I still like my P2SL. It's an '05 (I think). A few things have changed since this pic (bars are different, seat is further forward, different cranks and pedals, bta bottle for races). I keep thinking that I'll replace it, but then I take a look around and wonder "why??"

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2 years ago, the British 10 mile TT champs were won on a TTX.

It’s more important to get a good aero position and kit than the frame. A nice aero frame helps, but most of the options you stated would be fine.

Very roughly, the original Speed Concept marks the point where frames stopped getting notably quicker. So anything that was good in 2011 won’t be slowing you down.

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Developing aero, fit and other fun stuff at Red is Faster

If you want to also race in UCI TT, make sure the bike is UCI-legal. However, that is more likely as you go back a few years-- it was less common to have the >3:1 aspect ratio tubes and bars back then.

Many old bikes are very good. I think there is more parity today than there was 5 years ago, though. If you look back to around 2010, I think Cervelo's P2 & P3 variants may be significantly better than others.

n=1, I have a 2008 Cervelo (carbon) P3 that I've been quite happy with. I imagine that a comparable used bike would be relatively affordable.

I'm usually top 3-4 in cat 3's, so I can't be a complete brick in the wind on it at least.

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All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

I had a 2006 P2 that I loved but sold because the cables had cut into the frame. If that hadn't happened I would probably still be riding it today. I bought the P3 which was basically the same bike. I think you can go back 10 years almost but make sure to inspect the joints and frame for cracks, corrosion, etc. If that doesn't I would say go for it.

The original P3c is the benchmark. Anything older than that is an aero brick and should be upgraded.

For the triathlon history buffs. Who did this bike belong to?

I was wondering the same, I can get a pretty good price on a 2010 Cervelo P3 with Zipp 808s andfull Campag Record.

Just not sure if a 2010 is too old. My current bike is a 2015 Canyon Speedmax Al 8.0 (the cheapest they made), I could sell it and not spend much more to get the p3...

Steve Larsen

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/....._P2242241/?page=-1

Thanks for the info so far. Now to find a good deal...

So is the TT bike more about getting you in a good position than the actual frame being aero, or both(i assume some of both)?

Is Ebay the best place to look?

perty

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36 kona qualifiers 2006-'23 - 3 Kona Podiums - 4 OA IM AG wins - 5 IM AG wins - 18 70.3 AG wins
I ka nana no a 'ike -- by observing, one learns | Kulia i ka nu'u -- strive for excellence
Garmin Glycogen Use App | Garmin Fat Use App

That's one sexy bitch there.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I have an old aluminum P3 (circa 2004?) and, set up properly, I'd bet it's still faster than many bikes currently being sold. I upgraded to a P4 because I got a smokin' deal on a frameset but I wouldn't hesitate to race an aluminum P3. They can probably be found for <$500.

The P2c and P3c are pretty fast bikes and there are a ton around. Specialized Transition is fast as well. I figure 700-800$ is a pretty fair price with 10 speed and training wheels. For a bit more you could upgrade to a first generation Speed Concept, say1200-1500$.

eBay may be ok for the bike that were popular and people are trying to clean out the basement and make some cash. There is, however, a ton of stuff that is way over-priced and just gets re-listed all the time. Why anyone thinks a used bike is worth as much as you can get new bike on sale is beyond me.

I've bought 2-3 bikes from Cragis list - more of an old-school shake the hand of the guy you buy it from. Another big option is Pros Closet who specialize in used bikes. Started as a clearing house for pro roadies who would sell some of their freebies , but now it's pretty much all comers. pros closet is on E-Bay.

I would avoid any used bikes with funky proprietary headsets / brakes...some can be hard to work on and if it's hard to work on it probably wasn't maintained very well. Again - all signs point to a P2/P3...

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" I take my gear out of my car and put my bike together. Tourists and locals are watching from sidewalk cafes. Non-racers. The emptiness of of their lives shocks me. "
(opening lines from Tim Krabbe's The Rider , 1978

If going for a P3c the 2011/2012 years have the P4 fork.

I have an '05 Quintana Roo Lucero. I haven't done a triathlon for a few years but would have absolutely no concerns about racing on it again and having my competitiveness being limited only by my fitness, not the bike. I've got a good body position on it which in my view is where 90% of the gains come from over a road bike position, and it ticks off the basics like having internal cabling and a clean cockpit. Add in deep wheels, and smart choices on clothing, tire selection, helmet, hydration, etc and I really doubt I'd be giving away that much to somebody on a modern superbike. Thanks to the position alone I get a significant speed boost over my road bike, which is a 2016 Canyon Aeroad with one-piece cockpit and Di2 so pretty cutting edge.

