oneradtec

Hello. I am interested in training to do the Master's National Time Trial in 2006. My problem is that I don't expect to be able to find 3-4k to fit a top line TT bike into my budget.

I have a nice road bike that will be great for day to day training. I am currently riding a traditional Italian lugged steel frame with chrome rear triangle and chromed fork(Moser Pro Evolution....Dedaccia Zero Uno tubes) with full Ultegra. The bike is a bit heavier as you would expect with steel but rides like a dream.

Anyway, Would it be unrealistic to consider borrowing a time trial bike for that event in 2006. Perhaps a bike shop would rent a used one to me and I could agree to cover any damages should they occur. Is this reasonable? I'm trying to plan ahead here. Perhaps they would rent me one for a week? Anyone else ever done anything like this?

pinky

There are shops here that rent race wheels, though I've never heard of race bikes. I'd think you'd want the bike long term so you can get used to the position it requires. Why not grab something off ebay?

ed073

TT bars, Skinsuit, shoe covers, helmet and hire some wheels (disc/deep rim) and you'll be flying!!

No need to go nuts and buy a bike you'll be lucky to ride a dozen times a year.

roadwarrior

I work in, for the bike shop world, a fairly big shop. Sells about three mill in bikes a year. We would not have a TT bike to rent. And in order to do so, we would have to have four or five of them in various sizes (as we do rent OCR2's, Sedonas, Yukons and the like) and at the 3-4k range, that's a lot of stuff on the liability side of the ledger sheet. We'd have to rent that bike out a LOT to make any money or charge a ton for each rental. And that's 12-16 grand in bikes sitting around...so I offer that as perspective...even if we went with a road geometry TT type bike (with drop bars and regular road shifters), those are still something over a grand a piece for a specialized piece of equipment.

That aside, add aero bars to your bike and go have fun.

Laggard

What others said. Get some aerobars, shoe and helmet covers, an aero front rim and a rear disc. Do they still sell those fabric rear wheel covers? They turn any rear wheel into a disc.

BikeInMN

No matter what route you decide to go (aero bars on your road bike or a full on TT bike) you should plan on spending some time in the aero position before your TT. It takes time to dial in and get used to the position before you can really be comfortable and make power.
Just slapping on aerobars and going for it could cost you time if your position is bad.

Xtrmyorick

And can cause you to pull a muscle since you're not used to the position at all and should theoretically be going all-out.

sewupnut

Replies seem to be more about equipment. First TT I did (on a regular bike) I flatted my "trick" 32 spoke front (220 gram sewup, 140 psi) two minutes before my start and threw on a 36 spoke trainer with about 100 psi. Turned a 56m flat in 40K (I was 36).

Practice, practice, practice...

sun

ZackJones

oneradtec: Consider a Trek Equinox 7. It ready to go for TT's and you can get one for under 2K. I bought one last week and love it!

Ajay213

The Equinox has "tri angles" and may or may NOT be legal (depending on which regulating body is covering the TT, for instance UCI rules won't let you ride a steep angled bike). A road bike can make a great TT bike, but you'll sometimes/usually want to start with one size smaller frame as the aero bars will stretch you out a bit more than regular drops.

Check out a site like TimeTrial.org and go over some of their tech articles. The biggest things you can do are aero bars (integrated better than clip on which are better than no aero bars), deep/disc wheel (get a HED H3 on closeout from HED and RENN disc and you will have one of the fastest wheel sets around for under $1k), helmet cover. All of that should yield you a good 3-4 minutes advantage over a 40k (assuming sub hour speeds), the rest like shoe booties, skin suits, aero tubing can get you a little more, but not quite the big jumps like above.

Also it's important that you train with the above equipment, especially in the position and with aero wheels (they can be a LOT of fun in winds), a bad "aero" TT position will be worse for you than a really good "road bike" position.

And like others have said, no matter how much technology you throw at the problem, if the engine can't get the job done than the job just isn't going to get done.

oneradtec

Thanks for the replies guys. I am leaning towards buying a Cervelo Soloist. That should settle the issue huh?

oneradtec

well...I brought home a new Trek 5200(2004 close out) today...so if I am in the master's time trial in 2006(I plan on doing it for sure!) then it will be on this frame. I will buy a forward seat post and perhaps a set of aero wheels and aero bars between now and then. I will do the TT on this bike...****us many other TT's, RR's, crits, and best of all..solo training rides!