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Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post?
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A female friend of mine wants to do an Ironman and she is looking for a new bike.
Since she lives in Paris France, using a dedicated tri bike is not convenient/safe and she is looking for a bike with a geometry compatible for triathlon.
12 years ago, I was very happy with the Kestrel Talon SL wich had a reversible seat post and was very comfortable for both road and triathlon setup.
Is there any bicycle with reversible post where she could be comfortable for Ironman?
I believe that Felt has an aero road bike with such a seatpost.
Thanks for your advices
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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Budget?
Want an aero frame? (that will make selection more challenging)

Presumably around Paris you'd want to be able to fit 28s for the cobbles.

The easiest would be a bike with a round seatpost, then buy a new seatpost that can be offset backwards, say a 3T Ionic 25 or a cheap copy thereof (I have a carbon Toseek post that was cheap, light, been reliable, just requires the clamp done up very tight).

Add a suitable saddle, a suitable stem (aggressive negative angle) and some low/under mount clip ons and you can achieve a very good tri position.
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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Another option is a Cervelo S-series with the 2-position S5 seat post and a nice tri saddle so she can get out on the nose. You won't be able to get as steep as a tri bike of course, but pretty close. A US National TT champ couldn't fit within the UCI's silly rules, so he actually used a Cervelo S5 with the 2 position post. Heres the article: https://fitwerx.com/...-winning-cervelo-s5/
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [MattyK] [ In reply to ]
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5000 Euros max if Di2
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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ppkestrel wrote:
5000 Euros max if Di2
Why not both?
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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I have the Felt AR5 and it rocks. Before I bought a dedicated tri bike, I would flip the post, change the cockpit, and have a whole different setup ready to go with about an hours work. I rode it as a road bike, road + clip-on’s, then as a tri setup and had a blast as all three. It’s now my permanent road bike and it’s awesome for that. While the fit wasn’t quite as good as what my tri bike gets, it was pretty close to what has been my ideal fit and could have been better if I was willing to replace more parts. I used it up through 70.3’s and would have been happy to use it for a full as well having done century+ rides on it as a tri setup.

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Last edited by: trihawg: Nov 12, 18 17:54
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [dhoose] [ In reply to ]
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dhoose wrote:
Another option is a Cervelo S-series with the 2-position S5 seat post and a nice tri saddle so she can get out on the nose. You won't be able to get as steep as a tri bike of course, but pretty close. A US National TT champ couldn't fit within the UCI's silly rules, so he actually used a Cervelo S5 with the 2 position post. Heres the article: https://fitwerx.com/...-winning-cervelo-s5/

I second this. The only caveat is S5 with 2 position seatposts don't fit more than 24mm tires. A few select 25mm if at all.

You can get an additional seatpost on ebay for like $100. That's how I rode mine for a while. It was easier to swap seatpost than swap seats for me.
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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ppkestrel wrote:
A female friend of mine wants to do an Ironman and she is looking for a new bike.
Since she lives in Paris France, using a dedicated tri bike is not convenient/safe and she is looking for a bike with a geometry compatible for triathlon.
12 years ago, I was very happy with the Kestrel Talon SL wich had a reversible seat post and was very comfortable for both road and triathlon setup.
Is there any bicycle with reversible post where she could be comfortable for Ironman?
I believe that Felt has an aero road bike with such a seatpost.
Thanks for your advices

Have a look at
https://www.rosebikes.de/...-ultegra-di2-2673213

I rode the Bike for exactly that purpose and LOVED it.
Should you have questions, let me know.
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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You could use the redshift seatpost and thus be able to choose from any road frame with round 27.2 or 31.6 seatpost. This gives you more freedom in selecting a bike.

The small aero losses from not having a pure aero frame could be made up in other cost effective ways (disc cover, latex tubes, tires, skinsuit, etc.).
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [Blabelzabel] [ In reply to ]
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Looks great, thanks.
Which aerobar did you put on it?
Is it comfortable for long distance Triathlon?
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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ppkestrel wrote:
Looks great, thanks.
Which aerobar did you put on it?
Is it comfortable for long distance Triathlon?

I started with Clip-Ons on a Dropbar and later converted to a Tri Basebar (still with Clip-Ons though) and TriRig Omega X. My Basebar was Syntace Stratos CX and the Clip-On Profile Design Supersonic (J5). One thing I like about the Rose-Bike is that it uses standard components, so you can use whatever you want - with integrated Cockpits like PD Aeria Ultimate, TriRig Alpha or FSA Metron it should be even cleaner.

I didn´t do LD (only half distance), but the Bike is comfortable and can be fitted in a wide range. The only things you should keep an eye on is seat-angle (when reversed the seat-post gets you 76°, but with a split-nose saddle I was getting further forward) and maybe length of headtube (the geo is not very low so you might take a size smaller and slam the stem). Anything else is really very well designed and suited and I also like Rose as a manufacturer (you can customize anything you want and they´ll build it for you).
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [Blabelzabel] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks
Do you have picture with road bars?
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Re: Help me to choose a road bike for Ironman! Felt? Reversible seat post? [ppkestrel] [ In reply to ]
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ppkestrel wrote:
Thanks
Do you have picture with road bars?


I sure do... The dropbar was a 3T Aeronova and while it is Clip-On compatible it flattens next to the Clip-On section, so you need to find a Clamp/Bracket that matches. I started with 3T - that obviously works, but has a lot of stack. So my final solution was Profile-Design undermount that I had to rise 5mm to stay clear of the flattened area of the dropbar.

With electronic shifting it is very easy to change setup and I also never changed seat-position when toggling between road- & tri-use. Of course you have the additional drag of the drops of the roadbar...
Last edited by: Blabelzabel: Nov 16, 18 5:45
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