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I have ridden a 29er down a fair portion of the Divide and the Tour Aotearoa and with 2.35" Maxxis Ikon tyres it flies when you get it up to speed. The large volume tyres also help take the edge off the rough trails.
Now it seems the 29er setup with straight bars has been dropped for a gravel type setup with drop bars. I have a Niner RLT Steel, but whilst it's fine for taking down a gravel trail I wouldn't want to take it on the divide or the Silk Road routes.
So what is the appeal and why are people now using drop bar bikes with narrow tyres for these type of events?
Speed innit. Sorry I mean fashion ....The portions that need a 29er are less than that that you want speed. You can nurse it through the rough stuff and horse on the fast stuff.
A mix of a bit of aero and a lot more hand positions. Both probably important if you're doing 16+ hour days on the bike inna straight line (I.e. likely to get a headwind all day some days).
Simply being that there must be much more time to be gained where they are an advantage compared to the sections where they are a disadvantage.
Also, more hand positions to help for long hours in the saddle.
A 29er with tri bars attached gives another hand position and they really help when you need to grind out those miles.
I'm trying to keep an open mind, but can't help thinking 'fashion over function'
I found Woodchipper bars super comfy riding the GDMBR. Run them much higher than normal drops, but still good to get head down when riding through those horrible headwinds crossing Wyoming and the Great Basin. Double wrapped tape and gel pads for comfort.
Edit. Just add as well, set up correctly the primary hand position is on the drops and I found it kept my back straight so was less fatiguing over a long day
"A 29er with tri bars attached gives another hand position and they really help when you need to grind out those miles."
still not as many variable hand positions nor is an ikon 2.35 as fast as a 700x 42c tire on the large portions of non GNAR
i guess the guys at the pointy end have their reasons. maybe the way to settle it is to skelp their arse on the route in 2019 on a 29er with tri bars ? Im sure as a leisure ride it will be considerably more pleasurable on a 29er with fat tires. but speed wins when racing.
A 29er with tri bars attached gives another hand position and they really help when you need to grind out those miles.
I’m trying to keep an open mind, but can’t help thinking ‘fashion over function’
Do tri bars work on a 29er? I quite often rest my elbows on the bars on my road bike on a few long sections of my commute, but on the 29er the bars are just too far forward to mange that. Bikes like the Fargo and vagabond are closer to road bike fitting with 29er angles so wouldn't work particularly well with flat bars.
What's the 'Silk Road' you refer to in this context?
Tina's
I have my Tri bars on my td-1 fitted to a siren Fred bar because of exactly what you describe. Otherwise every position is a compromise
Tri bars don't do a lot IME on their own. What really makes a difference is getting low. So on my road bike I flipped and slammed the stem to get a good aero tuck, which necessitated tilting the saddle forward too. This made it nearly unrideable otherwise. I'd bet drops are more.effecitve, or as effective as Tri bars with a normal bar height because the drops get you lower. Tri bars also add weight sticking out front affecting the steering, which I hate. I'mnot<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> a TD rider (yet) but if/when I do I'll be trying out drops first before Tri bars.</span>
I have however been out West in the USA and the winds you can encounter are like nothing else. Solid, hard, unrelenting, consistent in your face for days on end.
Yep 😕
Why does anyone in their right mind want to do something like the Tour Divide. Weeks and weeks of riding along dirt tracks and fire roads, with the occasional bit of half-decent singletrack. And sleeping in public toilets.
Where's the appeal?
That Fred bar's an interesting solution.
Not sure I do quite enough miles to justify it. Although (humblebrag) I have just ticked over 400 for august today.
Well a friend is doing Race to the Rock
https://cyclingtips.com/news/tasmanian-start-race-rock-2018/
I think the reasons include why not and because... it's a personal challenge
HT with suspension fork and tri bars probably for comfort over speed
You could not persude me to use drops on the TD. Makes no sense to me, from experience. Its not z techy mtb route but thats not the point, imho. Even less so on the SR route but maybe I misunderstood the terrain it uses. (Edit to add, the way Andy describes setting them up is sound though). But others use drops happily and go fast. Some of it's choice, some of it is fashion. If you're riding at front-runner or 18hr+ day pace I'm sure you know what and why.
nor is an ikon 2.35 as fast as a 700x 42c tire on the large portions of non GNAR
Disagree, it really doesnt need to be that rough at all before the 2.35 rolls easier esp. when you have weight attached to the bike. The bigger tyres are probably faster overall, particularly when comfort over a week or more is factored in.
