Campag4life

Hi Fox Farm.
Believe as with conventional stem bikes, its all in the set up but have to say, my personal opinion is...the VIAS has the ugliest stem/spacer combo I have ever seen. It was aggravated by the owner of this particular bike who is older like myself had a good amount...or rather bad amount of spacers under what has be the ugliest pelican head shaped stem I have seen. Only stem rivaling it in fugliness is the other bike discussed.. the flagship Madone which has a fugly stem with its plain Jane but more benign shape...not a horrid as the VIAS stem. When the proprietary VIAS stem is slammed to the head tube, it looks better but is still ugly. One redeeming element which is somewhat contradictory to the bike is many pros run a conventional stem on the VIAS with exterior cable routing and generic spacers..believe the same case as with the Madone. This looks better of course but not sure how generic spacers interface with the oblong section head tube.

On one hand, I like the VIAS....I like the shape of the frame...and would probably opt for Sram's Etap on it with conventional stem because I tend to change my spacer stack and stem length from time to time and wouldn't want to mess with the ridiculously arduous cable routing thru the stem and the ugly result because an older guy like me would need a bit more stack height.

All said, for my money, it would be the Pinarello Dogma F8 all day long over either Madone or VIAS. I like the design of the new F8 and the geometry is a bit friendlier for those who appreciate more stack height. The F8 has aero cues and new model has both Italian threaded BB to bolt Campy UT or DA crank plug and play....and an excellent 2 bolt proprietary aero seatpost unlike either VIAS or Madone. So if dropping $5K for a frameset which I try to avoid , the Dogma F8 works for me.

Dean V

Aero road bikes have nothing going for them except for a bit more speed. They get blown around more in crosswinds, wrenching on them is more hassle due to hidden/internal cabling etc. More likely to have something rattle, and the ones with weird stems, bars, brakes etc just makes set up and everything else even worse. I have a Giant Propel SL0 which goes great and I use it for racing when I need all the help I can get, but for general training and riding around it is not the bike I use.

Campag4life

Bar/stem integration really puts a crimp on bar/shift lever ergonomics for sure. Many...like me....like to rotate the handlebar and are fussy about shift lever postion to achieve best balance between comfort on hoods and hook position for comfortable drop position riding. Can't do that with integrated bar/stem combos that save what?...1 watt at 30mph for all that inconvenience and cost while spending a lot of time on a bike? Yes, we as consumers have to make choices. Pros are given these bikes to ride and benefit is very questionable for the average weekend warrior.

Fox Farm

Campag and Dean, exactly. When I first saw that goose neck stem and goofy looking bars, I had to ask what we really being accomplished by this move? How much drag is really avoided? Enough to now have proprietary components with less flexibility in adjustment? This was actually something that had me originally dubious about threadless stems after years of adjustment with a traditional quill stem. I too am very particular about how I rotate my bars relative to positioning of the hoods. Less adjustment is a bad thing in my experience. The hidden brakes might be cool to look at for a few moments but I actually like the look of my Campy skeleton brakes and would not want to hide them inside of the fork or below a bottom bracket or behind the seat tube.

topslop1

Nice bike, rather a used sports car for that cost tho.

Fiery

According to tests performed by the German magazine Tour, the F8 has just 2 watts more drag than the ViAS or Madone.

StanSeven

That would clinch it for me then. Velonews did a comparison test between the Venge and Madone and picked the Madone. I'm not wild about Trek, don't like the Venge bars, but have grown to Pinarello looks. So all three are close in aero and you pick the prettiest.

grwoolf

That's kind of like saying "The new high def. TV's have going for it is the great picture". Yes, there are other things that matter for a bike like comfort, ease of maintenance, etc., but an aero bike's primary purpose is to squeeze a bit more speed out of of the same watts. Aero bikes are getting to a point where you don't have to compromise much to get the extra speed. The cross wind statement is a bit silly when your body is a huge sail compared to a frame. A front wheel is really the only thing with significant impact on getting pushed around in crosswinds besides the rider and cloths. Wrenching depends on the bike, but I agree with that point (especially if you travel a lot with the bike). The Madone isn't significantly harder to build up compared to any other internally cabled bike (particularly with di2), you just need to get the cable lengths right.

