TT fit for Scott Foil

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efeballi
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by efeballi

Hello all,
I am planning on buying a Scott Foil 15 as my #1 road bike. I'd like to use the Foil as both a road and a TT bike by mounting aerobars(not clip-ons) and setting the saddle further forward. Is this doable?
I can imagine the handling will be awkward as the front wheel will carry more weight than usual.
Any comments welcome.




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DMF
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by DMF

What size are you looking at? The larger sizes not that suitabale for TT fit but the smaller ones are, more than most road bikes both for HTA and STA. In fact they are more TT than road bike geo...

Image

This is a 2011 geochart so it might not be accurate. Look at the S and M, they are almost same reach but the S is much better suited for a TT fit, so if you're in that size range or smaller, the Foil may suit your wishes very well. Extremely slack HTA's in the small sizes too, so steering won't be poor with TT bars (but will be with road bars IMO).

efeballi
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by efeballi

Thanks, yeah I forgot to mention my size. I'm looking at size M, that one is the closest to my current bike.Image
This is supposed to be 2013, I think the geos are the same.
If (for example) 77 degrees is my optimal TT STA, I would need to set the saddle forward by 37 mm. I don't know if a saddle can offer that much adjustment, my current one doesn't.
If the Foil were using a round or flippable seatpost, flipping a setback SP would solve the problem.


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DMF
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by DMF

My point exactly that the S is only 1mm shorter in reach, but with a steeper STA so you would get the same reach as the M but your seat further forward with no tradeoffs. Well except for a lower stack height but the Foil has a pretty tall head tube in a S too if we are talking about a TT fit per se.

Ofcourse I don't know your current bikes fit, but the S seems like the obvious choice over the M as its the same fit, just a steeper STA.

I.e, the Foil doesn't scale down proportionately.

wingguy
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by wingguy

efeballi wrote:If the Foil were using a round or flippable seatpost, flipping a setback SP would solve the problem.


You can get an inline post for it.

audiojan
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by audiojan

You're much better off keeping it as a road bike and add shortie aerobars for TT's. No need to mock with the fit and toss the balance of the bike off.
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DMF
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by DMF

I don't know the fork rake, but assuming ~43mm on all sizes, I dont think the smaller sizes would have the handling impaired by a TT bar, rather the opposite... But as the OP doesn't have a slightest clue as to STA nor reach for his/her own TT fit, this all seems a bit futile...

efeballi
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by efeballi

@audiojan really? I thought of that, but will it perform close to a full-on TT bike?
DMF, the talk went a little OT. What I'm wondering is the feasibility of swapping the bike between TT mode and road mode. That is one of the reasons I'm looking at Ultegra Di2(hence Foil 15), I won't have to do gear cable routing/tuning every time.



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audiojan
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by audiojan

efeballi wrote:@audiojan really? I thought of that, but will it perform close to a full-on TT bike?
DMF, the talk went a little OT. What I'm wondering is the feasibility of swapping the bike between TT mode and road mode. That is one of the reasons I'm looking at Ultegra Di2(hence Foil 15), I won't have to do gear cable routing/tuning every time.

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Yes, road bike are not designed to have a forward weight distribution, but rather a rearward of center. Keeping the weight balance and still gaining most of the advantages of a tt position means using clip on bars that moves the pads further back and has the shorter reach needed to keep the standard road position. BTW, Ui2 works great for exactly these set ups.
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DMF
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by DMF

Audiojan, you're making a generalisation that doesn't fully apply to the smaller sized Foils.

Efeballi, weather it is feasible or not for you, depends very much where on the spectrum of STA's you are for both a TT and road fit. If you are at the 78 degree end of the STA for a TT fit then no. If you are at the 75-76 degree end then this could likely be made to work very well. But ofcourse it also depends on your reach requirements.

In short, the Foil is in a few of the sizes a suitable object for this idea, in other sizes it is not due to handling issues. But if it suitable for YOU is another question, nobody could possibility answer that without knowing atleast a little about your fit numbers.

audiojan
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by audiojan

Are you sure about that? It's not as simple as STA or HTA… look at front-center measurement to get a better idea of designed balance.

Admitting that I have only been on a medium Foil and never on a XXS or XS, but if that's an indication, I don't think I would like to have a forward biased weight distribution. The Foil is not a very slow handling bike and my gut feeling tells me that it would not be the most stable if I through off the balance. I would still recommend using shortie clip on's to maintain the rearward balance...
"Suddenly the thought struck me; my floor is someone elses ceiling" - Nils Ferlin

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DMF
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by DMF

Look at the HTA of the smaller sizes, very slack, very much slack TT angles which should yield a more composed steering with TT bars (and unbearably slow steering with drop bars). The M Foil seems like a different beast here. Ofcourse rake angles will play a part and for all I know the smaller sizes may have a different fork that offsets the slack HTA.

