TT bike position & breathing

Johnstown Tri Head

Hi First time poster ............ I took possesion of my Dolan Aria a couple of weeks ago and was delighted when I got it (I still am really) - I have been out for a couple of spins now and also the first sprint tri of the year last week ............ whilst it appears this sparklingly wonderful piece of kit has made me faster I'm having issues with the aero postion in that my knees hit my stomach when peddling, riding in the upright postion is fine - I was fitted for the bike as well so is it me or am I in need of a few tweeks ............... maybe higher saddle ???



Any help be gratefully received ................ thanks !!

garyroberts

my knees hit my stomach

Hi



I have no expertise at all, but i would guess that you need to lower your saddle or raise your bars depending on all the other elements of you and your bike! Get back to the bike shop and ask them to sort it all out, no-one is going to tell you that your knee's hitting your stomach is correct!



G

MG

Would need to see some photos with you on your bike.

Bopomofo

lower your saddle or raise your bars

Lowering the saddle will make it worse. Raising the bars will help, but will also start to eat into your aero advantage. Moving the bars back will make a difference too - by shortening the stem or bringing the aero bars back in their adjusters but then you can make the bike too short and head into back-ache country.



It looks like a nice frame, lovely aero profiles on the tubes but looking at the numbers for the Aria the seat tube angle doesn't exactly shout 'AERO' at you.... 73 to 74.5 depending on frame size? Only about a degree sharper than my Dolan Mythos 'road' frame. To get myself into a TT position on that I needed to use a forwards seat post.



What I did to sort my sizing out was to get into a TT position on the bike while leaning against a wall, then having an accomplice take some piccies. I stuck them on the computer and started messing around with the angles. Personally, I was looking for a 90 deg angle hip to ankle to shoulder at full extension and a 90deg angle elbow to shoulder to hip on the aero bars. I mucked about with numbers till I could acheive this then got the bits I needed. In paractice a bit of fiddling says I'm most comfortable with the aero-bars positioned about 20mm back from where I calculated.



Happy to go into more details with you on PM, if required. In the meantime, get those pics and post 'em like MG says.

Johnstown Tri Head

Many Thanks Lads - I'll get some pics done whilst on the trainer and pm them ...............