I am looking to upgrade from my roadbike to a tri specific bike. I rode a '08 Quintana Roo Kilo and '08 Trek Equinox 7. I liked my position on the Kilo better (seemed more aero and maybe more comfortable), but I seemed to go faster on the Trek with a lower heart rate. Today was pretty windy and the Kilo was far more stable in the crosswind. The Kilo seemed to put more stress on the muscles at the side of my hip. Is this because of the steeper seat angle? I am wondering if I was faster on the Trek because it utilized muscles that I currently use while biking. Would the Kilo have more potential if I trained on it and became more use to the steeper seat angle? Any thoughts?
Always buy a bike you feel more comfy on…tired of hearing people bitching on rides about how they are hurting when we haven’t even got to the 50 mile point. No use in being the most aero guy on a ride when you blow at mile 40 or can’t run after parking the piece of shit in T2. Just look at winning times in Hawaii, nobody is beating Dave, Mark, etc at the end of the day. The tri geo is just marketing that bike companies like people to buy into. Maybe faster on paper, but the truth is who finishes first. And if anybody tells me Stadler would beat the old school guys down Alli Dr, they are an idiot.
The body tends to do what it is trained to do. So ride the QR more and you will probably get faster on it. I would check on the fit differences of the two also.
-Adam
At the end of the day, Chris M lost last year because he lost, not his bike. People that think that a bike takes you to Kona need to get real. The empiracle data is not there.
The seat heights were set the same and the reached looked very close. Both seats were zeroed so the Trek should have been about 76 deg and the QR 78.5. The handlebars were higher relative to the seat on the Trek. The one place the QR seemed to be faster was down a hill and I suspect this was due to a more aerodynamic riding position. The downhill was with a strong crosswind and the instability in the Trek compared to the QR may have had more of an affect than I realized though.