I think you are way off on the "1 watt @ 30mph". There is more aero drag on a handlebar compared to any other aspect of a bike (wheels, frame, etc.). Some of that can't be eliminated (shifters), but replacing a round wrapped bar with a bare aero bar is big. At 30mph, I'd bet the difference between a normal bar compared to aero is well over 10 watts (remember that it's not a linear relationship). That's a small % of the watts required to do 30+ on a road bike (~500 watts).

Campag4life

Hi gr,
First we aren't comparing a round bar to an integrated bar but rather another aero handlebar...I am all for aero flat bars...I ride the K wing FWIW...I just don't believe there is much benefit with an integrated stem.

Many pros still don't drink the coolaid and since they live at 30 mph, they are pissing about that 10w....or some are as they stick with a round bar.
But I don't believe its 10w anyway....flat versus round bar but again, I like flat top bars with thin profile....I just don't like integrated stems which lock the bar into a given rotational position.

Dean V

Yes, you would think the frame is a small factor compared to your body as far crosswind stability but all I know is that my Propel moves around noticeably more on a windy day than my TCR (same wheel sets).

grwoolf

The biggest upside to an integrated stem is that you eliminate all the round sections on the top of the bar and the bulky clamping area. On the Madone and Venge, they also get the cables out of the wind.

I agree that it's a tough trade off for a small benefit. If you get the wrong reach bar or cut your steerer tube too short, there is no adjusting with different stem angles or longer stem. It's not a good match for someone who wants to tweak their position (or who is still figuring it out). If I want to add 10mm to my reach, it's a $600 "tweak" for a new bar. I don't see integrated bars/stems becoming common for those reasons unless someone can wring the cost out of them so swapping isn't much more painful than swapping a stem.

I would still put a hefty bet on a full integrated aero bar vs. round wrapped bar being >10 watts better at 30mph. Round is such a lousy shape from an aero standpoint. For every inch of exposed round bar exposed to the wind, you are creating at least 10x the drag compared to an inch of nice airfoil shape. Even the exposed cables are creating measurable drag.

This is all an old discussion in the world of time trials but it's pretty new in the road world. Benefits are there, but watts don't necessarily translate to results in mass start events. As the aero bikes get better/cheaper, more people will move that way. 10 years from now, I don't think you'll see any high end race bikes that aren't aero bikes. In 5 years, I expect the entire pro peloton will be on them. Time will tell, but I'm a believer and drinking the koolaid.

canuckcicle

integrated bar/stem combo is really a non-issue. I doubt many newbs who don't understand their fit are buying 10K halo bikes.

You guys seem to forget these are purpose built race machines. The cockpit is correctly placed to gain the largest aero benefit. If you're new to the sport or feel the need to constantly rotate/raise your bars, these bike aren't the right bike for you. Although I can't for the life of me understand why one would feel the need to change their fit unless compensating for an injury.

redfooj

i havent seen aero bars that are true airfoil shaped. theyre more like flattened ovals. so the coefficient gain is less than 10x. further, variable accompanying the coefficient is about 70cm^2 maximum? about the same exposed area as taping up a couple of vents on your helmet.

grwoolf

You need to take a look at the aero bars that are currently available. I'm not talking about "ovalized" bars like the K-wings. They are great bars and probably more aero than a round bar, but certainly not in the same ballpark as true aero road bars. Aero bars are basically a 3 to 1 airfoil across the top.

I say "at least" 10x as a conservative estimate because the actual difference between a round shape and perfect airfoil with the same frontal area is over 20x.

The following image highlights the dramatic difference between round shapes and airfoil shapes. The big airfoil on the top has the same drag as the tiny cylinder on the bottom.



Link to source below (there are many other similar examples if you do a search)
Forces