The latest crop of tri bikes that are due to hit our shores this summer season, look pretty fast.  The top tier of frames are all high modulus carbon, have internal cables, aero tubes, range of saddle positions and lots of differential features like recessed brakes and integrated front ends.   Combine this with the carbonic array of aero tri/tt group sets (aero cranks, aero rear mechs, aero chain rings) and the latest deep “hole in the wind” aero wheels and you’d be forgiven for thinking that bike development has gone as far as possible with current materials.  I’m going to go the other way (from a bike fitter’s perspective) and argue that things have not gone far enough.  I’m going to suggest a few changes you might see over the next few years (if we’re all lucky) and discuss why I think you’ll see them, eventually.  These changes to frame designs and components will only offer incremental improvements to your bike split (very, very incremental) but they may improve your run split and will make your bike fitter’s life far easier.
 
 
The eighties were great!!!  What’s different now?
 
Ahhh, back in the day when all you needed for a great band was an electronic keyboard, pink blazer and a mullet.  Back then, triathletes had bikes with nasty round tubes, a pairs of Oakley Blades and fluoro clothing.  Today we have thankfully evolved to compression sox, balance bands and sperm helmets.  Along the way we also picked up a few design features on our bikes such as:
 

• Aero tubing, internal cabling and steepish seat tube angles (75 to 76 real angles with steeper seat placement options),
• Little, if any, differentiation between Tri bikes and Time Trial (TT) bikes,
• Rabid marketing to triathletes of a confusing mix of aero advantage, weight advantage and power advantage (dubious claims but I’m a sucker for the latest fastest thing…), and,
•  The continuation of offering TT based accessories (like aero bars) that are ill-suited for triathletes.

 
 
Sounds like a conspiracy…
 
Not really.  Most of the big bike companies (well all of them with a very few exceptions) are road bike or mountain bike based companies who produce product for their core market and who also make tri bikes.  To all these companies a tri bike has looked and sounded much like a Time Trial bike and to many of these companies they remain convinced that they are the same thing.  It’s not really their fault.  Until recently both the Tri and Time Trial markets were very small and very niche so there was little financial incentive to produce two different bikes.  Some of the companies that did try to produce a tri only specific bike went broke which served as a lesson to the others that this market was a risky one. 
 
Finally there is the Le Tour conundrum.  This is a case of sheer bad luck on the part of the triathletes.  The greatest showcase in the world for new bike porn – the bikes that we will be riding next year – are unveiled at Le Tour.  This means they must be UCI compliant (tip of saddle 5cm behind the BB etc) and configured for the leanest, bestest and most discomfort tolerant people in the universe – pro cyclists.  These pro cyclists need to ride their bikes for about 20k’s at an average speed of 55kph, collapse and then get a massage in the team bus, not exactly the same as triathlon.  Then, about six months later these bikes get packaged up and sold to us triathletes.  It would be nice if Kona could become the most important forum for bike companies to debut their newest tri bikes (which could also be adapted for pro tour riders) but the economics of the day dictate that this is not so.
 
 
OK, so its no-one’s fault, but am I being short changed when I spend $15,000 on a new uber-carbon tri cycle?
 
Yes you are.  Firstly if you paid this much then I salute you (I also sell bikes so I love anyone that will drop this kind of serious coin on their hobby) but in short yes – you are missing out on a bunch of features no matter how much you spend.  What features would I like to see offered on the perfect tri bike?  How about some of these…
 

• True 78 degree seat tube angles.  You can debate the 77/78/79 degree preference and which is best all you want, but a quick look at the bike setup of over 90% of the top 100 finishers at Kona show real seat angles in this region.  Not crazy steep, just steep.  Nearly all of the bikes that are racked there have the seats set at these effective angles.  You can blame Dan Emperfield, Cervelo or who ever you want but it’s not just a fad it’s the current general consensus on what works.  If you include 76 degrees in these figures then you get about 98% of the Kona field.  Have a look at the footage of the better triathletes on course and they are riding forward on their saddles.  So rather than buying a 75degree angled bike and hitching the saddle forward (this is most ‘tri’ bikes sold today), wouldn’t it be nice to buy a true 78 degree bike and move the seat back a bit?
• Lazy Steering.  Tri bikes could do with being a little less reactive.  We already hang most of our body weight over the front wheel and run crazy deep section wheels on sometimes windy days.  We turn about once an hour if we’re lucky.  The push for deeper and deeper and steeper and steeper should be matched with sleeper and sleeper.  Bike designers can do this with front/centre, fork rake changes or chain stay length but it would be nice if our super sled for next year was a bit less twitchy at the 150k mark when its pilot is just starting to get a bit dozy and the breeze is getting up.
• Slightly taller head tubes.  We are not Alberto Contador.  Have you seen pictures of this guy with his shirt off?  He has had at least the bottom three ribs removed and it’s no wonder he can ride a 6cm head tube with no spacers.  Triathletes don’t need shivs; we need a little bit of comfort to prepare us for the coming marathon.  I’m not talking about adding feet; I’m simply suggesting that adding about 15mm of head tube to most of the ‘tri’ bikes on the market would be a good thing.  Sure there are a few of you out there that can ride really low but I’m thinking of the majority here and I’m including the pro’s in this group.  This also goes to the heart of true aero.  Its not about making the frame the most aero in the world (the bike is about 15% of the drag) its about keeping the athlete aero on the aero bars (the 85% elephant in the room).  This is not just a comment aimed at fat age groupers (like me); it applies to anyone who has a spacer or three under their stem.
• Contact points - The impossible saddle paradigm and other stuff.  The bike manufacturer has no idea what saddle will be comfortable for ‘Athlete A’ for 180km, neither does the bike fitter or the athlete themselves.  The saddle that was comfortable on the road bike, the hugely expensive ‘tri specific’ saddle and even the saddle that seems to be missing most of its well saddle – these are no guarantees of comfort.  A small percentage of the population seem to be able to ride anything (bastards), a few out there get lucky first time and the rest of us go through a few disasters before we find something that we can sit on for the distance.   I’m not sure that the bike companies can really help much with this one but it would be nice if there were saddle options offered as part of the bike purchase.  While we’re on the topic, would the companies that make aerobars please make the arm rest pads further apart.  Using the Alberto example again, we triathletes have swimmers upper bodies; we are not time-trialists.  Please stop giving us aerobars that simply cannot be adjusted wide enough to allow us to breath properly.  Also, please give us the ability to move the arm rest pads up, down, forward and aft.  Again we are on the bike for more than 20k’s so please understand that we need this adjustment.  Finally, the pads, bigger, much bigger and softer foam, thank.

 
That’s about it for now.  This is what I want for Christmas from Triathlon Santa.  I don’t want only one brand to offer these sorts of features, I want most of the brands to offer them because as a bike fitter that fits across a wide range of bikes I want happy and comfortable customers.  There are already a few bikes on the market that incorporate some of these features.  Trek’s Speed Concept looks like it will tick quite a few boxes, QROO has been offering steeper angles since its inception and bikes like the Argon18 E-114 and Felt DA have the adjustable front ends.   The perfect tri bike continues to remain elusive and I fear we will not see it at LeTour.