It’s been a little over two months since we looked at whether time trial frames with drop handlebars, so-called “drop-bar TT bikes,” could start appearing in the professional peloton.
A ludicrous idea, you might argue. But as the peloton gets faster and the gains available from conventional aero road bikes become ever more marginal (and not to mention no rules to prohibit TT frames being used in road races), it feels almost inevitable that someone, at some point, would turn to what are on paper the most aerodynamic frames available: time trial bikes.
Ronan Mc Laughlin
It should then come as little surprise that someone is Dan Bigham. Bigham is a former World Hour Record holder and performance engineer for Ineos Grenadiers, where he also helped Filippo Ganna set the current Hour Record mark before he left to become head of engineering for Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe. This is his drop-bar Specialized Shiv TT.
Of course, Dan is not the first to lob a set of drop bars onto a TT frame, but as one of the world's most renowned aero innovators of the past decade, it should again come as little surprise that Bigham has developed a few trick components to make this a reality.
A Specialized Shiv TT frame fitted with custom drop handlebars, an ultra-long front end, narrow aero position, and a host of detail-focused modifications, Bigham’s latest creation will get its racing debut at the VC Norwich Nat B road race in Norfolk on July 12. It will no doubt spark both awe and debate.
With UK road bike time trial regulations changing last year, and many of his races now taking place on flat, motor-racing circuits around East Anglia, Bigham believes the fastest solution isn’t a modern aero road bike. It’s a time trial bike with drop bars. The question is … will pros once again follow Bigham’s lead?
Such builds present numerous challenges, not least of which is how to incorporate drop bars into a frame and fork designed for flat time-trial base bars and aero extensions. Bigham, though, through his aero component and optimisation company, WattShop, was able to design and manufacture a frankly wild-looking solution, turning the pipe dream into reality in a matter of months.
We spoke to Bigham about the thinking behind the project, the custom cockpit, the aerodynamic philosophy, and whether this is a glimpse into the future of road racing.
Ronan McLaughlin: First off, why a drop-bar Shiv TT? Why go down this route?
Dan Bigham: The CTT rules changed last year, reopening road-bike categories to time trial frames. At the same time, I’d moved back to the UK, and most of my racing is now around Norfolk and East Anglia, where the roads are basically pancake-flat.
Realistically, for me, the fastest solution for those races is a time trial bike with drop bars.
I’m not winning a sprint. I never have done and probably never will. So I’ve got to win through time trial ability by getting away in a break, and TT bikes are obviously designed for that.
Even modern aero road bikes still have compromises around handling, weight targets, and versatility. But if you’re racing around somewhere like Lotus Test Track in Norfolk, averaging close to 50 km/h for an hour with effectively zero climbing, then aero is everything.
So I started to think about the best solution, and obviously Specialized in the connection within my day job, they were quite keen to support me in that. So they supplied a Shiv TT frameset and basically said: “Go to town.”
RML: A lot of people look at this and think: “an aero TT frame, that makes sense.” But is there more to it?
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