It’s been discussed at length on Geek Warning, but most aero bikes have an obscene amount of proprietary parts now that make it tricky to work on or find replacements when needed for fit/wear. I’m interested to hear what people recommend for a bike that avoids this. Doesn’t need to be full aero optimized, but it needs to hold its own at some local crits and road races (75km is the longest race distance).
I don’t know if there’s a great answer for Aero frames specifically. Especially in the last 3 years most aero frames come chock full with proprietary parts. Instead, I’ve flipped the problem over and look for frame sets that have a robust aftermarket option and/or robust LBS supply & support — some of which is going to be very local to where one resides.
Here’s how I look at the proprietary areas common to most Aero frames:
- Seatpost: virtually all aero posts are proprietary today; gone at 27.2mm round posts that we used to be able to find Circa 2015.
- Saddle Rail Clamp: Whether Oval or Round rails, need proprietary clamp to go w/ post.
- Front end: Normally 3 options:
- Hopefully one of the OEM 1-piece sizes works for you (proprietary)
- Aftermarket 1-piece with Transition Dust Cover Adapter
- Search for, or 3D Print a transition Dust Cover to go with the headset if you want to go two-piece
What this means is there is really no way around the seatpost. But in practice for the cockpit I look at Aero Frames that fit the bill for the geometry I want, then I further research:
- Is there an offset seat post that isn’t impossible to get ahold of, assuming I need one? (usually, yes I always need one)
- Can I acquire an extra derailleur hangar without much faff?
- What does the aftermarket look like for custom Dust Covers, because I’m always going 2-piece on all my aero frames now.
In the past, my (3) used to be what do the 1-piece bars look like for OEM and Aftermarket. And are they actually in stock or purchasable.
In general this ended up landing on some pretty boring answers. Big box models like Tarmac have pretty healthy ecosystem support if you don’t want to get your hands too dirty. You can buy in-house Deda transition dust covers if building around something like a Superbox stem, and there are lots of Chinese bars out now that have support for various aero frames as well as small webshops that print dust covers. Lastly, there are DIY people locally who are printing their own dust covers for frames like the S5.
Btw I replied from the frame of mind that you want to do lots of out-of-bound bike-fit configuration on your aero frame. Hopefully this is not too off base. Lol.
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