Triathlete switching to road bike

[pinkbikes]

V. - that's exactly what I'm saying.

Salsa - Having an aero tri bike is definitely not right for everyone. First of all, having an aero bike does nothing for you if you can't maintain the aero posture and are sitting up a lot of the time. Second - aero bikes are more twitchy and don't handle as well as a road bike. Third - unless you're riding at 16 mph or more, the aero advantage is minimal, the exception to this is when it's windy. Fourth - even if you can ride aero, if makes your back sore it may be a detriment to your run.

I had a client who was super intent on riding his tri bike in competition. He has a history of back issues and in every race his run would be much slower than I would have expected given his performance in training. He also told me that the aero posture would often cause some numbness in his leg. At his last race I convinced him to ride a regular road bike, his bike times were just as fast. His run pace went down a full minute per mile over his last 3 races.

Ah - Wahine! I just love it when people talk good sense!

I did my first tris back in the early 80s and have drifted in and out of the sport over the years since then. It is hard to avoid noticing that triathlon has become a very image-conscious sport and that there is much marketing aimed at "buying speed" through triathlon-specific gear.

While much of this hyped up gear is probably great stuff and would probably buy you extra seconds if you are at the elite level (which I am most certainly not) my belief is that most everyday triathletes would benefit more from spending their time (and hence the money they would need to earn to pay for some of these yummy toys) on better quality or more targetted training. All things do not work for all people - buying the super-flash tri bike is not always the answer.

That being said - I am a firm believer that N+1 is "the answer." N+1 is the right number of bikes to own where N is the number of bikes you already own! I just don't think it guarantees a faster tri!