As for center to front, I assume you mean reach, that is very much up to the riders personal preference less than how it actually imposes on handling. But you don't buy a frame basing the reach on preferred handling. And as I said, the M and the S are near identical for reach. This is in most cases well within reason for adjusting the last 20mm with choice of stem, pad position and so forth.

Zigmeister
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by Zigmeister

The only Foil that would have any chance of being used for a better TT setup, but still be used as a road bike is the 52cm/49cm.

I sold my 56cm because it was too large, and I ran a no-offset post. I switched to a 54cm, and really, there isn't too much difference between the 54-56cm in reality.

The only frame then would be a drop down to a 52cm, where the HT/angles are different that would lend itself to a more aggressive setup forward/aero.

Matt Goss supposedly rides a 52cm Foil, he is listed at 5'10". That is a road setup. He slams the stem, runs a 130mm stem. Personally, I'm 5'10.5" and run a 110mm stem with -10 and zero offset seatpost....that is my road setup. I don't do TTs. But if I had imagined myself needing something more TT, then the 52cm is the only frame that would lend itself to that, but wheelbase, positioning..who knows how that would play out in reality trying to do two jobs of Road/TT.

You could use the Foil, but you need to lean towards a good road setup, and compromise on the TT part, and not the other way around if that is your plan. The only way to get a real TT setup, is run a dedicated TT frame.

I would say only the BMC TMR, maybe the new Felt, S5 would lend themselves better to TTs setups with the flip seatpost that are somewhat designed to give you that steeper seat angle and more forward to TT positioning.

I don't think Scott ever had intentions of making this a dual purpose frame. They want you to buy a Plasma for that.

efeballi
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by efeballi

Zigmeister wrote:The only Foil that would have any chance of being used for a better TT setup, but still be used as a road bike is the 52cm/49cm.

I sold my 56cm because it was too large, and I ran a no-offset post. I switched to a 54cm, and really, there isn't too much difference between the 54-56cm in reality.

The only frame then would be a drop down to a 52cm, where the HT/angles are different that would lend itself to a more aggressive setup forward/aero.

Matt Goss supposedly rides a 52cm Foil, he is listed at 5'10". That is a road setup. He slams the stem, runs a 130mm stem. Personally, I'm 5'10.5" and run a 110mm stem with -10 and zero offset seatpost....that is my road setup. I don't do TTs. But if I had imagined myself needing something more TT, then the 52cm is the only frame that would lend itself to that, but wheelbase, positioning..who knows how that would play out in reality trying to do two jobs of Road/TT.

You could use the Foil, but you need to lean towards a good road setup, and compromise on the TT part, and not the other way around if that is your plan. The only way to get a real TT setup, is run a dedicated TT frame.

I would say only the BMC TMR, maybe the new Felt, S5 would lend themselves better to TTs setups with the flip seatpost that are somewhat designed to give you that steeper seat angle and more forward to TT positioning.

I don't think Scott ever had intentions of making this a dual purpose frame. They want you to buy a Plasma for that.


Of course not, not after pouring all that money for R&D.

I looked at the TMR but the price is quite close to the Foil and Plasma combined, all having Ui2.

The 52 cm will have too much drop for me, 54 looks better in terms of fit. Spacers on 52? I don't know, I may be stoned to death for that.

All in all, I'm more inclined to the 54, as the bike will be doing %95 road riding and %5 TT's.

The dual-purpose bike project is moving further and further away...


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Chlorophyll15
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by Chlorophyll15

A bit late to the party, but I've done it on my Scott Addict. It's a size 49. I use a Specialized 20mm setback post flipped forwards with a TT specific saddle, along with a longer 120mm -17 degree stem to get the stack inline with actual TT bikes. With the saddle pushed forwards on the rails the effective ST angle on my bike is probably closer to 76-78 degrees. I haven't ridden a dedicated TT bike before but the handling felt manageable. I think DMF is right that the smaller sizes are more suitable for this kind of conversion, as the slacker ST angles of the larger sizes would project your saddle further behind the BB, not ideal for a TT setup. And this issue is further compounded the higher your seat goes, so you'd probably need a 30-40mm setback seatpost flipped forward to get an ideal TT fit.

Edit: I convert between the road and TT setup pretty often. I'm probably on the road setup 60-70% of the time, and swap to the TT setup when I have a duathlon coming up.

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