You said it brother (or sister). I am def doing those things...have a few more rides/runs planned for the next 8 days or so. Def focus on eating well, I am actually down 12 lbs today...so 218. And I'm looking forward to a great day up there in Canada.

I think I'll go with the 50/50 as that is my normal road setup and i'm very comfortable with it. Comfy too with the disc and the 90 but why drag the extra weight up.

Oh, and no offense taken, feedback was solid.

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My other car is a Felt. DFL>DNF>DNS.

"There will come a day you won't be able to do this, today is not that day."

I'm a little late to the discussion but I'll add my $0.02 having ridden that course a butt load of times (including racing both the 140.6 and 70.3).

I'd go with the tri-bike, almost 50% of that course is on the highway, combine that with the in and out of town and more than 70% is tri-bike friendly.

Your eTap should be compatible with a 11-30 or 11-32 cassette which is easy and relatively cheap to do.

Everything I've read about road vs. tri bike is the tri is ALWAYS faster unless you are climbing the Alpe d'huez

(FYI, I assume thats a typo with your crank on your IA10 and should read 53/39 not 53/11 as I assume you are not running a 1x setup)

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I have done Tremblant more times than I can count, race, Fondos, training...

I've always had 50/34. Cassette over the years was either 12-28 or 11-32. Combination of 34+32 makes it very easy on some Duplessis climb, but not necessary. 28 is fine. Smaller might be asking for trouble based on your FTP/weight, especially on the second pass of the 140.6

I would go for the tri bike for comfort. I have done it both with road and tri bike. My PR on the 90k course (70.3) is on the road bike, however... That led me to get 52/36 chainrings for an extra bit on some flats - we'll see how that works out next year.

My vote: tri bike, 50/34, 28 cassette, wheels probably won't matter much (I'd take the ones you consider to be the best climbing wheels) but we've had some nasty winds, some years, and the long descent on the 117 might become very nasty with strong side winds and deep wheels.

Respectfully disagree with the gearing choice of 28.

I'm 180 and ftp of about 270, and I've used a 34x28 for the past 7 years at Tremblant, and it was 'enough', but I used a 34x32 this past June, and it was -so- much easier going up the steep sections on the back of the course.

This guy is 40 pounds heavier than me with a much lower ftp.....second lap around that course he is going to be grinding the crap out of that 28 trying to get up those rises. .02

True... I forget sometimes I'm a puny thing at 145lbs and a fairly high FTP for my size lol.

Random question: did you have to change the chain when switching from the 28 to 32?

I happened to be building a new bike at the time, so it all worked out well.
New bike has the newer Ultegra di2 long cage rd, and the chain I'm sure is longer than before as well.

I did try the 32 just for fun on my previous bike with short cage and same chain, and ended up jamming the rd into the gears as it got pulled too far forward. So yes, longer chain likely needed all other things being equal!!

Hey SBRcanuck et al.,

Thanks for the feedback. I took the tri bike out today for a test run and after a minor seat adjustment, I felt pretty good. I did 35 miles, 1100 ft of climbing, NP was 144, 2:15. That included a turnaround after 5 miles to go home and grab the multitool I forgot. 2 gels, 3 bottles of diluted gatorade. 2 hours 15 minutes (which also included the time I stopped to adjust the seat and tilt of the cockpit). I wasnt really hammering, heart rate was nice and low.

I'm going to go out tomorrow for maybe 90 to a 100 miles with the same bike. She is just so much faster than my road bike...I think I'm going to go with the Tri bike in the end.

The bike had 90s on front and back (but I'll switch to a disc for race). Gearing was q rings bcd 130, 53 x 39 and 11 x 28. SRAM Etap. I don't think I can put a bigger cassette on without needing to upgrade to the bigger derailleur....from what I've read. I have the standard SRAM Etap RD.

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My other car is a Felt. DFL>DNF>DNS.

"There will come a day you won't be able to do this, today is not that day."

Can you get easier gearing on your road bike?
I think with a 39x28 you may find yourself walking the steep climbs (always a few people do). The possibility of that, and the matches you might burn trying to push that gear up the hill, may negate any speed benefits of the TT bike....
Whichever you choose, have a good race!

The setup I have on my road bike is q rings, 52 x 36 compact (bcd 110) and 12 x 27 (shimano 105).

I did a gear comparison using Sheldon brown’s calculator yesterday. The easiest gear combination was 1.36 (tri bike) vs 1.33 (road bike) so it seemed negligible to me.

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My other car is a Felt. DFL>DNF>DNS.

"There will come a day you won't be able to do this, today is not that day."

I did the race in 2016. I'm not a strong/ powerful athlete. I'm not sure my FTP because wahoo tells me its 250, garmin, a lot less, like 200, but I digress. I was able to get my 160 pound body up the hills through wind and rain on my tri bike with compact cranks and 11-28 gearing. I found duplessis wasn't as hard as I imagined, but it was tough. hills are short but steep but you'll have a chance to get a little momentum going into it. to me the hardest part, was the hill coming south on the 117, which is believe is that concepcion spot. its longer and wide open so wind could get you there. I have the same road bike as you and as much as I'm very comfortable on it, my legs always feel like garbage when I go to run after. much better off the tri bike, but that's me. agree with everything said that the highway was flat and easy other than concepcion. I spent more energy on montee ryan than I thought I would based on the feedback I had read.

see you up there. I'm in the back of the pack. so part of the night time party