For the past year I have been doing all my training on a road bike. It’s a Lemond, so it’s anything but steep. The wheels (vector sports) make good cross wheels, but are heavy as hell.
Right now, I live in an area where there are no tri shops and not even a bike shop that can do a quality road fitting. Everything is Mountain bike with a few people that dabble in road riding. My original plan was to order a Yaqui. I would get a precise fit and a super high quality custom bike without having to travel several hundred miles to find a fitter. I even talked my fiancé into letting me spend the 4K on it.
The problem is that with me finishing up my masters this spring, getting married in the summer and moving on to a PHD program in the fall, I’m not going to have a spare 4 grand to throw at a bike.
So here are my options:
Hold off and save money. Keep riding the Road bike until I can afford the Yaqui (year to year and a half)
Buy a cheaper tri bike sooner (Felt S32 price range), get some time in on steep geometry, maybe get a cheap set of wheels and worry about the Yaqui later (2 to 3 years from now
Just buy a halfway decent set of wheel (Zipps) and go back to my roadie roots.
So which one would you guys do? Should I try to get steep as soon as possible and worry about what frame it’s on later? Of course I’m not going to sacrifice fit to get a cheaper bike… Or should I just suck it up and keep riding my current rig until I can get the frame I want?
I think you need to take a step back and look at your long term goals; not only for riding, but for your family and school as well. If you definately want to participate in multisport, are you content with finishing MOP or do you have bigger aspirations? Also, how long have you been riding?
I say #2. Before dropping serious coin on a bike get something with similar set-up / geometry and make sure you are comfortable with it. It seems every now and then a thread pops up that the person spent a fortune on a bike and they don’t like it.
A big factor here is decide how serious you are about multisport, if this is a passion and you plan on continuing with it and wanting to improve than you can look at a new bike. There are many excellent carbon tri bikes on the market right now for a great deal less than 4k. I would look at the Cervelo P2C priced at 3k with DA, very fast bike that you can ride for many years.
Well I rode a lot (did some racing) for a few years in undergrad. I took a 2 year hiatus before getting into multisport which I have been doing now for about a year. I’m not planning on going pro, but I am planning on Iron distance races. I also don’t race just for the sake of finishing. I am fairly competetive and want to consistantly podium in my age group (at least). I am willing to put in the time to get here. I’m not saying I want to go win Kona tomorrow. So if it means I put in an extra few years of training…that’s just an extra few years of experience.
Of course I am putting my family and my carreer ahead of all of this. If I wasn’t, I’d just go out and buy the Yaqui now and not worry about the wedding or applying to PHD schools.
The reason I’m looking at a Yaqui is because of the stories I’ve heard of the fit.
I tried the steeper geometry on my road bike. Didn’t work so well. The geometry is more relaxed then typical, so I had all kinds of issues with top tube length. I also was having weird vibration issues upfront from the different weight balance. Almost went down at 45 mph when the front end decided to start severely resonating.
Are you planning to sell/trade the Lemond or did you want a road bike as well? Do you have other hobbies you could give up and sell your equipment? I recently sold my much loved AT skis to dump the $$$ into a dedicated tri bike. Any hobby is a big cash drain.
I wouldn’t recommend this but, I’ve heard of people using student loans to pay for stuff like this. The interest rate and other terms can’t be beat.
After reading your clarification, I’d say option #1. It seems you want to be steep, but can’t get there on the Lemond. If you spend on wheels now that will only delay the day you can afford the Yaqui and you’ll still be riding slack. You sound like someone that would not be satisfied on an “interim bike”. Save hard and skip right to the dream bike.
I would like to keep the Lemond and I ended up selling all my ‘extranious’ equipment before I moved out here. I also just took out a student loan to consolidate our combined credit card debt, and it looks like we are going to have to take out another to help cover the wedding. So I’m really not looking at going into further debt if I can help it.
If I start putting away cash now, by the time the weather turns nice I could have enough to buy an entry level tri bike.
It sounds like you have your head on straight. Is a used tri bike an option? IMO, it’s much better to get more bike with better components than it is to buy a brand new bike. There is a 53 Yaqui for sale in the classified right now.
I am perfectly fine with getting a used bike. Especially if it means I can get on a quality bike now for little money.
When I get my Yaqui, I would like to go through the fitting process with Ves. Most of the reason I’m looking at Yaqui is his input on the build and fit of the bike.