My feelings on a bike is that it needs to be triathlon specific and and have good wheels (I'm much faster on my 2012 Kestrel Tri-bike than my 2024 Canyon road bike). I do think that tri-specific bikes are better today than a decade ago, but I see it as incremental gains. Again, my opinion, if you have a reasonable bike, that fits well, then it's how aero you are and how strong is your engine. Now, with all that said, I would never try to talk someone out of buying or upgrading a bike.....

I've seen people on $10K tri bikes that weren't in a good aero position (or would only go aero for a few minutes) that I've passed on a vintage steel bike with no aero-bars and down tube shifters. Again, my opinion, the engine is critical, being able to get (and stay) aero will gain a lot (thus a tri-bike to get aero), the rest is incremental.