Companies like synergies. When companies merge, one of the divisions takes over like duties performed in the other division... usually badly. Nevertheless, synergies are good on paper, and companies can't help trying to get that elusive two-for-one.

Bike companies are no exception, but the two-fer they keep striving for concerns models and SKUs. I don't begrudge a company discovering its downhill saddle seems to work well for triathlon; that the brake levers it makes for commuter bikes also work in the ends of pursuit bars; bar-end shifters built for cyclo-cross perform in the ends of clip-ons; stoker bars for tandems double as pursuit bars for triathletes; and on and on. No problem there.

The question is, what happens when companies try to make one complete bike serve two markets? Is triathlon getting served, or getting served the shaft? This is a timely question, as a new iteration of two-for-one bikes seems to be happening again.

As recently as two years ago both Trek and Kestrel seemed to have a road bike business model built around a "2-sport, 1-bike" approach. Trek was able to lead the Kona bike tally pretty much off the sales of road race bikes. While occasionally dabbling in tri-specificity, they kept coming back to the 2-sport, 1-bike idea which was, essentially, who needs a tri bike? Road bikes work well enough in triathlon. And why not pursue this strategy? It seemed to work.

But it coudn't work forever, because the tri market matured. The fact that tri bikes were faster, handled better, were safer and, most importantly, were preferred, became the little secret that finally got out. Last year Trek lost badly in the Kona count to Cervelo, and that trend is likely to continue in that direction.

So Trek abandoned the 2-sport, 1-bike idea, and last year unveiled the Equinox TTX. Not only is this a tri-specific bike, its Discovery Team has found this geometry more to its liking than the road-specific Team Time Trial model. Trek is now a 2-bike, 2-sport company.

Kestrel followed a similar pattern with its Talon and Talon SL, albeit unintentionally. Production issues delayed the debut of its Airfoil Pro, and this caused the well-respected carbon bike manufacturer to change the subject whenever the question of tri-specific geometry arose. Now that the highly-regarded Airfoil Pro is in full production in all sizes -- lo! -- Chris McCormack suddenly discovered the model this year, like tri geometry was just invented. Now Kestrel is a 2-sport, 2-bike company as well.

But just when the last of the important holdouts came back to the fold, we're back to two sports using one bike, but with a twist. Now, the two sports are triathlon and time trialing. No problem, as long as you agree that the two sports really are one in the same. To the degree that a manufacturer does not so stipulate, its got to make its bike for one of these "sports," and then sell that unoptimized bike to the practitioners of the other "sport."

Here's the question: is the sport that gets sold the unoptimized bike triathlon, even though it's the sport that generates almost all the sales of these sorts of bikes? We'll consider examples below.

First, let's look at the two sports. Are they practiced the same, or differently? Cervelo's views on that subject can be found on its website:

"77-78 degree seattube angles have become more and more common for time trial and triathlon bikes in the past few years. Whereas in the past time trialers often rode at more shallow angles in the 74-75 degree range, the situation is no longer as lopsided. Riders like Zabriskie, Basso and many of their Team CSC colleagues now ride at 77-78 degrees, and if it weren’t for the restrictive UCI rules on saddle position, some might even ride steeper. Other teams are starting to catch on to this trend as well,"

Let's look at these "restrictive UCI rules on saddle position" and, actually, the totality of the UCI rules that impinge on this subject. The front/center rule (BB to front axle), formerly very restrictive for time trial bike makers, is still there, though its 65cm max distance is not as restrictive as it once was. Adding to this horizontal distance inhibitor are a pair of anti-Superman-position guides confining the overall length of the rider's cockpit.

"The distance between the vertical line passing through the bottom bracket axle and the extremity of the handlebar may not exceed 75cm..."

So says the UCI (though this is only for the hand position; bar-end shifters may extend past that point.) How restrictive is this? A stock 58cm P3C, as used by the CSC team, will have a hand position right at 75cm. As regards this measure, then, this means you can build the same bike for both a triathlete and a time trialer.

What about taller riders? No problem, You can make this 75cm magically increase to 80cm if you sit atop the bike and demonstrate that your hands extend past the ends of the clip-ons. The only caveat, the angle between your upper and lower arms can't exceed 120 degrees. Look at any top rider and you'll see this angle rarely exceeds 90 degrees. Extending this angle to 120 degrees adds upwards of 10cm to the cockpit distance. In other words, it's remarkably easy to work the "morphological exception" and get the extra 5cm for which the rule allows.

Now we get to the tougher issue to which Cervelo alludes, the saddle's position. The nose of the saddle in triathlon can be as far forward as 5cm in front of the bottom bracket. In UCI racing, the saddle's nose can't be further forward than 5cm behind the BB. That shuts the door on steep seat angles. Or does it?

Here again we see the "morphological exception." The UCI rulebook allows its commissaires to perform this test:

"Using a plumb-line, they shall check to see whether, when pedalling, the point of the rider’s knee when at its foremost position passes beyond a vertical line passing through the pedal spindle."

Saddles are 28cm in length, on average. Allowing only for the use of one-third of this distance, we're talking 9cm, and this corresponds roughly to 7 degrees of seat angle. In point of fact, simply by sitting squarely in the middle of the saddle, instead of on its nose, one can drive a truck through the morphological exception, and get one's saddle moved quite a bit forward. The entire CSC team has its saddles mounted in the forward hardware holes in the P3C seat post, and we're told some several of those riders resort to the morphological exception to have their saddles placed forward of the rule's restriction.

Happily, triathlon's rules allow for a bit more elbow room. The front/center of a tri bike, according to USA Triathlon, must not exceed 65cm or 87.5% of a rider's saddle height, whichever is greater. This allows riders in triathlon to use a bike considerably better designed for riding with aero bars. Still, one can make a nice-handling tri bike with 65cm of front/center quite easily, as long as the size of that bike is 59cm or smaller. As for the UCI racers taller than, say, 6'2", they'll just have to ride a bike shorter than 60cm.

Obviously, Cervelo is quite able to make a bike built around the idea of a 78-degree seat angle and have its UCI-regulated teams ride these bikes. Trek is taking steps toward this sort of geometry, making a 76-degree bike with a set-forward / set-back flippable seat post. You can get your 74-degrees or your 78-degrees out of this bike, and the geometry at 78 degrees is reasonably good, as we shall see below.

Giant and Cannondale have teams on their timed race bikes, Cannondale with Healthnet and Giant with T-Mobile. Both these companies make their tri / time-trial bikes at 75 degrees of seat angle. Orbea sponsors Euskaltel-Euskadi, among others. Its Ordu is shallower yet, built at 74 degrees of seat angle, though with a second seat post that triathletes would use, placing the seat angle at 76 degrees.

OPTIMIZING A TIME TRIAL BIKE FOR SHALLOW RIDING

What would it mean to optimize a bike for 75 degrees of seat angle? There are four elements to this. First, you've got to make it possible to position the saddle in that spot. You can either build the bike's seat angle to 75 degrees, or you can build it steeper and allow the saddle to be positioned 2 or 3 degrees shallower. The latter is what Cervelo does.

The second element to optimizing a bike at a shallower seat angle is to create a cockpit distance that corresponds to 75 degrees. Taking a 58cm or 59cm bike as an example, you'd make the bike with about 56cm or 56.5cm of top tube length (a tri bike needs a shorter top tube than a road bike of the same size).

Next, you'll have to fashion the bike's height to match that shallower angle. The more you rock the rider back around the bottom bracket, the taller the head tube needs to be, to preserve an appropriate hip angle. How tall should the head tube extend? It depends on the aero bar you intend to use. A Profile T2 Cobra has armrests that sit about 6.5cm above the centerline of the pursuit bar. A VisionTech clip-on, with its standard issue 1cm riser, has armrests that sit about 3.5cm above the base bar. Let's assume you'll spec a stem that falls about 5 degrees from perpendicular (this stem will then rise about 13 degrees from a line parallel to the ground). Your 58cm bike would then have, let's say, 18cm of head tube if you'll use the Visiontech clip-on, and 15cm if you use the Profile Design Cobra T2.

Finally, you'll optimize this bike for shallow riding if you place this bikes wheels appropriately underneath the rider. This means a front/center measure of perhaps 63cm.

OPTIMIZING A TIME TRIAL BIKE FOR STEEP RIDING

Now then, how would this 58cm or 59cm bike differ if you wanted the bike to work best at 78 degrees of seat angle? Though the seat angle doesn't need to be 78 degrees, you've got to allow the saddle to reach 78 degrees. Consider Cervelo's P2SL. It's seat angle is probably 76.5 degrees, and the flippable seat clamp gives you either 78 degrees in its forward position, and 75 degrees when flipped rearward. As we will see, the bike is built to optimize that forward position. It's a 78 degree bike in every way, except that the seat angle itself is not 78 degrees.

So, assuming the saddle can easily get to 78 degrees, what's next? The top tube ought to be at that 56cm to 56.5cm measure earlier discussed. That Cervelo P2SL has a 57.5cm top tube in its 58cm size. Is this a problem? Not at all. When you flip the seat clamp in its forward position, and you draw a line from the middle of the saddle's rails down to the bottom bracket, you'll see that the top tube intersecting through this line measures 56cm. When you flip the seat clamp in its rearward position (to mimic 75 degrees of seat angle) the top tube measures 59cm. In other words, the bike is too long when the seat clamp is flipped backward. Can you ride it that way? Sure, with a very short stem. But it's optimized for 78 degrees. It's optimized for triathlon.

Your next task is to build the bike's head tube appropriate short. You ought to drop the head tube about 2cm versus a bike built to work best with the shallower seat angle. In the P2SL's case, this means the head tube should be about 13cm, maybe 14cm, since it's spec'd with Visiontech's bars. But wait! Cervelo chooses 16cm of head tube! Remember, though, our assumption on the stem: a 13-degrees upward aspect from parallel. Cervelo specs its bikes with stems that are parallel to the ground, and that's where they find that 2cm of drop.

What about this bike's front/center? It's just shy of the legal 65cm UCI limit, that is, the bike's front wheel is stuck out in front of the rider just about as far as it can, without being UCI illegal. This allows a rider who's at 78 degrees of seat angle to have his weight more evenly displaced between the wheels versus the "75 degree" bike with 63cm of front/center.

In point of fact, Cervelo's 61cm version of its P2SL is the one size it makes that is not UCI legal. You frankly cannot make a bike in that size fit inside the UCI's outmoded front/center rule and also make it a safe, comfortable ride.

Let's look at some of the bikes of other companies making these dual-use bikes in this size. Note that we'd have included Look and its 496TRI that can be used for triathlon and its Credit Agricole team, but the bike is only made in XS, S and M, and there is no corresponding 58cm size. The geometric specs below are from the geometry charts of these bikes, though the front/center spec is in some cases extrapolated from available specs, and an asterisk* designates when this is the case. In certain cases not enough information was given to precisely generate a front/center measure, but we're pretty sure we've gotten within 2mm or 3mm.

As you can see, as the seat angle gets shallower, the front/center shrinks. That is in general terms. One can in fact move the front axle further out by shallowing the head angle and adding some offset (fork rake). One can do this, keep the "trail" the same (trail = the front wheel's tendency to self-center), and in this way add front/center.

Cannondale does in fact do this, which is why the Slice enjoys a slightly longer front/center than, say, the Giant Trinity, even though the latter has a slightly longer top tube. The Scott also has a shallow head angle; that, plus the slightly steeper seat angle pushes the front/center out a bit.

These bikes all work well. Time's Bouygues Telecom and Scott's Saunier Duval teams can ride these bikes effectively, though I would contend that those riding the Scott will have a time trial bike that's slightly more stable in steering and cornering.

All this assumes, of course, that these top level UCI-encumbered pros actually ride at 74, 75 or 76 degrees. In point of fact, many or most of the better riders will ride no shallower than 76, and up to 78 and 79 degrees. How is this possible with the UCI's rules as they are?

As noted, several riders on the CSC team are in fact granted morphological exceptions. One assumes that the other directeurs sportif knowledgeable in timed racing seek and are granted this exemption on behalf of their forward-riding athletes. Then there's the snub-nose saddles employed by CSC's team, a trick first seen on the bikes of former world time trial champ Abraham Olano.

Finally, it's not how your bike is set up, it's how you ride it. Yes, Gilberto Simoni rides a 76-degree Scott, but nobody believes he rides it at 76 degrees. Were Dave Zabriskie's Cervelo to have a saddle placed under that rider's rump, it would probably represent a seat angle of 80 degrees or so, and that's not new thinking. Chris Boardman set the world hour record on an 80-degree Lotus, before the rules outlawed that design.

This begs the question: is it just an academic exercise to pretend to design a time trial bike around 74 or 75 degrees? Is it more or less likely that most of the best among these riders will find a way to ride the bike in an apparent seat angle of 76, 77, 78 degrees, or even steeper if they can legally do so?

Does anybody think this year's TdF prologue winner Thor Hushovd is not riding quite forward on his Look 496? Or that Sergei Gonchar, the overwhelming winner of this year's bit Tour's ITT is not riding likewise on his 75-degree Giant?

If this is more true than false, as Cervelo claims, ought not the designers of these bikes build them for weight distributions that assume a rider will be riding an effectively steeper, not shallower, seat angle?

The more that this is the case, the stronger the argument in favor of Cervelo's approach, which is to make the bike work best at 78 degrees of seat angle. Many or most of the UCI-encumbered time trialers that matter must ride bikes set up at 75 degrees to be UCI legal, but they'll end up riding effective seat angles much steeper than that. So we're back -- are we not? -- to designing bikes for the steeper angles, not for the shallower.

All this forgets one obvious truth: these bikes that are built to be UCI legal are being sold primarily to triathletes. The question is, how do triathletes know when a dual-use bike is designed to favor riding at 75 degrees, and when it's built to favor 78 degrees? Probably the best clue is in its front/center measure. Among the cases noted above, Cervelo's geometry favors the positions ridden by most of the best triathletes, while Orbea's Ordu has geometry most suited for those riders who'll choose to ride shallow. The other bikes fall somewhere in between.

Certainly there is nothing wrong with a companies like Time, Orbea and Look selling their time trial bikes to triathletes. At the same time, this industry is now mature enough to distinguish between bikes optimized for one style of riding versus another, and these bikes function best, handling-wise, when ridden at 74 to 76 degrees of seat angle.

All these dual-use bikes are built to favor one (not every) rider set-up, and their geometries are decipherable. For those who are interested in handling characteristics, and not simply the bike's cosmetics and cool factor, the answers are there for you to divine.

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