Group riding is all about placement in the group, and reading how it's rolling along. Group rides also tend to be NOT steady-state grinds like a TT, and triathletes have quite a learning curve to climb to not burn their matches staying with the group when the hammer drops. Been there, done that. BUT... Have you checked all the various places where your bike could be generating resistance? Hubs, BB, chain, rear derailleur? Likely the wheels are generating more resistance as well.

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Set up your saddle nearly the same as your tri bike as well as the hoods (near where your horns would be)

I think the difference between my tri and road saddle setback is about 1 cm. My hoods on my road bike are about 2cm higher than my horns on my tri.

My Mountain bike has a very similar saddle setback as my road bike. Bars are different cuz they are much wider.

Ok, I will compare saddle and handlebar positions between TT and road bike. I'll look more carefully at some other parts where friction might come in to play. I'm expecting a wahoo kickr in soon and I will compare RPE to watts on both bikes. I don't have a problem keeping up in the group rides on my TT bike, but I get dropped on those same rides when I show up on my road bike.

What kind of tires do you have on the TT bike and what type on the road bike. Good tires on the TT bike and super hard puncture resistant tires on the road bike could make a noticeable difference.

Once comparably adapted to both, you should not be slower on the road bike in a group ride. In fact I'd expect the opposite. However the typical positions for each are different, and should be. I use my tri bike on the trainer all year round and for some solo outdoor rides, mostly in spring/ summer approaching races. I like riding the tri bike and I'm much faster solo but I much prefer the road bike. I suspect my power is slightly better on the road bike but haven't checked.

I shelved my road bike for the first half if 2016 while concentrating on prep for an IM. I was looking forward to getting back on the road bike but when I did, I felt awful! It just felt all wrong and not like I remembered at all. Plys despite being in good shape, I was slow. It was just lack of time on the road bike. After a few rides I was loving it again and the speed came back pretty quick too.

Spread your training between both bikes and you'll soon be very happy on the road bike.

I personally would not set my road bike up to match my tri bike geometry. It's unnecessary and ruins the riad bike in my opinion. I inadvertently went that route at one time and didn't realise the negative impact until after I'd got a fit (where the saddle was pushed way back and down) and realised the bike felt great like it had about a year before. Then I compared the position and realised it was back where it had been. I'd tweaked it a few times in the interim and drifted towards my tri bike position but it had ruined my ride without me noticing.
There's a reason road cyclists use the position they do.

For me, the saddle forward thing is likely cuz of my short legs

I've tried the road position/saddle back position and it never worked for me. It always felt like I was pushing forward on the pedals. I slowly moved the saddle forward, about 1 cm at a time per week until I came up with the position I'm at now. I was as far forward as my tri bike for a time but (after looking at my fit data) settled 35-40 mm behind my tri bike saddle position.

I had also set my bars up near the same height as my horns but have settled 2 to 3 cm higher on the road bike.

Also check your gearing - many recent road bikes were sold with 50-34 compact cranks, while TT most likely has 52-36 or 53-39. Crankset would be a bigger deal than your tires...

I recently moved from CO to CA and my mountain-climbing compact crank was out gunned on the rolling fast terrain in California. I went to a 52-36 and I don't have to chase back on after every downhill.

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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

What????

Aside from spinning out or a tiny potential loss in drive train efficiency when using smaller rings (and 50 to 52 or 53 is a really small variation in an already small loss) what difference does the chainset make to your ability to keep up on a group ride?

I have 52/38 chainrings on my tri-bike which I use with either an 11-28 or 11-25 cassette.
I have 50/34 chainrings on my road bike which I typically use with an 11-28 or with an 11-32 cassette for big, steep mountains.
I have 50/39/30 triple chainrings on my old bike which I used with 12-27 cassette.
None of these combinations had any significant impact on my ability to ride at normal road speeds of say 15-70km/h. You just choose the appropriate ratio. I've done 80km/h+ more than once with a 50 tooth chainring and 12 tooth sprocket, albeit the cadence gets a bit uncomfortably high. Unless your problem exists only going up or down steep hills, or sprinting, or you're a really, really, really strong rider, this is NOT the issue.


Also, 50/34, 52/36 and 53/39 are tooth counts for chainrings. The cranks are what the pedals are attached to and not directly related to number of teeth.

Crankset could absolutely be a difference maker depending on terrain. If the OP has been riding a tri bike with a compact crank on hilly/ rolly group rides, going to a standard set on a road bike could be challenging. I remember having difficult when I got into road racing and started riding 53/39 cranks.

