I wrote about the X-PR twice, once
The thing is, even then I’m not 100 percent satisfied because I’m really picky about contact points, that is, the places where I touch the bike. Anything I can feel is more important to me than anything once-removed. For example, I’m pickier about my saddle than I am my seat post because I’m connected to the saddle. In fact, that’s not entirely true. I’m connected to my bib or shorts, which is connected to the saddle, but you get my point I hope.
I’m picky about socks, shoes, bibs, jerseys, helmets, saddles, handlebars, even handlebar tape – anything that directly affects my comfort. If I’m not comfortable I’m not fast and I'm certainly not happy.
Accordingly, I’ve changed a few items on the X-PR in my possession. Most notable are the aerobars, and this was a 15 minute job because: 1) the electronic wires can be disconnected right at the shifter (as opposed to cabled shifting that runs the length of the bike); and 2) the Profile Design 43asc extensions are separate from Profile’s armrests. I’ll need to explain this.
Full forearm aerobar styles
This is worthy of a separate article, which is upcoming. We’re all interested now in full forearm aerobars. Within 3 years every new bike will have these. There are 2 types and this Profile Design on this bike is one kind, where there’s a bracket that accepts both elbow rests and (separately) the extensions. The other kind is more common. I’ll be showing you Aerocoach, Drag2Zero, FastTT and others, and what we see from these brands are elbow rests and extensions all in one piece. This requires a different kind of bracket (for the cleanest mount) and that bracket is rarely made and not readily available. More on this in the future.
The Profile Design 43asc I first wrote about here. At $300+ these are a relatively inexpensive set of extensions (compared to others in this class) that provide a full forearm rest but slide into Profile’s J5 bracket and I would guess 500 bikes in Kona last year could’ve just adopted these extensions with existing equipment.
The problem with these extensions is that PD can’t make them fast enough. If you can find them, buy them. I didn’t tape the extension ends – where I hold – in these pictures but I typically would. All these other aerobars I mention above I’ll be showing you these in the upcoming days and weeks.
Saddles
What’s on this bike is a Gebiomized Stride saddle. I’ve never been a split-nose saddle fan for my own riding. Obviously I’m in the vast minority. But the pendulum is swinging back in the direction of single-nose saddles, albeit a little snubbier than is the case with road saddles. In general I’m kind of sour on the direction of saddle design these days, especially for road and gravel. Tri saddles, however, seem to be progressing in a direction. You decide if it’s positive or negative. Among the AGers in Kona, ISM was on more than 1 in 3 bikes. Among the pros it was more like 1 in 10. The most popular among the pros was this Gebiomized saddle and if you add the Syncros Belcarra (same saddle but with different foam and density strategy) this was the overwhelming choice in the pro racks. (You can read what Slowtwitchers are saying about this saddle on our Reader Forum.)
Otherwise there were other single-nose saddles underneath the pros, notably the Specialized Sitero. I think the other saddles to watch are Profile Design’s Vertex 80 and the Wove, which I’ll be writing about within the week.
Accessories
I finally got my hands on a new Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM and I’ll be properly reviewing this within the week. It fixes two problems I had with the original ROAM, chief of which were the buttons. I’m still fussing with how to mount the Garmin Varia rear radar to the rear box, but I either don’t know the secret technique (yet) or I will have to do a little Dremel modifying before it’s perfect. No problem. That’s why the Dremel was invented. To modify.
The great thing about a bike like the X-PR, paired with the Profile Design, everything is quite modular. You can put any pursuit bars you want (that mount on a standard steerer) and any aerobars you want. The one thing that’s still a little janky, as I display this bike with yet more sexy aerobar options in the near future, is that a lot of the direct mount aerobaer bar options (aerobars that mount onto brackets built into the pursuit bars, like the Profile Design Aeria Ultimate, or using PD’s Wing 20c+) have not yet wedded themselves to a standard. Profile Design's wing 20c+ is one standard. PRO (as in the EVO Missile) is another standard. But I don’t get the sense that these new full forearm bar makers are all manufacturing to a standard. Plus, I’m not sure the EVO Missile is (as of now) currently being sold in the U.S.
So, I will be McGuyvering these new aerobars onto this X-PR and showing them to you in the upcoming weeks and I’ll try to describe my workarounds.