Bigger concern I always have is the condition of secondhand bikes. You never really know how they've been looked after, so worth getting somebody to properly check it over if you don't know how to do so yourself. Even if the frame is OK, worn out drivetrain can end up costing a surprising amount to replace - a friend recently thought he'd picked up a secondhand bargain but ended up spending as much again as virtually all the components needed replacing.

It is both. The geometry of a TT bike is very different from a road bike in order to get you into an ideal position. Then, a good TT bike will be a lot more aero than comparable road bikes.

IMHO, eBay is probably the last resort for a good used bike. I like craigslist. The eBay exception is The Pros Closet... They are a seller that has a very good reputation for used bikes.

If one lives in or near a metro area it amazing what can be found in some shops as consignment bikes. My B10 will soon be on consignment from the shop I upgrading to a new IA and in that shop there are several barely used bikes at very low prices in comparison to new. There is a Felt AR that has never been used by the owner because he ended up with a significant health issue while the bike was being built up. It is a couple of thousand less than new. I know of several shops in this city that have very nice consignment bikes available where you can put your hands on the bike, look it over good and take it for a spin. I am also choosing to use consignment because I don't want to have to meet with people at various times and I don't want to fool with shipping. Anyone local that is interested in consignment bikes can visit at their convenience and the safety of the bike shop.

My old B10 that will be going for less than $1K (I will be happy to get 600 so I am not sure what the shop owner will put on it for his cut) has SRAM Red and is I great shape. I set some PRs on that bike recently and on Sunday it was cruising so nice I started to think how stupid it was to buy a new bike. IMO - my engine needs far more improvement than the bike I am riding.

Edit: I forgot to mention that I bought the B10 frame years ago on consignment from a fitter/mechanic shop. The owner gave me a very discounted price on building up the frame, discount components and a pro fitting.

I have a friend who still rides one. Placed 2nd in his AG in Timberman, 4th or 5th in Tremblant, one of the fastest bike splits of his AG. So in my book, it works.

Now, yeah, maybe he would have won his AG in Timberman with a carbon superbike. Or maybe not. Who knows.

When the P5 came out, in 2012, early windtunnel tests indicated the P4 was faster. The basic design of the P5 hasn't changed, so I'm going to go ahead and claim that the P4 is still a pretty competitive bike. First sold in 2009. Make of that what you want.

And on top of that: the main cause of aerodynamic drag is the sack of water, fat, and muscle occupying the saddle. A TT/tri-bike's job is to optimize the drag of said sack. Once that is optimized (also using clothing and helmet), the drag of the bike itself and its components (wheels) becomes relevant. That is to say that a bad-fitting bike with superior aero numbers will be slower with you on board than a well-fitting round-tube alu bike.

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

Same vintage P2SL for me (does yours have the official Slowtwitch approval label on the seat tube?).

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Yup! :-)

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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qualified twice for ITU worlds on a 2005 aluminum Cervelo Dual, still riding it, have not persuaded myself a newer frame would be significantly faster.. maybe a superbike in the case of a lottery win.

I'd have great confidence in any Cervelo P(n) bike, alu or carbon, from any time since they came on the market. For other frames I'd need to be persuaded with actual aero data. For example Pro Bike Closet has Guru, Jamis etc frames but there's no good data on those..

I have a 2010 Scott plasma 2 frame. I love it. There's actually few present day TT-frames that I would consider buying. I love having a threaded bottom bracket and I still don't trust any pressfit bottom brackets. Even low-end bikes come with pressfit BB's now.

I think the sweet spot for used bikes currently is the felt b16 2009-2013.

For me, if you're sticking with mechanical, 10-speed is a better option. It's a lot more difficult to index 11-speed gearing. Plus, you get to save a shit tonne of money on wheelsets. My bike/wheel (hed jet 6/9) cost a total of $1000 canadian. I bought $4-500 worth of upgrades (new aero bars/stem, saddle, cables, crankset) and I would compare my bike with any recently manufactured bike that doesn't have an integrated headset or a custom stem. I ride PRO missile alloy bars with a Missile Evo stem.

The only thing I find where my bike is lacking is top tube storage bosses and tire clearance. I have 24c tires and I doubt I could fit 25's which is crazy

Thanks for all the help. I have found a couple BMC TT (TT02, and TT03) frames that have piqued my interest, are they any good? Some stuff I read like a bikeradar review at the time was good, and others said they weren't as aero as others

I think you can put together something really fast on a budget shopping used. I don't use my TT bike often, but when I do I need it to be fast. I have had luck with an old P3C, didn't like the P5, and now have a P4 evo (2011 model). You can find these frames for a bargain. If they fit you, then they are FAST. Oh, and the brake just fine when adjusted properly. Again, if it fits, the 3T Ventus 1 or 2 are slippery bars. I have changed mine since this photo to use the 15 degree rise Zipp extensions.

