On that course the only place you will lose time not having a TT bike is the first 20K and last 20K. The climbing, the road or tri bike should make no difference. In 2010, for example, I put 15 minutes on one of my buddies on the descents. He needed a 3:28 marathon to finally pass me while I ran 3:42 so your ability to descend fast on a technical course is huge.

Most of the descending requires this type of technique with hard leaning and counter steering and looking out of the turn at where you want to go:



There is almost nowhere on the descent that the aerobar are used in the sense anywhere you could use aerobars, you could also get into a tuck like this:



or this



For the record, I used a Kestrel Airfoil Pro which has a steeper head tube angle than most tri bikes and I had my saddle slammed all the way back for better weight on the rear wheel for the switch back descents. I also went with a stem that was 2 cm shorter so that my steering was more responsive (didn't want my hands way out in front of the axle of the front wheel) and I added a spacer (or it may have been two) to provide a slightly more upright position for the long climbs. Basically I turned the tri bike into what you might get with a road bike with clip ons.

I've decided for exactly those reasons to ride the road bike, i'm quite happy descending at speed - the same as skiing GS, the only nagging fear I have is a catastrophic gear failure but thats the same as riding a motorbike or skiing GS or downhill so it is what it is

climbing wise do you think that if I have been able to knock out 800m 30k climbs i'll be ok? I think from the info I can find it will be, but some reassurance would be appreciated

thanks

andrew

Andrew, just get your watts up and kilos down. There are around 7 weeks to IM France to do that so it's never too late to get kilos down! The downhills are basically like doing a GS course and you literally feel like you are carving out a turn weighing your outside pedal with your leg and counter steering and steering the bikes emerging direction with your core/rear wheel (the moment your belly button is pointing to where you want to go, your bike goes there (because the belly button and rear wheel pretty well point to the same place)....almost the same deal doing slalom/GS.

Also notice my basebars with a decent up turn. Very good for pushing back against to countersteer. Flat base bars end up pointing downhill on a technical descent so you feel like you'll slide off them. Drop bars of a road bike are really good in this use case/application. There is a lot of time to be made up on the IMFrance course of you descend well.

Also where they are flying the Yellow "caution flag" you need to sit up and let air braking bleed off some speed and lightly feather the brakes before you come into the turn. There are many blind corners with no yellow flag. For those ones, you can totally let it rip and bleed zero speed because the camber on the other side is fine and you don't need to brake. A lot of guys were losing time there because they were scared of not seeing what is coming. At the race briefing they told us that the other side of these would be fine and they are were correct. Yves Cordier is a very accomplished triathlete and knows what he is talking about as a RD.

As long you've got a low enough gear to get up the climbs without having to dig too deep, you'll be fine. Your ability to go up hill is determined by your W/kg, not by how much hill training you've done. I've done hilly races where I've done no hill training at all but have good power to weight ratio from training on the flat, and been absolutely fine. The gearing is key though - if you run out of gears and are having to grind your way up the hills at a lower cadence and/or higher power than you're able to sustain, you'll be in trouble. Is worth comparing the profile of IM France to the training you've been doing, if you've been getting into bottom gear regularly and training and France has some steeper sections then it might be worthwhile investing in a new cassette.

Good luck!

I have to disagree : I did it twice in the last 3 months, and the downhills are really not that bad :

First short downhill from Tourettes s/Loup : NO braking. Full speed on the aerobars (of course you have to be on the hoods for some turns)
Second downhill from Caussols : There is ONE (1 !!!) turn where you really need to brake, and you see it well in advance. Rest of the time, same as 1.
Short downhill from Greolieres : yeah, this one sucks, really steep & difficult turns, but road is wide and you see the turns in advance
Last one : From Coursegoules to Bouyon = Same as 1. Then after Bouyon you have some difficult turns. This is where you need to be careful, but it does not last that long. You're done before Le Broc.
Last part from Carros : not difficult.

To be really clear, some months ago I was hesitating between road & tri bike (did it in 2012 with tri), but after doing it twice this year with both, the tri-bike is a no-brainer in Nice. At least for me. LOTS of time on the bars.

Just to add to this, I would suggest anyone with less than 4.2W per kilo should have a 34x28 lowest gear for IM France. If you are less than 3.5W per kilo 34x32. Race week in 2013, I was hovering around 4.3W per kilo and was wanting a lower gear than a 34x27 on the final climbs. Having said that, my gearing was effectively larger with 165mm cranks than it would have been had I been on 170's or 172.5's on this course. So take your watts per kilo, lowest gear and crank arm length all into the equation. A longer crank length also puts the rider C of G closer to the ground (lower saddle height) making the descending that much more nimble. If I was to do IM France again, there is no upside to shorter cranks on that course given the miniscule time that aero position makes a difference.

