Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike?

May 21, 18 1:38

Post #1 of 18 (1895 views)

Hello,

First off I have looked on older threads but I think my case is more subtile and does not obviously favor the road bike, let me explain.

I signed up for Annecy triathlon and I wonder which set up to use: NO DRAFTING

-P3 with 62mn wheels/clincher set at around 8,5kg

-or S5 in the hood and 20mm hand made carbon tubular set at around 7,5kg

the profil of the course can be found here: https://www.strava.com/...s/335564163/analysis

basically the course is : 5 km flat, 12 km at 4%, 5 km technical descent, 1.5km at 6%, 7 km technical descent, 5 km flat, 2 km at 6%, 5 km downhill and flat to finish

For me road bike was a no brainer because of all the uphill, and descent but then I realise the speed on strava were pretty fast I guess 4% is not very steep: with my w/kg I think I would average it at 26km/h.

race plan could be to go easy on the 1st 5 km, no need to push there as there will be plenty of drafting impossible to avoid a lot of ppl exist the swim in 22/23 min ( road is open to traffic.....) so already I am questionning the utility of the TT bike in 1st 5 km...

try to climb that 12 km at 4% on 290W( FTP) which should mean 26 km/h for me.( 70 kg), this is where the question is for me how much time I am losing with my TT bike on this 1st climb or if actually TT bike could be faster, I am pretty confortable on the aero position.

I know the descent very well but i never tried it on the TT but as it is open to traffic I think I will not dare to make the descent even with the road bike

the last 5km is still open to traffic and traffic is usually jammed on sunday going towards the town

my own thought that I wwould like to be challenged;

looks like a no brainer for the road bike considering the climb/descent / potential dangerous road to power up in the aero bar with the TT bike but still interested to know if the 12km climb at 4% could be made faster with the TT

Any advisements

ty,
Vincent

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 2:49

Post #2 of 18 (1856 views)

At 4% you will still have a pretty clear advantage in full aero but I would stick with a road bike.

As you have already realised that first bit of the road could be really busy. I am not familiar with this specific tri but if you aren't in the first wave and/or off the front in the swim you will have to pass people on the hill. For safety and sanity I would never recommend making up hill passes on an open road while on the aero bars. This will eliminate the main advantage of a TT bike and so I would stick to the road.

On the other hand if the plan was to be first out of the water I would tell you to take the TT bike and hammer the first 20km. Then take advantage of the next 20km of clean air to recover on the descent. It looks like most of the descending stays below 10% so it will be fast but not extreme.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [scott8888] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 7:45

Post #3 of 18 (1695 views)

ok thank you for the advise actually i dont think there is any waves 700 ppl starting at once,

mind is set I ll go with the road bike

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 7:51

Post #4 of 18 (1667 views)

How about a tri bike with drop bars and clip-ons.
Best of both worlds.

Advanced Aero TopTube Storage for Road, Gravel, & Tri...ZeroSlip & Direct-mount, made in the USA.
DarkSpeedWorks.com.....Reviews.....Insta.....Facebook
--

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

FindinFreestyle

May 21, 18 7:52

Post #5 of 18 (1662 views)

Ride what you want but a proper tri bike will be 4:00 - 8:00 faster. This shouldn't really be a question.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [FindinFreestyle] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 8:07

Post #6 of 18 (1631 views)

Same wheels and same body position the S5 will be about 0:45 slower than a P3 on a flat course.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 8:16

Post #7 of 18 (1613 views)

As is always the case, there is no course that a road bike is faster on than a TT bike(assuming road bike set up). You may not be faster because of some glaring bike handling deficit, but you always be faster on a tt bike if you know how to ride it. No course, no time in the history of the sport...

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [scott8888] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 8:32

Post #8 of 18 (1580 views)

scott8888 wrote:

For safety and sanity I would never recommend making up hill passes on an open road while on the aero bars.

What's the logic here? An uphill seems like the least "unsafe" place to pass, regardless of being in the aerobars or not. Based on that statement passing on a flat or downhill would be even less safe due to higher speed. So basically, you advocate never making a pass in the aerobars?

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [TH3_FRB] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 8:45

Post #9 of 18 (1551 views)

TH3_FRB wrote:

scott8888 wrote:

For safety and sanity I would never recommend making up hill passes on an open road while on the aero bars.

What's the logic here? An uphill seems like the least "unsafe" place to pass, regardless of being in the aerobars or not. Based on that statement passing on a flat or downhill would be even less safe due to higher speed. So basically, you advocate never making a pass in the aerobars?

If it's steep enough that you're not on the extensions (4% is probably NOT steep enough for a strong rider), then you'll be on the bullhorns which is as safe as a road bike, more or less. If the gradient is shallower and you're using the extensions, you surely won't be wandering all over the road or taking a long time to overtake, so what's the problem.
I agree, it's not obvious why a tri-bike would be more dangerous when climbing. Really fast approaches to downhill corners are where I have second thoughts about the extensions.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 9:01

Post #10 of 18 (1523 views)

To me it depends on how good of a descender you are. If you feel comfortable bombing the descent and carrying a ton of speed through the corners, then you can make up a ton of speed on the road bike. But if you're going to take the descent slower/recover, than the TT bike as you'll have more of an advantage on the flat sections without losing any descending.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 9:23

Post #11 of 18 (1499 views)

I put this course into bestbikesplit.com and analyzed it on a tri bike with a deep front and disc rear and using the base bar while climbing that weighs 20 pounds, and a road bike with deep aero wheels up front and back that weighs 16 pounds riding on the hoods all the time.