This should help answer your questions:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8RrY_TRtezdc2pYSHJ1cVllUjQ/view

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Pretty cool read......but more so if I was in the market for a $10,000 superbike. The, "old " bike they compared these new superbikes to was a couple year old felt B series. Neat stuff though!

Dave Luscan posted his picture in the best long course position thread from back when he was riding his old P3SL with an aluminum vision cockpit... That setup is probably better than the majority of new stuff you can buy for 5-10x the price.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Anyone have any thoughts about that BMC TT TT02 or TT03?

+1

I still race on a 2002 AluP3. I picked it up super cheap but it needed paint. Just had it painted flat black and it looks great.

If someone is looking at getting into tri and wants a good value bike I wouldn't hesitate to help them look for one. Someone else said that the P3C is the benchmark, but I'd even go back to the aluP3.

Any bike that 1.) fits you and 2.) is built intelligently will be a massive improvement. Several years ago I bought a 2005 Dual frame on the classified for a song and had a ghetto but very tight build on it that probably cost less than $600 all in (wheels re-used). The old alloy Cervelo frames (P2/P3SL) are where the super value is at if you're not a full time triathlete. Some of the older P2C/P3C frames can be had pretty cheap as well and are ripe for modding.

If you're not looking to spend a lot, the older frames make a really fun challenge to get a savvy build done on the cheap. ST is full of great examples of such builds, some of which have already been posted in this thread.

I saw a P3C at Pro's Closet for 450ish yesterday.

The P3C, especially with the newer fork is about 10 watts faster than the aluminum P3. Tom A's blog has a great article where they compared the two bikes to see what a cool Carbon frame was worth. TheSpecialized Transition is a safe bet as well. It got a lot of bogus press when it first and out, but it was actually faster than the P3C, though so much of this depended on the bar/stem combo

Depending on your flexibility, I think you could fit into a TT bike through your 50s?

Oh, wait ...

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

in your OP you said you were looking for a cheap TT bike.

The big point you missed or I'm guessing you might have missed based upon your response to the paper, the main takeaway of that paper is that with an older less expensive bike & some after market parts you can make that older TT bike nearly comparable to the best bikes today.

I'm pretty confident in my abilities to take an older bike, mod it out and have it destroy some of these recent $10k+ bikes aerodynamically.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

+1. I have a 2011 P3 and love it. I'm sure newer bikes are more aero off the shelf, but at that price, you can spend more customizing it after a pro fit. Bought it used on eBay for ~$1750 in 2014. I think they're closer to $1,000 - $1,200 now.

true, but as I said, i didn't see them compare the bikes to anything other than a 2013 B series, which probably still stomps TT bikes from the 05-09 period, but I do see your point that as long as it is a TT bike and set up well, it should still be good. :)

I am riding a 2005 P3SL. Tens of thousands of km and still looks pretty new because of the anodized surface.
Any tips on making it more compliant at the seat post - I usually train on mtb bikes and my back/bum is taking a hit after long TT rides.

Thx

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[ The sign of intelligence is you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing they are doing in their life. - Vasudev ]

Honestly, no. That's the *only* thing I didn't like about the AluP3 - it was a pretty punishing ride for training. You can go with 25's and lower pressures for training, and that helps a bit but it requires monkeying with the set screws in the horizontal dropouts. I ended up doing more of my training on my road bike than I otherwise would have. That's the main reason I even considered upgrading to the P4.

I currently have a P5 and I still contend it's hard to beat that P3C - it's an awesome rig. Heck, I think the P3A is still a fast bike!!

I love my P3SL so much that I can't get rid of it, but I can't actually bring myself to ride it either. It is HARSH. I even did this years (non-serious) TT effort on my road bike.

BMC makes good bikes, but I am not familiar with those in particular.

Do you have parts that you are planning on building the bike up with? Or looking to buy a complete bike, or bike and parts?

When buying used parts/bikes, you almost have to assume you will need new cables and housing (and bar wrap).

Fit wise, plan on buying a new stem and saddle, and make sure the steering tube on the fork has not been cut too short.

After that, chain, cassette, chain rings, jockey wheels, headset and bottom bracket bearings are all items that you could be shelling out for.

Worst case scenario, you could end up spending more than the bike is worth.