tgoguely wrote:
But back to time commitments of 1 sport vs 3, I don't necessarily find bike racing to actually save you that much time as you end up racing a lot more (10-20 races a year) and the drive+race time of each (road races will be ~3hrs) eats up close to the entire day on many many weekends out of the year. If you want to trim back time and be competitive in a sport, I would recommend running (trail running maybe) instead.
The training is also a lot more grueling and intense than what one would do for tri's. Lots of over-unders, lots of sprinting when already knackered, etc. It got to the point that I wasn't particularly fazed about going OTF b/c I'v suffered more during training.
I should also mention that there's a psychological cost as well. Whereas there is more of a linear correlation between training and results in tri's, it's more of a crapshoot in bike racing. So when the results aren't there, one better be mentally tough enough to carry on. I had a whole season like that, when almost nothing clicked. Somehow the next season, I was racking up points and going OTF (and staying away) almost at will. Difference in physiological markers weren't actually too big, maybe 10 watts. In addition, there's quite a bit of time devoted to analyzing the course, analyzing the opposition, etc. Racing ITTs is so much less stressful in comparison.
one last note, perhaps a sort of caveat emptor. Two years ago, someone here was hyping a pro triathlete and how the latter was going to dominate as a road racer. This pro blitzed to cat-2 within half an year but then appeared to have hit a wall. Apparently didn't race at all since then.