(For those of you who might not know or don't care there are some differences between a road bike and a Tri bike. The purpose of a tri bike is to go like a bat and to do so you need to be in a very aggressive aero position. So you will see aero bars on all tri bikes, these are the bars in front of your handle bars to lean on to reduce wind resistant. Another aspect of a tri bike is that the down tube (the tube that your seat post slides into) is more upright as opposed to being kind of slanted back. This enables the rider to use different muscles than the standard road bike making the transition to the run a little easier. Other things, include Mag wheels to reduce resistance, gear changers on the aerobars, bigger front chain ring among others )
The down side to a tribike is if you experience a hilly ride, and you need to get out of the saddle your gear changers are way out in front of you (on the aerobars.) Also because in most cases your aero bars are below the height of your seat your back can get extremely sore. Also the cost of a tri-bike at minimum now is 2k and upwards to 8k properly outfitted. (Mine cost 1k 10 years ago on close-out)
The purpose of the IM is to go as fast as you can. So it would make sense to have a bike that would do the same but it’s a little tricky situation when you think you are going 112 miles. My point to all of this is that a "tri bike" might not necessarily be the best decision for a Full IM. The road bike gives the rider a more relaxed position; the gearing is such so that although it won’t be as fast as a Tri bike (given the same rider on the flats) it’s easier to climb hills because of gearing.
As I was saying, back in early 2000s I bought a "tribike" because it was all the things that I had mentioned before. It was an aluminum frame, the setup was aggressive and it was extremely uncomfortable. I rode it for Olympic and Sprint Tris, but looking back the comfort probably inhibited from training more. So when it came time to get ready for IMCDA I wasn't really excited about going back to "black beauty" I brought it in to a local bike shop, you know one of the guys that was into speed and wanted me to buy a new tribike as soon as he heard me say IM. But I got refitted on the old gal, and rode it for about 2 weeks until the gears didn't hold their chain. Brought it into another place they said it was old but there wasn't anything wrong with it. I bought new tires, tune-ups etc. And rode it for another 2 weeks and the same thing happened. Brought it to a third place and I didn't tell them anything about my previous experiences and they looked at it for an afternoon and said your bike sucks you should buy something else.
At that point I had already spent $250 on tune ups and tires, signed up for the IMCDA and bought miscellaneous other things that probably totaled $1000. A new Tri-bike wasn't in the plans. So I did some research on road bikes and the more I read the more I realized I should buy a bike with clip on aero bars. So that's what I did I shopped around for a couple of weeks and bought a Trek 2.1 H3 and then put aero bars on it. Spent about $1500 by the time it was all done (another tire, aero bottle, cpu, pump, bento bag). I picked what I thought was the best bike that we could afford, Gretchen had to pay for it because I wouldn't have, I just hate spending money on myself, and really $1500 for a stinking bike? But as I learned that's the going rate.
Broad Brush Time-Bikes come down to component sets which is essentially the gearing, the better the gearing the more expensive the bike. Shimano the biggest manufacturer has 5 component sets:
- Dura-Ace
- Ultegra
- 105
- Tiagra
- Sora
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| The Road Bike I bought last year |
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| The Tri-Bike I wish I had, assuming I was in shape |
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| Black Beauty |
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