normdzn

Ok, I am thinking about getting a bike for the road since my mtb does not cut. I am not sure whether to get a Tr-bike or a Road bike. I just bought my first mountain bike after 20+ years of have not ridden on one about 2 months ago and have been a weekend warrioir on the trails. I am a complete newbie to the sport so I do not understand the difference between the two bikes especially when it seems that tri-bikes run cheaper, is this accurate? I figure having a tri-bike is like having a road bike with more capabilities? Cheers.

anonymouse99

First or second google search result for "tri bike" is this website. Very informative. They recommend the Cervelo Soloist Team (also see here) if you are leaning to a road bike, but want to use it as a tri bike as well. I am attracted to that bike, but find it surprising that there are few other road bikes others claim can serve the same purpose.

The reason tri bikes are cheaper is because they don't have the expensive dual brake lever/shifters, but rather have bar end shifters

jennings780

Either a road bike or tri bike will work well for triathlons. If you like to ride with other people/groups, do charity rides and/or live in a place with a lot of hills, you probably should have a road bike. If you ride alone mainly, will be riding just to do triathlons and it is relatively flat then having a tri bike as your only bike is probably fine.

Most of the time when this topic has come up on this board the prevailing wisdom is that if you are going to have one bike it should be a road bike. Then save up and get a tri bike as your second bike.

Citabria

I recently bought a kestrel talon... throw on the clip on aero bars, adjust the seat to the forward postion on their seatpost, and you have a tri-bike...

uclamutt

I'm also very new to the sport having ridden mountain bikes for many years. The above advice is what my family of die hard road racers and/or tri racers all tell me. It makes sense that it would be difficult to train on hills and ride in large groups on a tri bike.

I'm planning on getting an inexpensive (used?) road bike and throwing some aero bars on it because my mt. bike is not working well on the triathlons!

cat4ever

If it's going to be your ONLY road-ish bike, don't get a dedicated tri bike. You'll hate base miles on that uncomfortable POS! Get a road bike and some clip ons. Ride it lots. Tri-bikes are a different animal entirely than road bikes, no drop bars, agressive geometry. Typical tri-bikes have shifters and brakes in different locations and they are really not for noobish riders as they are harder to control than bikes with standard road geometry. If you decide you don't want to race, but just ride, you'll hate the fact that you got a tri bike.

Buy a road bike and some nice wheels for race day.

Theakston

I'm kind of in the same boat. Having read about tri- vs road bike I've decided to get a road bike for now (I'm currently commuting on a Hybrid, which is my only bike).
I've also read that it's not a great idea to try and turn a road bike into a tri (adding aero bars etc) as it doesn't really get you into the correct position - better to stick with a consistent geometry than one that's half of each. Any thoughts on this and any recommendations on a road bike? I'm looking to spend about $1500.

Thanx.

RoadToad

+1 for getting a road bike first, then a dedicated tri bike later if you fall in love with the sport...that's what I did!

jennings780

For $1500 I would recommend a Cannondale. All their road bikes have a pro-quality frame handmade in the USA. Their top road frame right now is the Six13, but those bikes start at $2000+. The next frame down is the CAAD8, which was their top frame for years and was ridden by team Saeco and won the Giro in 02 or 03 I think. For $1500 you should be able to get a R800 or R900 with a CAAD8 frame. Over time if you feel like upgrading components, wheels, etc. you can feel good about doing that without feeling like you are adding a lot of $$$ to a mediocre frameset. For $1500 what you will usually get from most of the other bike companies is a mid-level frame bought from some asian supplier (not that there is anything wrong with frames from asia - I had a specialized allez elite that I loved that was one of those frames). Link to R800: https://sunsetcyclery.com/itemdetails...gId=39&id=3193

The frame is the most important part of the bike. The second most important is probably the wheelset with the components and other stuff falling behind in some sort of order. Don't get sucked in to buying a bike because for the same price it is ultegra where another bike is mostly 105. The difference between ultegra and 105 is small. The differences between frames and wheels is big.

ranger5oh

Unless you are only planning on doing Tri's, I would buy a road bike. I went through the same choice a while back and decided road bike is the way to go. I'm going to be doing tri's on it. If you wanna go aero, just slap on some bars.. thats what I did. Works great.

Also, in response to the above thread, I can personally vouch for the Cannondale's. My R700 is awesome. The frame is great, climbs well, and is really stiff. I highly reccommend the CAAD8 frame. Great great frame.

lomoid

I was in the exact same position you are now about 3 weeks ago. initially and ignorantly I was attracted to the lines and agrerssive form of the tri-bikes and and felt pretty strongly that I could get by having just a tri bike. The more research I did, however, the more I realized that having a road bike just made more sense as, even though my goal is to compete in tri's, I was going to be racking up training miles in all sorts of varied conditions and with all different kinds of riders. There are very significant differences between the geometries b/w the two kinds of bikes primarilly due to the fact that there is no drafting in tri races (most of them). While clipping aerobars and flipping the seat on a road bike is certainly passable, on some straight road bikes however, putting your weight over the front tire of the bike can lead to some fairly twitchy situations as the bike isn't naturally designed to support the pushed center of gravity. (here's a decent little article: https://www.xtri.com/article.asp?id=126 )
I found two bikes though that apear to be a pretty good compromise: the FELT T23 and the CERVELO SOLOIST TEAM. Both are designed with a geometry that is meant to handle a rider in the forward position in a more forgiving way than a traditional road bike. Afer some tests and fittings I went with the CERVELO. (The FELT was pretty good but I'm pretty small, 5'5" with a 29" inseam, and It seemed I could be more agressive on the compact CERVELO frame). It's a monster as a road bike..as competative as any out there...and the seatpost mount actually spins to throw the seat forward and change the seat tube angle from 73 degrees to 76, which is a respectable seat tube angle on many standard tri bikes. Plus the bike is designed to support the more forward center of gravity without giving up that much in terms of handling and powerstroke.
sorry for the long post but being that I just went through this I thought I would share my experience. I do plan on purchasing a Tri-specific bike at some point, but for now I'm having a blast just becoming a stronger overall cyclist.