On this Thanksgiving - I’m thankful for the ST trolls...

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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

How?

If it's a matter of not having sufficient big gears for a very fast down hill or sprint, then yes it could be relevant. I already stated this myself in my last post.
If it's a matter of not having small enough gears to get up a steep slope that's relevant too. Again, I didn't say otherwise. My point, as per my last post, is that ability to keep up in a group at normal road riding speeds will not be significantly impacted by the chainset being 50/34 versus 52/36, 52/38, or 53/39. If you think otherwise can you say how or why? This is simple physics. I don't think there's much room for debate but if I'm missing something please do bring my attention to it.

You answered your own question brother. It’s a matter of going uphill. It’s harder to go uphill with a standard crank than a compact crank given the same cassette. Agreed hanging in a peloton on a flat road should have no impact. But I have the feeling that’s not when the OP is getting dropped.

How am I trolling? I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've been accused of that in over 2 years of daily posting on ST.
What you said, as far as I can see, is factually incorrect. I like to point out such errors before a reader goes and spends their hard earned money correcting a problem that doesn't exist. I'm quite happy to engage in a conversation on the topic if you think my argument is flawed? That's not trolling, that's what a discussion forum is for.

However, I will concede that my last sentence was a bit pedantic. So apologies for that. It may have skewed the tone.

It's only harder if you actually run out of gears and are forced to reduce cadence below what you would otherwise use.
If you're not in your smallest gear going up a hill then the size of your small chainring is not the problem.
Likewise on descents, unless you're forced to spin an uncomfortably high cadence while in your biggest gear, the size of your big chainring is not the problem.

There are a couple different things going on here:

1) Set up on the road bike - if you ride in a very aggressive position on the TT/Tri bike then the natural bigger saddle set-back position in the classic road riding position will change a number of the key angles, and the muscle recruitment will be slightly different - so it may take a good amount of riding to become as efficient in the road position as the TT position. Some have advocated for setting up the road bike like the TT/Tri bike - this is going to depend on a number of factors if you can do this. Generally it's not good to be set up too far "forward" on a road bike - it's going to throw off the balance and the steering and thus the handling of the bike.

2) The other issue is group-riding dynamics. This is HUGE. If you are new to group riding, just learn how to sit in the group. You have to get comfortable with this. Sitting in as much as you can saves large amounts of energy. This will allow you to ride in a group much longer, and allow you to travel much farther and faster than you would have on your own. Of course this is assuming good group riding etiquette and technique.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

This.... Tri/TT is self modulated pacing, group rides are not... It takes time to learn how to navigate a pack safely, and to train your body to deal with the yo-yoing of pace. Even as someone with a significant road racing background, it was still a learning curve when I first tried draft legal multisport racing, it's one thing dealing with race dynamics in a criterium, it's a whole other layer when you then had to run off the bike. That said, learning to adapt to pack riding and changing pace dynamics, has huge benefits for TT/Tri racing, because you are better able to recover from small efforts, if you slip on your pacing a bit, or need to go into the red a bit on a climb... The bike handling skill is also invaluable and learning how to read courses and pick lines make a huge difference as soon as courses get technical.

If you are looking at just straight up speed, and finding it slower, it's not surprising because you are in a more upright position with more of your body in the wind...

Pretty much what ^^^^ he said. Group rides can be "punchy" and if there are strong riders in the group you'll want to be right up on someone's wheel if you don't want to get dropped. At first I sucked at cornering and that's where the major gaps were created when I first started riding with racers. And as I say to my local cycling teammates, "Time trial bike cut through wind like hot arrow through butter".

Bolded pretty much sums it up. To give the OP an idea, I have an FTP on my TT bike of 290 watts. I ride with a local club and ride with the "Open - we eat our young and will drop your ass in a heart beat - Group" during the summer on weekends.

In a race I will rarely exceed 350 watts and average between 210 and 260, depending on the distance. On a typical Saturday morning suffer-fest I will average 190 to 210 watts for a 60 mile ride, but I will hit 700 to 900 watts several times during that ride. Sitting in on the pace line at 23 mph I put out about 170 watts. Pulling I'm putting down about 300 watts. Accelerations, jumps off stoplights, and normal effort to close gaps account for everything else. That will be the hardest bike workout of the week, by far, based on TSS and heart rate.

The trick in a group is to understand the groups dynamics. Who pulls hard, who sits back, where they surge, things like that. If you are constantly opening and then closing a gap you won't last long unless the group is way under your abilities.

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"...the street finds its own uses for things"