Dev

Yes, but on a road bike with clip ons, you can also get lots of time on the bars where it is fine. I did it on a tri bike and I'd do it again on a tri bike, but there is not a big downside doing this one on a road bike with clip ons. As an example Fredrik Van Lierde only moved to a tri bike on this course once he got one with proper braking and great weight distribution and a nice low bottom bracket (P5). When he had his P4 he would not do it on that bike. I think it depends on your definition of tri bike as some are more suited to descents with switchbacks than others. It also depends on your body weight. A large rider will be pulled more out of the turns than a smaller rider.

Training. I train indoors. I live in the middle East, it's hot (42 now) and flat and lethal outside so outside of the 8 days I've currently got I've no gauge

Agree with the road bike if you have a very good aero position. As an example, apart from La Condamine, you spend the first 50 kms before the first climb nearly entirely in the aero position. Most of the "climbing" after La Condamine is flatish.
My point was that there are not so many switchbacks in Nice : one after Caussols, 2 after Greolieres, and something like 3, perhaps 4 max after Bouyon.

1) I train exclusively on the flats and did 0 specific hill work for IM Nice last year. I had not issues with any of the climbs. 5:20 on a rental bike - Id only ridden it for 10 minutes the day before. Not fast but well inside the top 200 so no hills training didn't really seem to matter. Id competed pretty hard 3 weeks prior in an IM in Aus and had been on holiday since - that probably had the most detrimental affect.

2) I rode a rental bike and wish I had my TT bike there. I didn't have clips and spent so obviously descended on the drops.



3) A lot IMO.

Enjoy - its my favourite IM that I have completed.

1) Sounds like what you did is enough, depends on your goals though. For those worrying about climbing, the race seems to be split into "before," "during" and "after" this https://www.strava.com/segments/654753.

2) I rode a rental Roubaix with clip ons and wish I had TT bike instead. You're likely going to lose some time on descends on TT bike (although it's heavier so maybe less than you think), but there's plenty of heads down aero bar time. Coming back into Nice was especially frustrating trying to tuck to fight strong headwind.

3) I didn't descend in aero, it's twisty; one dude ran into a wall and killed himself:(

If you haven't raced in Europe, it'll be a very different experience... Good luck!

thats a pretty solid ride for being non-aero

can i ask what your ftp is? what your run was?

I suspect we might just be competing in two different events :)

Good choice. I did it on a Tri bike and felt it was the wrong choice.


Not too much. Someone dies pretty much every year on this course.
There are some pretty tricky sections of the descents.

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I disagree, I did the majority of the descending in the aerobars. There are sections (particularly as you descend back towards the coast) which are challenging and definitely out-of-the-bars. But huge portions of the middle section are gently downhill, sweeping turns, and you can even pedal through lots of it. Those are all definitely aerobar sections. I passed huge numbers of people in these sections by riding in my bars.

I think people tend to focus on the 10-20k of challenging descending, and forget about the 40k of easy stuff that you can do in the bars. The TT bike is definitely good for this course if you're a half decent bike handler.

No. It happened once 2 years ago. And that's it. And it is sad. You need to be very careful just after Greolieres (short & sharp descent w/2 switchbacks) & after Bouyon



Yes, yes, and yes. And yes.
There is even a part during the 20K climbing of Col de L'Ecre, just before Gourdon, where you will be on the aerobar. OK, a short one :-)

I'm guessing that as i'm riding a road bike, that I'll be good to go, I'm far more confident going down hill on drops and a slack angle than a TT on bull horns, so I can get on clip on's if its sweeping but if its true descending I'll simply crack on in the drops

i'm guessing the people that you passed lacked confidence in being in the bars / descending in general? and that they were sat on bull horns riding the brakes?

I did the race with my road bike and felt it was the perfect decision. I enjoyed my aerobars on the beginning and end and also the flat bluffs after climbing the Col d'ecre.

The technical descending is very technical. Being a good confident descender is s great skill for this course. I am a chicken descending and I gave up a lot of time.

I also did this race the year the man died. Scary stuff. There are a few descents where you immediately go into a very tight turn. These are European roads with rock walls on each side.

Have fun. It's the most beautiful bike I've ever done.

FWIW, the downhills at IMF are actually pretty easy. The only issue is that the road isn't always great quality, and that there are shaded areas where it's difficult to know if the road is rough or if there is gravel. Riding the course ahead of time would take care of it. But it's really a TT bike course.

Andrew:

Rode an Krestrel Airfoil with a TT set up in 2013. It worked great. All other IMs were raced with a road bike and snap on bars. IMF is a beautiful course. I trained mostly indoors in Minnesota until the weather broke in mid May. I simulated climbs on my very basic trainer. I alternated climbing out of the saddle and pushing a big gear while siting to simulate the climbing. You will want to climb in both positions too most likely. A The course is somewhat like riding Highway 89 between Fountain Hills and Payson only a bit longer climbs and decents and it is a lot prettier with the Med Sea. You can relate to that area since we raced against each other in Phoenix back in the early 2000's. I will send you my race report if interested. Send me a PM if wanted. Thanks, Doug Morris