Hi.
I am planning on converting my road bike to a TT bike. I was thinking of getting a new handlebar. I have the original sram red etap. To make this conversion, do I just need a blip box and clicks/blips, then brake levers for a TT bar? Is this a good idea?
Thank you
I did it years ago (mechanical though) what also helps is a something to move your saddle over the BB, I used the Profile Design FF seat post (but that only works if youve a round seat tube). I also added marginal gains by getting a disc cover.
Welcome to the forums.
Doooont dooo iiiitt!
Or at least search up “Frankenbike” first, and hopefully my unholy monster won’t appear.
Clip ons on a road bar are fine. Go with that or get a tri bike, imho.
Why do you say not too? Is it not just a better version of clip ons? I can’t use clip ons because I have aero handlebars.
It’s stretching my memory a bit, but I did a fair amount of reading when I was building my bikes; road, road/TT and a tri bike. Leonard Zinn is a good source as are SlowTwitch articles on stack/reach.
Basically the road frame geometry itself is working against you, everything attached to it becomes a compromise - one you think you can live with, until you can’t.
I have thought about it recently as some road bike geometry is not so far from old TT geometry but then there is the saddle, cabling, crank lengths, and so on. I still think it’s basically not worth it.
But it was a fun experiment, just one I would never repeat. Dont let me spoil your fun though, I did learn a lot.
I need to see if I can find the picture again, but I converted my old Cervelo S2 into a TT bike about 14 years ago. In order to best optimize the fit, you need to find a seatpost that will allow you to move your saddle far enough forward to get into a TT position. For my S2, it was easy because Cervelo made a reversible head seatpost for the bike.
From there, I installed TT handlebars and extensions and recabled everything. I even installed cable splitters near the stem so I could easily swap back and forth between a road setup and a TT setup…well, in theory at least because I never actually did any swapping. 
I had to run a pretty long stem (120mm) and find one that was greater than -17* in drop (can’t remember what the final angle was).
In the end, I had a position that rivaled my position now on a TT bike and was damn fast. But it took some effort to achieve it. The net result was that my weight was farther forward than it would have been on a dedicated TT bike. I never had any handling issues, but I can definitely see where some would.
In short, you will need to overcome the geometry limitations of a road bike…a slack seat tube angle, a short reach and a high stack.
that makes a lot of sense. I have a Giant TCR Advanced SL with an integrated seatpost, so I can’t get the saddle incredibly far forward - probably up to an inch or 2 behind the BB.
I think Giant do some sort of clip on for their aero bars - might be worth sending them an email. I see one set for the propel anyway.
I have the non-SL TCR so I can use my old clip ons.
That will definitely be a limiter if you want to obtain a near-ideal TT position. You will be dealing with a more closed hip angle, which will limit your ability to get lower.
You may be able to use a longer than normal saddle to compensate for this…the old Profile Stryke saddle or the Titec Bezerker saddles come to mind.
You could use the extra length to move forward and then ride it like a modern day snub-nosed saddle…so your sensitve parts will be off the front of the saddle. Hope that makes sense…
Could a smaller front wheel achieve that? Something like a 650B?
Yes, bit the tradeoff is a steepwr Head Tube Angle, shorter Trail and lower BB height. Essentially makes handling more twitchy and increases risk of pedal steikes in corners. Bad idea IMO.
Agreed with what Chad said….too many other implications in terms of handling. You are better off just using a steeper angle stem to offset the higher stack.
Many of the comments here are on the right track. Essentially a TT/Tri frame has a longer front center to better balance the rider over the bike in the aero position and generally tweaks to geometry to enhance this position. There is no way to convert a road race frame and maintain that balance. It can be and has been done many times but is simply not optimal.
Drat! There goes my idea. Thanx for the insights. 
I’m not sure what cranks you are running, but significantly shorter cranks could help with the fit. If you were on 172.5 or 175, you could go down to 160, and this would effectively move you up and back creating more bar drop, open the hip angle, and be more balanced between the wheels.
Hi, I have done that conversion on one of my road bikes that has the original SRAM Red etap 11s but I kept the road handlebars and levers, I have some profile design aero bars and I fitted the the blips which I connected to the Road shifters (no bipbox needed with this setup).
I recently bought the profile design Fast Forward saddle post to get a better hip angle and with a proper TT saddle (Selle Italia Watt), it does the job.
Obviously not as good as getting a tri bike, but that cost me less than 400 euros in total so I can’t complain.
Coincidentally this popped up on my Farceboke Memories, my road bike to TT conversion.
Long aerobar legal gravel races are a place where you see bikes like this. Not 40k tt positions but fast given the duration.
Joe
It’s fun to ride but for a TT bike to be competitive you need long and high reaching extensions so the position on the road bike is usually just a pale imitation. An extreme hood inward tilt angle might be a much simpler way to get a very fast position.