Power settings were exactly the same for each bike.

Results for the tri bike: 1:18:40
Results for road bike: 1:23:40

If you're more comfortable descending on the road bike, do you think you could make up 5 minutes descending vs. the tri bike? Seems like that would really be a lot.

-------------
Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Last edited by: RowToTri: May 21, 18 9:25

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [TH3_FRB] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 10:07

Post #12 of 18 (1440 views)

Yes I would advocate never passing on your aerobars and especially not on a hill where speeds will be lower.

I issue isn’t you it’s the person you are passing. People get spooked when they get passed, even in a race, even when they should know better, even when you yell to warn them. At lower speeds this results in a swerve because people are less stable which which is difficult to react to when you are in aero. So while you may pass them quicker on a hill they will move towards you more distance during the pass.

I appreciate it may seems silly to race based on the assumption that your competitors will act in an unsafe/inexperienced manner, but I promise it can bite you in ass otherwise.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [RowToTri] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 10:25

Post #13 of 18 (1425 views)

ok thank you for the feedbacks so theorically I should consider using the tri bike and just be careful,

I am just going to bring both bike and try the descent see how it handles

ty
Vincent

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [RowToTri] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 15:49

Post #14 of 18 (1325 views)

RowToTri wrote:

I put this course into bestbikesplit.com and analyzed it on a tri bike with a deep front and disc rear and using the base bar while climbing that weighs 20 pounds, and a road bike with deep aero wheels up front and back that weighs 16 pounds riding on the hoods all the time.

Power settings were exactly the same for each bike.

Results for the tri bike: 1:18:40
Results for road bike: 1:23:40

If you're more comfortable descending on the road bike, do you think you could make up 5 minutes descending vs. the tri bike? Seems like that would really be a lot.

Do you know what BBB came up with just for the descent? I'm curious to know how well BBB factors in that a good chunk of the descent can't be done in the aero bars and the amount of braking required for some of those hairpin corners. I took a look at strava, and the two technical descents have a downhill KOM of roughly 6 minutes and 4 minutes respectively. Just wondering if BBB is assuming you can just straight bomb those descents in aero without accounting for braking at all.

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [scott8888] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 17:00

Post #15 of 18 (1301 views)

scott8888 wrote:

Yes I would advocate never passing on your aerobars and especially not on a hill where speeds will be lower.

I issue isn’t you it’s the person you are passing. People get spooked when they get passed, even in a race, even when they should know better, even when you yell to warn them. At lower speeds this results in a swerve because people are less stable which which is difficult to react to when you are in aero. So while you may pass them quicker on a hill they will move towards you more distance during the pass.

I appreciate it may seems silly to race based on the assumption that your competitors will act in an unsafe/inexperienced manner, but I promise it can bite you in ass otherwise.

yes I pretty much follow this... but being a piss poor swimmer, keeps me out of the aero position a lot passing ppl on the bike. Gotta work on the swim

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [Jason N] [ In reply to ]

May 21, 18 17:34

Post #16 of 18 (1279 views)

While you can set a climbing position (you set a climbing speed at which you switch to your climbing position - for me 14 mph and bullhorns) you cannot set a descending position, so I think it assumes you stay in aero, but you can set a maximum descending speed where it assumes you will brake to keep speed below that. I had it set to 47 mph.

So it may very well be overestimating descending speed on the tri bike. I do not know if it assumes you hit the hairpin turns at 47mph or not.... hopefully it is smart enough not to do that.

But if there is a total of 10 minutes of technical descending, I don't think you can lose 5 minutes on a tri bike, even if you are significantly better at descending on the road bike.

-------------
Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [vincent87] [ In reply to ]

May 22, 18 4:12

Post #17 of 18 (1172 views)

I'm from the area and I've done this race before. I'd recommend a tri bike but a road bike is fine too. Be aware that the descent is pretty technical. Also there will be LOTS of cars on your way back to the transition area, so you may no go as fast as you'd want to on this flat section. Still, if you're confident descending on your tri bike, it will be faster overall.

ETA: the pic in my profile is actually from that race. As you can see I was on a road bike.

Last edited by: nchristi: May 22, 18 4:27

Re: Oly Tri with 14 km at 4%, ROAD or TRI bike? [nchristi] [ In reply to ]

May 22, 18 6:10

Post #18 of 18 (1116 views)

Thank you nchristi,

yes I see the road to Annecy is always jammed by traffic, I thought they would regulate the traffic just for us to have a free road the time of the race but I guess this is impossible

I am going on holidays pretty much every year in St-Jorioz so I know the Puget descent pretty well and I would never try to make a fast descent on this road I have seen tractor and very fast driver on it....

actually I was climbing up Puget last year while the 1st 2 guys of that tri were making the descent.... crazy how fast they were... I think they overtook the front motocycle as it was behind...

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