Parker’s Tri bike

Or as his bikeshop suggested, Batman’s bike! Parker came to me looking for a tri bike that would be fast and stiff and put him in the position he wanted. He had been riding a Trek Speed Concept, and found the frame not quite stiff enough and the bars not quite able to adjust how he wanted. His position was already very good, so we just made a few tweaks with bar shape and location from there. He wanted a short headtube, so for the custom cockpit I used towers for the extensions, with the cables routed down through them to have a short external run between bar and frame. The pad mounts are slotted to allow angle/width adjustment. The bike needed to be able to be packed for travel, so the seatmast is shortened from full length (and capped for extra strength) to fit the bike case, with a corresponding longer seatmast cap. The 3T Funda fork is painted to match. Everything I build has tubing selected for that particular rider and design – in the case of the integrated seatmast bikes I start with round, straight gauge tubing, externally butt it to suit, then ovalise it. Looking for a very stiff bike without wanting to use really oversize tubing, I went with a slightly greater wall thickness for the seatmast, toptube and chainstays. The aero Columbus downtube completes the tubeset. The complete bike weighs in at 18.5lbs as shown. Thanks as usual to Tina Buescher for the great photos!

“I’m loving my new bike Rob! The fit is great. I haven’t touched my old TT bike since I got it. And my Zipp 808 tubulars look ridiculous without the Zipp decals on them. Its all blacked out. The elbow pads are super comfy. And I’m much more comfortable on this bike because we pulled the elbow pads closer together. The craftsmen ship is clean. GREAT WORK bud! Thank you very much for being so communicative during the build process. Thank you for being very attentive and patient in helping me to build the bike with some of my wants to the build. You’re awesome! Just rode 35miles on it today, 35miles this past tuesday, and raced Philly last Sunday. The fit is fantastic. And Matty Reed, Pro Triathlete, complimented the bike Sunday at the race. And my bike shop I go to in NY, SIDS Bike Shop, named it the Batmobile”

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