob

Film era, so nothing to show over the web, as the digital thing happened since..
manufacturers site https://www.zzipper.com/Products/prod_upright.php

ThermionicScott 

https://velonews.competitor.com/2012/...-leaked_205943

Apparently, it just leaked a day or two ago.

Steely Dan

thanks for the link. that is truly exciting news.

Steely Dan

so, switching out my studded tires for slicks on my foul weather bike this weekend, i decided that after a year's experimentation, it was time to take off the clip-on aero-bars. they were nice to have on really windy days, but now that the lakefront path is getting crazier and crazier with each warming day, the aero-bars are just less and less safe with all of the clueless, unpredictable other path users.


one thing is for sure, the bike absolutely looks better without those goofy-ass aero-bars!






BEFORE:
















AFTER:

modernjess

Steely Man, dude, in general I would never put aero bars on anything (I'm not a tri-athlete) BUT, I totally get it after spending a fair amount of time in Chicago (daughter going to college there) I do not blame you at all. You gotta have the right tool for the job, The path on the lake is beautiful, but I'm sure it's brutally windy at times. But lately with the weather getting better Im sure it is very populated with idiots and you have to keep you wits about you and aerobars are not nimble.

the bike looks good.

as you were.

Bike Gremlin

I had aero bars on my commuter about a year ago. Rode them through autumn, winter. Decided to take them off.

My "treking" bike is a bit of a long reach for me, even with regular, flat bars. Aeros put great deal of weight on the bars (it was a joy when I took them off), and the aero position was too stretched for my liking. If there were strong headwinds often, I'd put them back on though.