I’ve noticed, especially in the movie “What it takes”, that some pros ride both road and tri bikes in training. It seems to me, you’d want to do most of your training on your race bike to develop those muscles. So what gives? Why are these guys riding road bikes?
Maybe so they can put in the insane number of miles while remaining a bit safer and more comfortable?
Assuming you positioned well on each your hip angle will be close to the same and your legs will never know the difference.
Recovery rides, intervals, hill repeats…etc.etc.etc. I think I read somewhere that most of the pro triathletes ride their road bikes up to 75% of the time. I don’t know how true that is, and I don’t remember exactly where I read that, but I know I saw that little factoid. Tri bikes are built for some things, and my believe is that you should own and ride both. But YMMV.
I’ve been reading the daily email that Carmichael Training sends out after each TdF stage. The one after the TT stage had a great explaination as to why so many riders crashed and all the various ways the set up of a time trial (or tri) bike makes it harder to handle than a road bike. (Actually, after reading it I had a new respect for triathletes in the “they have no bike handling skills” debate. Carmichael made is sound like you had to be a real stud just to stay upright on a tt bike). For that reason alone it would make sense not to spend all your time on a tri bike since every mile you spend on your road bike would be be reducing your crash potential.
Anyway, a road bike and tt bike are not the same and are not set up to do the same things so a well rounded training program would incorporate both. They are different tools.