I was merely stating that a weekly time-trial effort would do many triathletes a world of good in terms of fitness and performance. After all, the bike leg in a triathlon IS an oddball ITT, so this should be perfect training for the event. Yet, few triathletes other than the one's that "get it" bother to show up for these events.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

OK, I'll bite. I'm looking at my handy-dandy Joe Friel and Gale Bernhardt-generated 16 week plan for an IM race, and every week I have either a steady-state zone 3 ride or zone 3 intervals. I do these outdoors by myself. I've never been to an organized time trial. How is what I'm doing any different (worse) than a weekly organized TT.

I'm not being argumentative here. As somewhat of a newbie I really want to understand your point. I'd wager that triathletes in general work out by themselves much more than roadies, and you can make the argument that pack riding skills suffer for lack of group rides, but I don't see how a weekly TT offers anything that a solitary ride does not, other than the sense of competition and adrenaline. Then again, if I'm supposed to be targeting zone 3 for an hour and half, I don't really want to get all jacked on adrenaline and get into zone 4 or 5 just to be 5 seconds faster than last week's ride or to beat my buddy. So what am I missing?

look aero yadayada cookookaju. aero bikes are sexier looking. they look fast and make us feel all swift and powerful. we are humans we want cool stuff. thats it, no other reason. body postioning and skinsuits are just no fun or sexy. the p3 is.

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customerjon @gmail.com is where information happens.

umm, think Chan McRae and Steve Larsen.

Time trials will make you faster ... bottom line.

My Santa Cruz Roadster has short stays and NO shifting problems.

I'd like to know more about these shifting problems. Has Cervelo documented any shifting problems with its P3?

-Robert

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"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

niether does mine

here is a sidebar kwestion on the cut out/aero/cool looking thing. a person could, if they wanted to, steal all the specs on a p3 from the website, or go down and measure on up him/herself. then, said person could send the info to say, curtlo and get a bike for 6 hunnie and change which would fit like, and position like, and steer like, and be "aggressive" like, etc a P3 ( tho i daresay it would ride better....). what do P3's go for ? nineteen ? so, we are talking $1K for the aero tubes and the spiffy wheel cut out and all that. all for, how many seconds again ???

but, to how many tri-heads does this, to me, rather obvious alternative appeal ? pretty much none, it seems. could it be, as the other poster noted, that despite what we like to say ( maybe to our wives. . . . . . ) about seconds, it is perhaps more about having fun and riding something bitchin, and this sort of thing ? if so, why not just admit it? i have boutique level bikes not because they do anything for how fast i go, but because i like boutique level bikes. noe currently have wheel cutouts, and i would right now be more likely to go the cheap route - but that could change. if that occurs i will damn sure tell my wife all about the "seconds" (..........well for 19 hundred i guess i will embellish a bit and say it will get me to kona) but deep inside i will know better.

Tim, just admit it ... this battle's been lost a long time ago.

Just ask any LBS owner. People in general would rather get a machine TIGed frame bearing some unpronounceable (Italian, mostly) name than *save* $500 and get full custom made out of a better tubeset. And this is not about truly funky manipulated tubes (in that regard, the P3 is absolutely unequaled) ... it's about a damn' downtube sticker.

Dre'

There are 2 groups of people that buy bikes, families that want to trundle around and, as Dan E calls them, cyclophiles................the more money you make the more of a cyclophile you can be.

i.e. if I am a poor cyclophile I can own a cheap Tri Bike, cheap road bike and a cheap mountain bike.

If on the other hand I am Robin Williams I can own a Pinarello Montello, Trek OCLV painted with the cow paint for IM Mooo and one with the patriot scheme for IMUSA..............

These things are all relative, I am sure Robin W does not need the bikes he owns, or that likewise I probably dont need the ones I own, but I like em, and want more of em so If I can afford em thats what I'd buy.................

I don't think that many people "trundle around" on a W'ford R-33, but they are, of course, allowed to if they are so inclined. My point was more along the line of: "most would get a Pinarello Opera instead of a custom R-33". It's about choosing between "sticker appeal" and "geometry adapted to both your physique and your riding style".

We seem to both agree that people go for the sticker.

Dre'

P.S.
Or maybe it's about the LBS deciding it's cooler to perform a "crotch clearance" test, swap a stem and sell a stock bike than spending several hours measuring the customer and discussing riding style.

i agree with BOTH andrew and dr.dre. my main gist was that, on a dollar per second frame of reference things like aero cut outs and stays are pretty well ridiculous. talkin hundreds of dollars or more for gains in seconds.

that is fine by me for robin williams or some guy eating ramen noodle for year to afford it. by all means get whatever you like.

i just wanted to point out that given such miniscule gains per dollar, maybe it is apprapo to admit the possiblity that this business of obsession over seconds is just that, and admit we like things like the P3 more because they are spiff-o cool, than for the "advantage" they offer - particulary from a cost per benefit basis. clearly we can find 4 or 40 seconds SOMEPLACE for less than a thousand bucks ! again, i like p3's just fine, and expensive bikes in general ( including russian made colnago's and chinese pinarellos (!!!)), tho i am certainly not rich. i just thought i would challenge the idea that they somehow are an analytically wise choice or even make sense - vs - are just a swank fun thing to buy.

i think they are mostly the latter, as are wheel cut outs. JC's statements seems to reflect this by my interpretation. again, cool by me.

doc. i had an interesting talk with a builder from a certain high end maker headed by a friendly gentleman with a famous bike-related name on this very topic a couple weeks ago at the races. he had some very interesting things to say about the tri marketplace. you shoulda been there. :)

in to a Bike store and saying that they dont like Trek and would rather have a specialized or Gary Fisher or versa vice, because I believe all three of them at one point in time have actually come off of the same manufacturing floor which is in fact owned by a fourth company that none of these people would choose to ride to start with.

Now this may all be malicious rumor mongering but I was under the impression that Giant makes a lot of bikes for a lot of other people, making the whole thing a bit of a joke.

My other fave at the moment is the sticker I've been seeing knocking around, specifically on Marins that says "Designed in Southern California, Marin County" or words to that affect rather than...."Made by "X" in Taiwan or China"

Anyway I tend to agree with y'all and if it were the choice between dropping 3-5k on an off the shelf or 3-5k on a custom, custom seems to make a lot of sense. THAT said though, obviously off the shelf bikes are proving them selves with ONCE and CSC so there is obviously not that much in it when you can get the correct fitting bike off the shelf.................plus those team soloists look really good, I'm a sucker for a good paint job.

Tim, your little riddle's "info per word" index is darn near zero. What about ditching this T-T-N label for T-T-S: Tim The Sphinx?

Dre'

sorry doc. :) there are two famous bike manu's here in wisconsin, and the one i am referring to does not sponsor lance armstrong. but, they DO build a bike for a world champion triathlete under sponsorship of the tubing manufacturer. said bike is devoid of wheel cutouts, or bladed and shaped anything, and is made of arguably the highest tech and finest tubes ever made for bikes. alas, it takes more than fine tubing, a manufacturer of impeccable pedigree, custom fit, and a world championship to impact a market that will happily pay 1000 bucks to gain 4 seconds ( or 40, whatever....) it seems. dude was funny, tho - he noted that the best part of the tri-market was to be found in the classifieds, where guys who buy 3K bikes for a season or two bail from the sport and unload. . . . . .he noted that you can find good deals on perfectly good DA stuff there, and even had a suggestion as to what to do with the Al it was bolted to...............(recycle related) :) all in good fun, he also harrassed me for becoming a tri-geek, and wanted to know if i was going to be the first single-speed mt bike racer in a speedo.

What timing- my copy of "going Long" just came in the mail last night! So, I'm poring over the first few chapters and right in chapter 2 are the Golden Rules of Losing Your Iron Virginity (yes, I am an iron virgin). Won't give you all of them, but:

Rule #5- Forget about anaerobic endurance and high-intensity efforts. To paraphrase, these efforts are a "waste of time" (his exact words) because the recovery time is too great and the benefit is too little.



Rule #7- Check your ego at the door. Paraphrasing again, group training sessions are the monst dangerous for most athletes because someone always wants to go faster than you, so it's tough to stick to workout goals and a target pace.

So I guess I'll disagree with the belief that regular TT's are good for everyone. Gordo confirms what I'd already read elsewhere, which is that there really is no place for anaerobic effort for inexperienced triathletes training for IM distance. If you're training for short course, or if you already have a huge endurance base, then I agree that regular TT efforts have a benefit, but I'll be passing on them for the foreseeable future.

I knew it had to do with "Marc" and "George" (I know you live north of the Cheddar Curtain), but I had forgotten about "Richard". So the riddle was half-solved. You jump off a chair, and I choke on my chinese food.

Let me say this though ... I have nothing against aluminum, really. I ride a 'Dale and a Roo (soon to acquire a second Roo from The Girl so she can get a bitchin' IF, or something). What ticks me off is when people match cutouts to dropouts, instead of fork ends. I mean, I could ride Roll-y Pol-y's and still be able to get my hand stuck between the tire and the seat tube on my 55/700c Tequilo. That's what's wrong: it makes me look like a hype-ofile TV addict. I *crave* technology ... (dammit, I get paid by Caltech Quantum Optics: I'm a laser jock, PChem geek) just make sure it's done right!

I'll also agree with jkatsoudas that spending big time working on speed work is, maybe, sub-optimal when one has an IM distance tri in the collimator.

Dre'