The Magpie

Hi, I want my next road bike to have hidden cables, just because I like it! But, the new aero bikes all have flatted aero handle bars and I need to be able to fit clip on tri-bar extensions.

These only seem to fit round handlebars, the different shapes of the flat topped bars just aren't suitable and presumably wouldn't be strong enough to be clamped onto anyway.

Does anyone know of any solutions to this? Surely there must be an aero bike designed to have removable aero extensions?

Cheers,
Tom

lupy

Have you seen the Madone speed? It seems to do what you are looking for. https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/b...de=black_white

The Magpie

Thanks, the bars certainly do what I'm looking for. At nearly 9kg it's pretty heavy though. Wonder if I can retro fit those bars to a different aero bike, probably not with the proprietory parts these days, cable routing would need to be exactly the same. Hmm.

canklecat

I'm stripping an older Trek Equinox E9 aero TT/tri bike right now that had what you're describing. There's a hairline crack in the weld between the top plate of the seat tube and seat tube. Might not be dangerous because the seat tube is so thick with a reinforced insert, but I'm not taking any chances. Not really interested in a TT-specific bike anyway, just the components.

It had Bontrager Race aluminum bullhorn bars, 42cm wide, 26mm clamp diameter. Just a conventional round bar, would fit any appropriate quill stem or threadless setup.

And Profile Design Carbon Stryke clamp-on aero bars, with F-19 arm rests. It was set up with Tektro bar end brakes on the bullhorns, and bar end shifters on the aero bars. There's a mix of internal routing for cable housings and external recesses for cables to be hidden under bar wrap.

The Profile Design F-19 arm rest/clamp affair included plastic shims with non-slip notches that mated with the metal clamps to hold securely to smaller diameter bars like the Bontrager bullhorns. Pretty versatile, seemed to resist slipping without excessive clamping force.

There are probably a bunch of these available used for cheap or giveaway prices since they're considered entry level or low tech nowadays.

I'm keeping 'em to experiment with on another bike. I tried 'em for a short test ride on the Trek Equinox frame before discovering the frame crack. And the frame is too small for me anyway. I'm not particularly comfortable on aero bars but managed a faster than usual time on a nearby 7 mile circuit just using the bullhorns for 90% of the ride and aero bars very little.

Dean V

Specialized used to have a solution for their Venge as well.

The Magpie

Thanks for the info. I'll look into those, never heard of this for the Venge, will have a look.

Also thanks to the person who direct messaged me, I got the message about the System Six with Vision bars but can't reply as I've not posted enough yet.

burnthesheep

Research the stem mounted “itu” aero bars. They exist. Basically a generic version if the Venge and Madone itu bars.

Noctilux.95

You can mount the tri-bar on any 2019 and beyond Madone SLR. I actually purchased the clip ons and plan on using them on my 2019 SLR along with a 5mm setback seatpost with a dedicated saddle.