I’d bet drops are more.effecitve, or as effective as Tri bars with a normal bar height because the drops get you lower.
No I would suspect not. Drops don’t get you as narrow as tri bars which has a bearing on aerodynamics also if you get too low you can increase your frontal area by exposing more of your back
Nobody is running a narrow tyre cx/ gravel type bike. They'remostly all on carbon cut throats - drop bar 29er. Others are a mix of flat bar 29ers. Before they were all on steel Fargo's. With the required gearing 32-36 and 10-42/50, 11/12 spd there is room for a standard xc 29er tyre 2.2-2.4 and a chainstay.
Interesting so many run Ikon's even though they demonstrate high rolling resistance. Maybe they work better in practice.
Been looking for a carbon drop bar 29er with the correct geometry and finally found one on 'open mold' prices. Waiting for it to be delivered.
Fargos work fine flat bar by the way. Head and seat angles same as bikes like the Swift etc.
One guy took a ti Sherpa.
Standard bike seems to be a carbon drop bar 29er, shutter precision dynamo, 350 reat hub, arch mk3 rims, ikon tyres and revelate bags. The ti fargo is supposed to ride softer than the cut throat which has the stiffness edge in race mode.
Cut throat's bottom bracket standard is only thing i dont like about it.
No ones taken a 42c to the silk road race despite it being the organisers recommended tire. Surprising.
Fargos work fine flat bar by the way. Head and seat angles same as bikes like the Swift etc.
Its not the angles, its the missing 50mm on the top tube and taller headtubes of a Fargo vs El mariachi or Gryphon Vs Swift, ECR Vs Krampus (and anything else with drops and flat equivalents).
if you get too low you can increase your frontal area by exposing more of your back
The drop bar variants have taller headtubes.
Its not so much about getting low as hand positions, look at to drop bars on off road bikes and the drops, hoods and tops are quite close to each other when viewed side on.
Same applies to a lot of modern road bikes, a few still come with 'classic' drops, but most now have a variation on compact drops which puts the riders forearms flat, which cuts a chunk of frontal area.
The refined TT position with narrow elbows and rolled shoulders would be murder to hold off road anyway.
No ones taken a 42c to the silk road race despite it being the organisers recommended tire.
Really? Looking at pics of the big pass today... high altitude and associated weather, long descents, loaded bikes, rocks ... and 42Cs? No thanks 🙂 But he's ridden it and I've not.
Yes it will be shorter in the ett, but the stack height is very high on fargos, the combination helps. Jones swb are pretty short, same ballpark.
The 19" t1000 carbon 29er frame i've ordered has a correct 58cm ett for me (compared to usual 620 ish on my large swift, 70/73 so i'm hoping it's going to work. £200 delivered in Celeste colour with the headset, seat collar and a pair of dropouts. Uses standard bottom bracket rather than the bb30 on the cut throat which i prefer. Build up with a 100mm SID, xking/ race king and 29er wheels 32 oval 10-42 11 spd. Should be here end Aug/ early Sept. Ordered a black tapered carbon 15mm fork and spare hanger too. Have a standard large fargo to compare it too, so it'll be interesting to see.
The 19″ t1000 carbon 29er frame i’ve ordered
Don't spose you could post a link @milfordvet? Sounds like what I'm after...
Disappointed….lots of posts and not a single picture of said bikes yet 🙂
SP cycles SP-M003.
If you wait for an ebay 10-15% off everything, it works on them too. I think mine was about £180. Price goes up and down a bit with exchange rate. Wether or not i'll see an import/vat duty i'll wait and see. Seems hit and miss.
Its 135/142 (i didn't want boost so my 29er wheels fitted) tapered headset and standard bb. I'd rather it wasn't internal cables, but at least it will look clean. If you look in their shop, if you dont want a headset, through axle, etc, they are cheaper still. 9 colours or black mat etc. 1200-1300g frame. German TUV tested. 2 yr warranty.
Its the only open mold carbon drop bar geometry frameset I've ever seen. Thought i'd take the punt. The extra set of drop outs have arrived, i think they were £20 for an extra set of 135/142/ derailleur hanger in case one gets bent. Got my fingers crossed for it.
The SP-006 model is the standard ett pf30 29er flat bar frame. They do carbon forks and bars. The riser carbon road bars seem about £45 in china. I've got a spare set of woodchippers though. While you are waiting a pair of spyres is £65 from Taiwan. Again those ebay 10-15% discounts on the day, seem to work on them too.
Lee Craigie is ready for any conditions on the Silk Road....
Read her blog here
http://theadventuresyndicate.com/blog/
I'm hoping the image appears, if not I give up...