Rotten Bastard

Hope y'all don't mind my reviving this thread all the way from page 5

Anyhoo, I have a question that's semi-related to the OP's question. I'm looking to upgrade an old road bike by buying a lighter frame and transplanting the parts onto it. I found a Quintana Roo tri frame on ebay that fits my budget and weight requirements. My question is, Will a tri frame work as a "road bike" if you just throw on drop bars and want to go on, say, a 30-mile ride? I read through all the articles linked to from this thread but couldn't really come to a conclusion based on the info given. I'm not looking to do any triathlons, just wanted an economical way of "upgrading" a bike that I'll only ride a few times a year.

Thanks for any thoughts you can offer and I hope this isn't too stupid a question.

Sprocket Man

That's not a stupid question . The short answer is "yes, you can do it". But it may not be optimal, especially with a Quintana Roo. QR builds their frames with steep seatpost angles (generally around 78 degrees). That means that compared to a road bike (whose seatpost angles are usually less than 75 degrees), the seat will be more forward in relation to the bottom bracket with the QR. You can compensate for the overly steep seatpost angle by buying a seatpost that has a significant setback. There may be other factors relating to frame geometry that make it less than ideal, though I can't say for sure.

Rotten Bastard

So the steeper seatpost will probably put too much weight on my elbows/shoulders with drop bars?

Sprocket Man

Yes, but if you were to use a seatpost like this (https://www.sbrshop.com/store/product.php?pyid=csp-0006), it may help to mitigate some of the problem.

But rather than use a setback seatpost to fix the problem of a too-steep seattube, why not buy a road bike frame instead?

Rotten Bastard

The more I learn about this, the more sense it makes to go that route.

Thanks for the feedback!

FIVE ONE SIX

look into the Cannondale Ironman Six13 Slice frame and fork, i know at least one person that just picked one up, and they love it. use as setback seatpost, and if you want the seat forward flip it forward, and if you want it back than flip it back...

and it's actually not as expensive as you would think...

jmorrison

2006 was my first triathlon season-- I did five races and I did them on a road bike fitted with aerobars- it worked really well. I now have a triathlon bike too- the main difference is the frame size and the wheel size-- Typically a triathlon time trial bike will have 650 wheels (smaller) and a tighter frame.

I have found triathlon bikes to be much more expensive, particularly if you are looking for a graphite or carbon fiber frame. There is a wide array of road bikes out there- mine is a specialized allez elite- it has a steel frame and carbon fork-- it too has a somewhat tighter frame- that's the trend more and more with road bikes too-- the main difference is the aerobars-- you need them because you can't draft in tris-- if you are going to do long-distance rides in addition to the triathlons- I'd get a road bike and fit it with aerobars. for longer rides you are not going to want that tighter frame and smaller wheels.

Seamus

+1 for this. If I was going to do several tris a year and wanted to be really competitive, I would buy a tri bike. As it is, I've got a nice roadie and a training/racing roadie, both with traditional geometry. I put a set of clip on aerobars on the training rig, move the seat forward slightly, and it works great for me. Certainly 99% as good (at my age group fitness level) that a dedicated tri rig would.

Jim

whiterock

I also went with the Cervelo Soloist Team. I'm still primarily a roadie, but have had a blast doing triathlon so far. That said, my old trek with aerobars did me fine last year.



When it was time to upgrade my bike, I decided I wanted to get my feet wet with a tri cockpit, since I had already done the aero bar on my old road bike.

The pro's of this setup are:
1. Gain some experience with bar-end shifters
2. My aero position is a little better than my old road bike
3. Spent less on this bike with the superfly racing wheels (plus the stock wheels) than on the P2C with the eastons
4. Since I kept my STI ultegra and road bar, I can swap out to a true road bike in about an hour or so (depends on how many times I pinch my fingers).
5. If after a few seasons, I decide triathlon's not for me, I'm only out about $300 for the visiontech front end, which I can probably sell on ebay.
6. If I do get more serious on the tri front, this gives me more time to decide what I really want out of a tri-specific bike...plus I can move all the components to the tri frame if I want.

The cons are:
1. This is still *not* a tri bike. I can get a steeper seat angle than my old bike, but I can tell that my hip angle is still more compressed than on the cervelo P2C, which means that I cannot get as low an aero position comfortably. While the bike does feel pretty stable as I have it configured, its not as solid in the aero position as the other tri bikes I've ridden....can be a bit twitchy until you get used to it.
2. I'm probably not getting the benefit of saving my hamstrings like I would on a true tri bike, but I just do sprint/olympic distance right now, so it really hasn't been a problem so far.
3. I paid more than just a road bike, or just an entry-level tri bike, but flexibility costs money.

vtrader

If you are doing sprint triathlons, then a road bike is fine. Anything longer, then a triathlon bike would be better. A road bike is meant to be used in a pack. In triathlons, you can not draft and the aero features do help. In my last season, I averaged two to three miles faster on my triathlon bike over my road bike. And you can not just add the bars to a road bike. The road bike geometry is very different than a tri bike. You change the weight distribution by adding the bars.