Comes down to how comfortable/fast you are climbing and descending on your triathlon bike (compared to your roadie). Not everyone's answer will be the same.

I'm planning to take my Triathlon bike (Specialized Transition Pro, rather than my roadie S-Works Tarmac).

Spend a little time working on the technical skills, and the tt bike will be faster 100% of the time. Not saying not to get the road bike, cuz they're fun for training, but especially for a world championship race, if you're gonna ride a roadie you might as well skip the race and just tale a trip to france.

Can you post a link to the course map?

http://m.ironman.com/~/media/34cbc0badbec44249ef27f70eae6b041/imni2018%20map%20bike%201.pdf

If the link does t work map attached

Link to the PDF File for higher res

---

Matt

The longer climb is only ~10k at 6% average... TT bike will be faster without a doubt.

i have a few friends who have ridden the area and they all say TT bike

the downhill can be scary fast if u cant descend.
practice up and down.

not too many turns either but he said there are places with an impressive drop (to serious injury/death) if you go over the side...

One thing to consider may be how comfortable you are not just descending but specifically super-tucking on a TT bike (if you chose to do that). The descent looks like it's not crazy technical and it's pretty long, meaning it's well suited for super tucking extended periods. I've done it for a min or 2 on the TT bike (P4), but I'm personally not comfortable for anything longer due to the awkward hand position and lack of control (cornering and braking). On the other hand, I've super-tucked for mins at a time at up to 60mph on my Venge, and I know that I could pick up a lot of time on any extended descent by being aggressive on the Venge.

If you're not super tucking, the TT bike is probably the best choice as long as you're comfortable braking and cornering on it. Since you don't have the option to use the drops, the handling can get hairy over 40 mph depending on the bike and your weight distribution.

 

Is this the WC course or just the 70.3 NICE course? I'm sure they will change it? maybe not.

---

USAT Level II- Ironman U Certified Coach

thanks for creating the thread, was wondering the same thing looking at the map. TT bikes are always faster though, so i will likely be bringing mine over a road bike.

My understanding is that 2018 70.3 Nice was the test event for 2019 IM 70.3 WC and followed the proposed WC course. The bike course as shown totals about 4,500 feet of climbing (per PDF map while GPX shows about 4,000') with the early climb accounting for about 2,200' in 6 miles. So I don't see it needing to change.

By comparison, the past several WC bike courses had the following climbing totals: 2018 - 2,700'; 2017 - 3,000'; 2016 - 1,900' and 2015 3,300'. The 2017 WC in Chatt bike course got a lot of mentions for a big climb that is a little more than half the elevation gain and half the distance of this Nice course. The 2015 WC Zell am See bike course is probably the closest equivalent with an early climb of 2,000' in about 8 miles.

IM 70.3 WC Nice is going to provide a serious cycling challenge!