Hed Carbon S Bends Aerobars Go Bye Bye

At the beginning of the season I got a fancy carbon aerobar setup... the Hed Carbon S Bends. With a retail close to 500 clams I figured they'd be da bomb, da Xxxt, da hizzy or something like that. They certainly look damn cool. Chicks love them. They're light weight. Lower profile.

But, as I voiced on the blog, they were hard to get used to. I struggled to find the right elbow rests. Then the right height... I had to hack together a Lowe's Special a'la Nuts & Bolts. On three occassions I had to cut length from the s bends so that I could reach the shifters.

Eventually I got them close to what I wanted. All was good. I was looking cool. Chicks dug my aerobars.

But all was not well in super-spensive-aero-land:
- On long rides I started to get wrist fatigue because of the way I had to prop the elbow pads up. My hands were always at an odd position.
- On group rides, which I'm enjoying more of this year, I ride less in the arm rests and more on the hoods. Unfortunately the hoods on the Hed are tiny and flat. After a while on a group ride my wrists hurt. And by the end my back generally hurt.
- Being much shorter, on downhills the bike felt much less stable.
- On climbs I felt locked in to one position.

Today, while contemplating this weekend's Saturday Sufferfest, I decided to switch back to the old factory bars. Alas, the ladies won't dig my bars as much, but I think I'll be much happier.

In my flush-with-cash days I would have gone to All3Sports and asked Patrick and his excellent team for some help. But these are my holy-Xxxt-where'd-the-zeros-from-the-atm-reciept-go days... so I decided to do it myself.

I eyeballed the bike a bit. Undid some screws. Outlined my plan of attack. Saw two things I wasn't sure of.

First, I wasn't sure of the arm rests on the old bars. They're factory Syntace C2 armrests which everybody loves but I hate. I like the Profile Design rests. After a little fidgeting I realized that I could put the Profile Design rests onto the Syntace aerobars, but I'd need an extra allen bolt and some nuts... not nuts nuts... nuts. So I went to Home Depot. When I made it home I found that it worked as I had planned and I was able to cross-brand the aerobar setup. Total cost of the nuts, $3.45.

Second, I wasn't sure how to get the bar-end shifters off of the aerobars. I poked, prodded, but they wouldn't budge. Then I twisted. They moved but I wasn't sure. I had to remove all of the bar wrap and undo the actual cable, but I eventually got it off. Excellent, my two challenges were over.

In reality, switching the physical aerobar itself is a snap. A few allen bolts and viola, I'm done. The tricky part is in the brake and shifting cables.

My first flub came when I went to hook the front brake back up. The cable was too short because the Hed was shorter. Earlier in the day I had stopped by Bikeways, a Tucker bike shop to pick up some cable crimps. I told the guy that I was about to do damage to my bike and asked him how late they were open. Seven o'clock he replied. Now home, it had taken me all of 30 minutes to get into a position I couldn't handle. I didn't have the right cables.

So I packed the P3 into the minivan and headed to the bike shop, intending to have them finish the job. But they declined, telling me that they could get to it next Monday. Damn. So I asked to buy some cables. As he was getting them the guy ripped a major fart. He apologized. I blamed it on the beermonster, a tips jar they had at the job. Everybody agreed that it was the beermonster who farted. My cables cost me $16.95 but I gave the rest of the $20 bill to the mechanic... I mean, the beermonster.

Having my cables home I started routing them. I was a little intimidated by Cervelo's routing because it goes into the main tube and out a number of times. But it was a snap. I had the cables routed to their destinations within a few minutes. Tweaking each of the cables took a little more time, but wasn't too difficult. Front and rear brakes. Front and rear deurailer (sp?). At this point only the rear shifting is off by one gear. I may fiddle with it tonight or do some reading on the internet about shifting setup.

I still have to adjust my headset which seems to be a little loose. Given the long climbs and fast-as-you-like descents (i like them fast) coming this weekend, I decided it was a good idea to check it.

Overall it's bittersweet. My aerobars are now like my phone. You see, I chose my phone because of the way it works. It's not a sexy phone. Chicks don't dig my phone. It's not all bluetoothey and slim. It's a lame ass Audiovox. But it's been one of the best phones I've had because it does what I need it to do. Now my aerobars follow suit. Is this part of growing up or something? If so, I want to be young and stupid again... the carbon aerobars look so much cooler.

I'll see how these older bars work this weekend. I may still switch to the Hed's for sprint races. But with IM Lake Placid coming up I wanted something more functional and comfortable. And if I don't go back to the Hed I'll sell it on eBay or something.

This was a good opportunity to be forced to learn more about the red money pit... I mean red Cervelo P3. A lot of this bike maintenance stuff boils down to giving it a shot, screwing it up, fixing it and then remembering how you fixed it later on.

I will miss my carbon aerobars, pieces of Xxxt though they are. Five hundred bucks... sheesh. In fairness to Hed, they are excellently made... and the chicks dig them. They just don't seem to fit my ectomorphic body on long rides on this bike. With another bike geometry they may be perfect for me.

Total cost: $23.45 + gas + 1.5 hrs + greasy hands.

Later!

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