i am looking at a p3 or a guru crono. i do mainly sprint tri’s, mostly flat courses (some wind), an occassional overpass type hilly course, and maybe 1 oly distance in a season. i want a fast bike for somewhere between $3000-3500. it would seem that one of these two bikes would fit the type of tri’s i do. any comments on either of these choices
It’s the rider, not the bike that’s fast.
Do you have very much cycling experience? If not consider getting a good road bike and group riding with roadies first to develop your skills. Then get a tri bike. I run sprints and see a lot of fast novice riders with limited cycling experience and poor handling skills jumping on twitchy handling steep angled bikes as their first serious bike. They’re potential accidents waiting to happen.
Having said that, fit is the most important thing and this is what should determine your decision. These are both very good bikes and you can’t go wrong with either. You might also want to consider what real advantages for the $$ that the P3 offers over the P2K.
Hey! try a beam bike. You can start slack and progress up. You can do John Cobb or FIST…on alternate days, if you please.
Since Inside Out Sports has a SoftRide TT frame, fork and Zipp 404’s for ~$2500, that’s a pretty fast start. You could even sell the Zipps’ and get H3’s, or tillium’s and really go to town on the bars, derailleurs, saddle, etc, for that price. They are quite fast. