Always n+1. For a long time I wasin the same situation as you. Went for a Canyon Speedmax and I can tell you it makes a different. Specially comfort and increased aero.

If you can get into an optimum position on this bike and it handles well, it doesn't really matter what it started out as.
However, I suspect most road bikes will end up with the CG too far forward after this sort of conversion, leading to less than ideal handling.
When I started doing duathlons and triathlons, I converted my CX bike with a forward seat post and clip-ons. It worked alright as a makeshift tri bike but I couldn't get my position where I wanted it and handling was twitchy. My Felt IA is far more stable, plus I can get my fit right.

My CX conversion was the cheap and easy tester for a season before splashing out on a tri bike. It's since gone back to CX duties and I also had a road bike the whole time. I would think you've spent enough modifying yours that you'd have been better off just buying a tri bike. A purpose specific tri bike, no matter how cheap is likely a better option than a very fancy conversion unless the geometry is bang on.

I think you want a tribike if you are asking the question, and if you are like me you will secretly be unsatisfied with your bike when presented with all the pretty bikes at the races you attend.

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You should get a tri bike.

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

No you definitely don’t need a triathlon bike


What is the reason you don’t want to get one?

The steeper seat tube angles on Tri bikes predates the split nose saddles. I point this out because the 76-80+ seat tube angle became popular before short saddles effectively added about 4-6 degrees to the seat tube angle. Assuming your fit is comfortable and aero the way your current bike is set up, moving to a Tri specific frame isn't going to make much of a difference. There would likely be a few watts saved by better tube shapes and the seatpost clamp would be closer to the center of the saddle rails, but these are minor differences.

Tom A used to use a Cervelo S5 as his road and TT bike and his CdA was sub-0.2, so there are examples of people going very fast and having great fits on converted road frames.

don't fixate on the seat angle. the problem with shallow-angle tri bikes (76°) is that the designers of those bikes pull the head tubes back when they pull the seat tube back. the front of a 76° tri bike should remain geometrically identical to that of an 80° tri bike.

in other words, a half-dozen numbers should govern how this bike handles, but chief among them are stack, reach, and front-center. what the seat angle is, that's a detail, as long as you have a whole bunch of saddle for-aft available.

where your statement above is correct is that you don't need a really steep saddle position anymore if you're using a split nose saddle. where your statement falls down is that you still need that bigger F:C. you're not sitting further back.

while you can ride in a full tri position using a road bike (that's what we all did until some knucklehead showed up with a new geometry), i find that few do. if you really rode with a geometry fully optimized for tri bars things get a little bit sketchy. i think most people who ride a tri position on a road bike are really riding something halfway between a road and a tri position.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Are there any particular road bikes that you believe do this well? Is a flip-flopping seatpost (eg old school Soloist or New Felt bikes) necessary? Or do you believe this can be achieved through other means on virtually any road bike with saddle choice etc? I ask because I am contemplating going to a single bike that can dual function as road and tri (understanding that it won’t fully maximize tri set up).

first i'll answer your question. then i'll give you an opinion. you need 2 things if you want to retrofit a road bike into a tri bike: 1) a long/low geometry. so, for example, if you're 6'1", maybe your optimal road bike for this would have a stack of 575mm and a reach of 395mm or 400mm. what you don't want is an endurance geometry bike, like a specialized roubaix. 2) you need either a round seat tube, so you can put any sort of post in there, or if it's an aero seat tube you need basically the sort of topper that tri bikes have, where you can move the seat post hardware fore/aft (maybe a cervelo S5 type thing).

now, here's the problem. first, is that geometry your best road bike geometry? are you buying a road bike with an unoptimized (for you) road geometry just so it works as a half-assed tri bike?

second, really? you're going to pull the bars off, pull the stem off, put a new stem and road bar on, recable the bike, reset the saddle, for your road rides? and then do it all the reverse way for aerobars? i don't think so. it's like using one rifle for shotgun for all your hunting. i'll just get a medium sized load, that won't quite turn the chukar into mist, and that will only wound the deer.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

First, ok gives me plenty to think about. I'm' 6'3 and the new bikes I'm looking at won't have round seat tubes so I will be very limited in my chouices and that's ok. Felt AR is one contender. I am hoping a S3 or S5 might work as well.

second.... I currently have a dedicated tri bike that I have maximized aeroness on and race 2-5/year on it and only train on it because of those races. I hate riding it. The best thing I ever did was have a separate road bike. But, that road bike doens't fit great and its time for a new bike. Ands, funds are limited so I'm consolidating. I will only be making the below changes for tri races.