[url= https://farm1.staticflickr.com/894/27539803857_87e400668f_b.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm1.staticflickr.com/894/27539803857_87e400668f_b.jp g"/> [/img]
Bollox, I give up
Russ from Stand is at The Silk Road too - 29er Bahookie I think, like Lee C.
Edit: https://www.shandcycles.com/blog/
Yeah the 19" suddenly are out of stock, in all colours even black matt? That must surely be some ebay listing thing.
Just send them an ebay internal message if your interested, in the correpondence through ebay they conversed in English with me. Have tracking number etc and went throuh payapl. They make them by the looks of things. Price seems £220 this week, maybe just wait a week, normall 200 with postage and bits n bobs. I noticed some cheap black and red 29 Crossmax elites in crc right now, look good with a red frame and gloss black fork! Maybe wait till mine comes and I take a first look at it.
Be interested how you get on with that frame milfordvet.
As i too am averse to pressfit bbs (I'm just in for coffee while playing with the wife's salsa mamasita pressfit bb and trying desperately to stop it creaking....... Getting close to aralditing in the cups in and just knocking the bearing out when they die...... the noise doesn't bother her but drives me mental when we ride together.
I'm also drop bar curious. Having had woodchoppers previously and not getting on with them but there's many options available these days in the drop bar department I don't need to have falling angle drops like the woodchippers
Ok,here's my tuppence,(IME) on wide,flared drop bars there is a nice bit of flex when on the drops ,which adds a bit of comfort on offroad/gravel sections.
I noticed that NewRetroTom from on here used flat bars on his TD setup,and always meant to ask him if he had any hand pain/cramps during the event.#bringbackbarends 🙂
@milfordvet cheers. I've got a Flyxii 202 frame built up with flared drops, 105 sti, and spyres. It's a cracking monstercross bike for fast off road stuff but the ett is just a bit too long for long distance stuff with the drops.
A mate has just got a Fargo and I'm a bit jealous. The m003 could be a shortcut to a Cuthroat without the £££!
19"/ 575 ETT's now available on the site again...
I guess internal cabling won't matter so much with mechanical spyres. There seems to be quite alot of people with a creaking bb30, I noticed Specialized is dropping BB30 on all but top end road. Glad its normal BSA.
Trailrat the new Spesh Hover bars have flare and rise to get the front end higher with one less spacer and go straight back for £40.
https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/hover-alloy-handlebars---15mm-rise-plus-flare/p/134016:
Read her blog here
Oh that's great. I'm not always sure that being able to ride these things and being able to express how you feel in print go together naturally but in this case they really do.
Trail-rat, the Ritchey comp Evomax's have 12 degree flare Venturemax's - 24 degree and go more straight back like Cowchippers than woodchippers. They have 5-6 degrees of sweep accross the tops like the original Nitto rando bars which might be a good thing too. The venturemax looks to have an palm grip shape for the drop section over cowchippers and they're cheaper at £40.
https://eu.ritcheylogic.com/eu_en/comp-venturemax-handlebar
If i didn't already have some bars,i think i'd try them.
Those ritcheys look an interesting shape . Could be worth a closer look.
Will see how my Jones/Fred/TT bars combo goes on Cairngorm loop in a few weeks.
Be nice to have a change of position of the single position of the Carnegie's I used to run .
The problem with dropbars on a gravel bike is that the manufacturers are still thinking road or cx.
The stack needs to be much higher IMO. That means either a longer head tube, or a heap of spacers.
Personally I'd like to see a return to quill stems so the riding position could be raised or lowered as appropriate. It's what we used to do 50 or so years ago,
Raise the bars for the offroad bits, and drop them for road sections, and it just took seconds.
The stack needs to be much higher IMO. That means either a longer head tube, or a heap of spacers.
Why? I like a low front end so my gravel bike (Vagabond) has all the spacers over the stem. Not everyone likes a high front end.
plus Riser road bars are now a thing. Puts the bars, in effect the stack height, up 15-30mm before looking at spacers, stems and fork lengths.
Carbon ones from £46...30mm rise then 20mm less drop in the drops than Woodchipper too. So the effective stack height is 30mm higher on the hoods and 50mm higher in the drops over Woodchippers.
Idlejon
Why? I like a low front end so my gravel bike (Vagabond) has all the spacers over the stem. Not everyone likes a high front end.
With a quill stem you can have that, and the person who likes a high frontend can buy the same bike and raise the stem, and the person who like to have it both ways can also buy the same bike.
My Roberts Roughstuff is so equpped. There's alot to be said for the old quill stem for ease of set up.
The only quick height adjustable aheadset system i've ever seen was fitted to Dawes Super / Ultra Galaxy's a few years ago.
https://road.cc/content/review/70486-dawes-super-galaxy
It was made by NVO Components.
http://nvocomponents.com/technical/
"Why? I like a low front end so my gravel bike (Vagabond) has all the spacers over the stem. Not everyone likes a high front end."
Comfort on long trips.
I fitted a set of Velo Orange Crazy Bars to the Solaris for the French Divide. VO admit they were inspired by the Jones H-bars, 45deg backsweep but rather than a loop up front a la Jones they have a pair of bull horns/tri-bars but set at 400mm width rather than the narrow road style setup. I used a 100mm stem to get the rearmost part of the bars a bit further forward.
They give a good good few hand positions, the joint at the base of the horns is roughly equivalent to riding on the hoods on a set of drops. Only thing missing for me was a set of pads to rest my forearms on when using the front most hand position.
Not mentioned so far in the thread is that the off-road oriented drop bars are quite flexy compared to their road brethren. Also Woodchippers and the like don't have as much drop so even when on the drops you are still quite upright.
My SP-M003 frame got to Blighty in 14 days.
Parcelforce require £18.45 Import VAT and £11.25 clearance fee. So they're looking at approx £230 to your front door.
Should have it tomorrow.
did your frame show up milfordvet.
was just having another look at them , strikes me that they have only stuck one set of bottle bosses on the frame ? is that the case in what showed up ?
liking the bridgeless design ala the cutthroat but i think they missed a trick making the chainstay so fat out of the BB - be interesting to hear how you get on with clearance there.
My mates just finished the TransCont6 and had tri-bars on his Bokeh.
Yep it arrived.
Foam wrapped in the box. Paint work is perfect. The Celeste colour is indeed "Bianchi" Celeste - that green/ blue hue that I personally like. I don't have any Bianchi's and I'm not wanting to ape a Bianchi, but I do like that colour.
Internal cables, with pre inserted tubes that I guess I attach stuff to and pull through. Inside the head tube and wherever else it's smooth finish. It looks the biz. Tubing is very sculpted. The top tube is very laterally oval - for compliance I guess like Cotic and others do with steel. The seat tube has a slight bend down towards the bottom. Big downtube going from squovial to a more oval towards the big BB. BSA bottom bracket. Disc brake mount on the chain stay. Rear seat stays are very laterally flat oval, again I assume for compliance. All threads clean no overspray.
Comes with rear bolt through, 142 pre installed. There's a headset in a box with sealed type bearings and a seat collar.Frame weighs 1.2kg. I was wondering on the bottle mounts - it does have two, one on the seat and down tube normal position. Look like two sets stainless bottle cage bolts. Extra set of hangers and 142/135 swap out drop outs came airmail after I ordered it.
So it certainly looks a million dollars. And I'm very pleased with it. I shall take it home tonight and put a wheel in it to see what the clearance is, though I only run a Raceking 2.2. Chainstays are 44 roughly.
The geometry though isn't quite as shown in that picture, but it's close enough. Head tube is 120, Seat tube from center to top is 450mm. The actual top tube center to center is 58 so ETT will probably be 59 or so. not a deal breaker. My Roubaix is a 58 with a 110 stem, so I'll run a 100 instead. I'll have to look at my Woodchippers bar reach compared to the Spesh.
So pleased with it. Looks superb. Slighly dissapointed its not quite the exact geom advertised.. but its near enough - a short 29er for running drop bars, and it will build up super light for throwing over gates and lifting onto my car roof Thule rack for this oldie.
The forks that came are black painted as ordered. Kind of triangular in leg seaction - wider at the rear. 700g. Brake hose holder. I'm assuming as they make the frame, fork and supplied the headset it will all play nice. Forks were 70 pound. About 485 crown to axle center. 30cm on the fork steerer. Seem nicely made.
My Jagwire brake cables have arrived to make the most of the Spyres, which together with the Sram shifters (1x11) I'm waiting on to build it up. Would like hydraulics (my Roubaix has them) but was going to work out a bit dear, and I wanted to keep this one cheap and hopefully very chearfull and trying buying from China, from the guys that make stuff. I only brake offroad for the odd gate anyhow. If it gets down the SDW without puffing into carbon dust I shall have one over those American hipsters...
Interested to hear how you get on with it for sure. Good to know it has dual bottle mounts as well
@milfordvet glad to hear it arrived safe and sound. I'll keep an eye on updates on the build.