I commute on a roadie and I've been fancying a new bike. I'm also a runner, who's thinking of cross training and doing a couple of triathlons next year. I'm kinda PO'd right now as my new bike has been delayed. Good thing maybe that I've found an alternative. Its a tri bike.
I don't want to be an 'all the gear, no idea' triathlete. I'll never be more than a midfielder and I'm happy with that. I'm running cycling to keep fit, not to break any PBs
What I'm wondering is, as I'm used to being able to operate gears/brakes from one position, on the hoods, is it a great difference/adaptation to using the setup with tri bars?
Anything else I need to be aware of when thinking about a tri bike?
I've just bought a TT/Tri bike in order to merge my running and cycling and enter multisport (and generally self indugence). I dont have a lot of experience but I can offer some comments.
A road bike typically has a 73 degree seat-tube and is relativelly agile, great for riding in bunches etc but in a tri, you cant draft (unless at elite sprint to olympic distance) so will want to gain some aero advantage and a possition that saves you for the final run. You can add tri bars to your road bike, this will work fine and you can probly get a decent possition, but will have to accept that you wont get as low, will have to leave the aero possition to shift gears and will have a relativelly unstable bike (due to pushing weight forward). Problems occur with the seat tube angle and thus the length of the top tube (and consequently reach to the aero bars), when you lower your front end and stretch forward you bend in the middle, bend to far and power loss will out-weigh the aero gain. If you get serious, you will likely end up looking for ways to get your saddle further forward and your front end lower with silly eccentric stems.
A tri bike comes into its own by having a 76-78 degree seat tube and a shorter headtube, this reduces the reach to the bars (shorter top tube) drawing your elbows in toward your torso and effectivelly rotating your possition forward with your ankle joint being a point of pivot. To counteract the effect of pushing weight forward, the forks will have more rake making the bike stable when on the aero bars, but it will feel sluggish compared to a road frame.
What I will say is this, dont even think about riding it as an everyday bike, race/training specific only, they handle very differently to a road bike, you wont be dodging potholes with any agility, they like to go in a straight line.
My 'Sunday bike'
:-)