Cables??? Nah, its 2018--etap (as I'm typing this I can't help but think of Dr. Brown saying in Back to the Future...."Roads? Where we are going we don't need roads!") Bars-clip ons--you know, like all the nice new ones PD is coming out with. Saddle-I still need to figure that out. Will it look as pretty? No. Will be be quite as fast? No. Will it work, be faster than a road set up and allow me to enjoy my bike, be comfortable--something I have never achieved on a full tri bike--and ride more and make marginal, if any difference in my placing at races? Yes.

Not always, though. On the S5 mentioned above, my TT position was lower than most tri positions...that said, I did utilize a Look Ergostem so that the bars would be low enough. When swapping between road and TT setups, I did a complete bar/stem cockpit swap. These days, with eTap, that could be made even easier...

Here's the thread were it was originally discussed: https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...ost=3761058#p3761058



This bike was fast AND very well handling/stable when set up that way.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

You got all the best STers feeding back on your post!

I got a lot of good advice a few years ago from Tom A and Slowman on this subject for my Cervelo S5 project (Thread is Here - "Cervelo S5 as a Tri Bike": https://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/?post=4571890).

I think your setup is pretty much as optimised as possible for an aero road bike with tri bars (maybe saving some money), but if you are going to turn that bike back into a road bike, then it might be a lot of hassle doing that a few times per year. That ultimately got me to have 2 different bikes - road and a tri bike.

Like Slowman says, it probably depends on what is most comfortable for you to put out the best power while balancing an aero position. I have a Trek Speed Concept now and it's better than my S5 in a number of ways for tri's:
- Position - definitely pushes me forward and gets my head out of the way. The S5 was stiff, light, and fast. In fact, I went faster in an IM on that bike than my trek!
- Storage - The storage options are cleaner
- Front end - the SC front end has a cleaner cockpit
- Ease of having 2 bikes - Don't have to fiddle around switching parts, positions, etc...If storage isn't an issue, then it's just a lot easier to keep the road bike for most of my outdoor rides. I leave the Trek SC on the indoor trainer like 90% of the year and ride the roadie outdoors.

Cons:
- Weight - but this isn't as much of an issue for TT/Tri
- Position - Depends on your position, but I have my Trek SC position with relatively further back setback since (I think) my legs are relatively long. Thus, maybe the 76 / 78 degree angle would work just fine for me. I certainly remember pushing good power on the S5.
- Water bottles - I actually think the Aero Road bikes (and Cervelo p5x) optmised downtube for a round bottle makes it easier to rotate during longer races, like IM's. For shorter races, having one aero bottle is fine. I might just use round bottles during my next IM on the Trek, just a lot easier.

Hope this helps and either way, you'll have a fast bike if you can hold good power and your position!

Based on these comments, I'm left with a major suspicion that you may have worried too much about the "aeroness" of your existing tri bike at the expense of comfort, and that is the root of your dislike for the tri bike? Might that be close to the mark?

I considered a similar approach at one point but I came to the conclusion I couldn't have everything in one bike. Any single bike option would be either a compromised fit on the road bike, or a really bad fit as a tri bike, and to top it off I'd have a lot of messing about between configurations. Since I wanted to ride both regularly and wasn't willing to compromise the fit of my road bike I decided to just get the road bike first and not compromise in any way for a tri bike conversion option. I still had my existing bike which was basically a slightly too big CX I was using as a road bike. I inexpensively converted that for tri use for one season as mentioned earlier in the thread. Then decided to get a dedicated tri bike. I am still very glad I didn't go ahead with my original plan to get a single bike for both. If you want a new road bike and want one bike for everything, I suggest just accepting you'll ride a road bike in triathlon, perhaps with clip-ons, and that's that. Nothing wrong with that approach, but I expect you'll continue to be uncomfortable.

No, my tri bike is not set up in an aggressive manner at all. I have it set up for comfort and maximized component choices for aeroness. Still, I cannot get comfortable. The most comfortable I have ever been in a tri set up was when I had my Cervelo Soloist set up as a tri bike but I was also younger then.

I fully recognize the limitations that will come with this plan. And, yes, I plan to go back to clip ons and will likely add blips in them to allow for ease of gear shiting while in the aerobars. My focus is on getting a good road set up and compromising on the tri set up. Since I spend such little time actually racing tri races, I'm come to the conclusion that I'mfine with a less-than-optimal tri set up. Heck, I'm not even convinced right now that a less-than-than-optimal tri set up in a road bike will be all that much worse considering my current discomfort in a tri bike.

Are you sure you can't correct the fit on the existing tri biket? - Or you want to sell it anyway to fund the new road bike?

A little bit of both but mostly the latter. Even if I could correct the fit I have concluded I don’t spend enough time using a tri bike to warrant having such an expensive piece of equipment sitting in a closet for the vast majority of the year.

Fair enough.

I am now finished my cross examination ;)

I appreciate it. All things I need to think about and discuss with my fitter!

Yes! And I really appreciate that feedback from all of you so far - thanks!!!

One thing I did not consider so far is the center-of-gravity thing. Obviously you can also make the seat-angle steeper but pushing the BB backward (as opposed to moving the saddle forward). So the rear-center is shortened and the front-center extended. That should lead to a better distribution of weight, more stability and thus more comfort. Add a few changes to steerer-angle and fork rake/trail and it should make the Tri-bike a lot more foregiving and faster by providing more confidence.

However, I still don´t understand why a Tri-bike should necessarily get me more aero. The bike might have the potential to do so... but do I? I could still go 1,5-2inches lower and would then have approx 5inch of drop (saddle to armrest) - sounds sufficient, doesn´t it?

Btw, I have no intention to swap between Road- and Tri-Setup. I have a CX bike that I use as roadbike with a second wheelset. This CX is perfect for my needs (comfortable enough for long rides, 50/34 with 11/32, disc-brake). In addition to that I have no need for another roadbike as I do no road racing. So the conversion of my Aero-bike to Tri is permanent. Should I move to a real Tri-Bike it would only be a new frame.

Maybe we could join forces... you buy my aero-road-tri frame together with the aero dropbar, eTap brake/shift levers and Mavic Cosmic Carbon Exalith wheels; and I buy a new Tri-Frame?!? Seriously...

Pm sent

The biggest issue I see is the 73.25° head tube. You're going to need only 38 to 40mm of rake or that front end is going to be really twitchy for a tri bike.

https://www.rosebikes.co.uk/...n-cw-ultegra-2660581

The geometry chart doesn't list a fork rake, from the picture, it doesn't look like a lot.

I think one of the more overlooked benefits of switching from a road bike, even one diligently set up to resemble a tri-bike, to an acutal TT bike is the run. When considering a TT bike, we all ask "how much faster will I be on the bike?". I definitely got faster on the bike when I switched from my road bike (which had aerobars), but I also improved on the run. I'll defer to the experts on this forum, but my general sense is that having my hips more open and being less scrunched up in an aero position saved me energy on the bike that I could devote to the run. It's something to consider when deciding whether to make the switch. (By the way, I would never recommend getting a TT bike without first getting a fitting).

there's an assumption here, a stipulation, at least with tom a. and i, that we're talking about one position achievable on both bikes. tom did it with a look ergostem, and i believe that if you need that stem, for anything, then you're on the wrong geometry bike.

when i made the first tri-geometry bike, there was fierce resistance. the kerfluffle over disc brakes in road and tri is nothing compared to the civil war over tri geometry. my bikes had two novel features: 80 degree seat angles and 650c wheels. one remains, one died out. that's because 650c, in retrospect, wasn't necessary (in larger size bikes). but the geometry was.

first, i had competitors. then there was a move back to shallower angles, because there just was so much blowback from the traditional bike community. but then, the angles got steeper again or, to put it more precisely, the bikes got longer. they needed to be longer. at a certain point, the bike makers had to recognize what the market demanded.

so, when you talk about opening your hips, etc., yes, but what tom and i are talking about is whether you can retrofit a road bike to duplicate your tri position exactly. and, yes. you can. but most of our ass-over-teakettle crashes stopped taking place once we moved to bikes made for the position, and there is one thing i've always wondered which tom can help with: what happens to Crr when you add an extra 20lb to the wheel? and i don't mean the drive wheel, but, what happens when you add payload to the wheelbarrow. i'd like to see the results of that test.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman