perusn01

I'm a marathon runner looking to use my new Specialized Crosstrail in duathlons. I have no illusions of out biking people with road bikes, but I want to make my time on the bike as efficient as possible. With that in mind, this may sound nuts, but I swear I saw a pic on-line of a mtn bike that had some sort of very short aero bars near the center of the handle bars. Honestly, they almost looked like bar ends.
In trying to simulate this effect on my crosstrail without actually having bar ends it seemed like it might actually work.

Has anyone seen this use of bar ends? As I said, I'm just looking to increase my cruising speed a bit without spending much money, as I just bought the bike (my first serious bike of any kind). Any input would be appreciated.

2manybikes

I did exactly that on a folding bike so I could get a better position. It worked fine. Because it was a folding bike I just loosened the bolt that holds them tight and spun the bar ends around as needed for folding.

MattP.

Aside from it being possibly uncomfortable, standard MTN bar ends are designed to clamp on to a 22.2mm bar. Assuming you are running standard bars, where your stem clamps onto your bar is 25.4mm. Your bar tapers from 22.2mm where the controls go to a 25.4mm in the very center. So you might not be able to get your bar ends to slde on to the center.

You might want to look into getting some aero bar attachments for your bars. nashbar.com has some for around like $40 I believe.

2manybikes

I got my bar ends up to about 1" from the stem on each side before the bar got bigger. You don't want them at the stem anyway you need them a little way apart to be comfortable. There are many different kinds of tapers on bars. Some have no taper and a collar.

maximan1

If you will be actually riding the bike off road using those, it would be very easy to kill youself.
Otherwise, go for it!

Xterradork

The Ascent bars on the Nashbar page ($39) are really similar (and probably the same as) to the Performance T-1 bars. I've used the performance bars and they are really well made. If you really
wanted to do something to get aero I would recommend that. But be aware of a couple of things.
Your Specialized does not have a geometry made for using aerobars. So you will be fairly stretched out when you use them. And then you will have an unusual amount of weight over the front wheel which will make the handling twitchy and a bit difficult. I've done this with a road bike in the past. There are shorter bars that you can use (or these should be adjustable enough) to minimize this, but there actually is a difference between a road bike and a tri bike, which is what these are made for. Now, if the duathlon you are doing has a fair amount of hills, then you'll be better off with the regular bars you have and skip the aero bars all together. Aerobars tend to be overkill unless you are riding on a very flat course, doing at least an Olympic distance (actually 1/2 Ironman or longer) or maybe riding a century. I've been racing triathlons for 5 years, and I've recently sold my tri bike, and will only use my road bike (without aerobars, since I'm not doing anything longer than Olympic) and then my MTB on the XTERRA races. Hope this helps.

Good luck. Multisport stuff is really fun.

dminor 

There are a lot of races that are "off-road" that are not that much "mountain biking." I did the mtn bike leg of a multi-sport relay race this spring and just such a setup would have been a great help. The course was mostly flat dike and pavement. I get where perusn is coming from.

C Law

I hate riding flat dikes!!

sherpaPeak

if you dont care where your bar ends end UP, a few interesting places come to my mind right away, then go for it...

dminor 

As soon as that came off my keyboard, I knew it was headed for trouble

jonbth

I have a bar with built in bar ends in the middle. I'm not using it at the moment but had it on my hybrid bike. I wouldn't use it for serious off roading but it's great for the street. Click on the link below:

https://www.bontrager.com/Road/Compon...bars/21369.php

MichaelW

The bars you are trying to emulate are Cinelli Spinaci

They are still legal in most tri events.

perusn01

Thanks, everyone. There's plenty here for me to think about. And no, I don't plan to ride single track using whatever I end up with. Again, thanks.

petert

[QUOTE=MichaelW]The bars you are trying to emulate are Cinelli Spinaci

Where could I buy those here in the US?