Mountain Bike With Aero Bars

The frame of a mountain bike is completely unique to a road bike and they ve been built for different conditions than you d want to be using aero bars for.

Mountain bike with aero bars. That puts my hands close to the stem. My setup doesn t scream aero in the least. They flaunt a sleek carbon fiber tube super comfortable padding and well placed internal routing ports and reeks of quality through and through. The majority of aero bars are designed to increase your speed on a road racing bike more specifically in the triathlon discipline.

Your likely to only get benefit from short stubby aero bars and very unlikely to be able to get down on your elbows tt stylee without your knees banging off your chest negating any benefit as well as being very uncomfortable. The thing is that sizing between almost all road bikes of similar sizes is within millimetres so aero bars don t actually have to be very adjustable for the most part. Material choice is primarily a budget consideration with aluminum mountain bike handlebars typically costing less than their titanium or carbon cousins. I don t believe it is a safety issue so let people try to have some fun on curly bars if they want to.

Before actually installing farr s updated carbon aero bolt on i may have rolled my eyes at the idea of clamping this thing onto my mountain bike s bars. Back to the topic of aerodynamics on a mountain bike what i tend to do if i need to get aero on my mountain bike is move my hands close together but keep them on the handlebar. I m not usually one to talk about aero anything. Some bars such as the thomson titanium mountain riser bar also purport to deliver a more compliant bump absorbing ride which can mean less hand fatigue especially during rough descents.

I mean my bars are 800mm wide and my tires are 27 5 x 2 8. The aero position puts stress on your lower back and glutes due to the collapsed position. Mountain biking is usually fast and furious with many turns and hills to maneuver where aero bars are generally made for flat surfaces and to pick up speeds. The platt mountain bike handlebar aero bars are another set of superior set of tri bars for mountain bike at this level and work well for most mountain bikes.

As a road cyclist i prefer riding my road bike for longer rides over my time trial bike due to the comfort and increased control and i have never considered putting aero bars on a mtn bike but i ride mountain trails and not packed gravel.