Road vs Track fitting

I have been professionally fitted for a road bike I bought for mixed use last year and after a conversation with the fitter (from bespoke) I was advised to purchase the same sized frame for my track bike (58cm). I then bought the caad 10 track bike from cannondale to use on my velodrome sessions.

I know on a track bike you should be more compacted than on a road bike so I was wondering how much of the fitting spec I can copy and paste from my road bike fitting? Areas such as handlebar width, seat height, stem etc... Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

Were you fitted to comfortably ride the drops, and only the drops? That's where you'll be spending all your time, so best make sure it's set up for that position.

I was fitted in an agressive position as I had a few races over the summer, so yes I could ride the drops comfortably.

I have 42cm handlebars on my road bike, and the cannondale ones seem about 5cm larger. I've looked into track bars, and sprint ones such as the alpina sprint bars only come in 33cm and 38cm. Should I drop down that far!?

Are you doing sprint racing or bunch racing like Scratch and Points races? If it's the latter then your normal road bar dimensions will be fine.

Yeah, it's be for Scratch races, thanks for clarifying for me.

I'd still go narrower on the track than you would on the road if you're bunch racing. It doesn't take much getting used to and will make sitting in the bunch and getting through gaps much easier.

Unless you're actually sprinting - normal/compact road bars are fine.

Re: the original question, I'm not sure how much I buy the 'compact for track' thing. I think it's pretty personal, I am much lower and longer on my track bike. Given that races are pretty short you can tolerate being in a more extreme position easier than on a road bike.

Thanks Dan, I dropped down to a 56cm frame to test out the 'compact' theory but ultimately felt it was too small for me. I'm going to drop my handlebars down a size and experiment with stem length for a longer profile. Thanks for the advice.

I use the same size bike for road and track, but definitely prefer narrower bars on the track. I'm using 33cm on the track and can't fault them. It's the kind of thing that people will often ask "isn't it uncomfortable/too twitchy/etc" but when they try it they love it.

38cm would be fine as it's not that different from what you have (less than 10%) but I'd say try narrower!

If you're looking for bars just to try the width then check out Deda. I forget the model name, but the cheapest bars they do go all they way down to 38cm but they measure O2O so it's about 35cm C2C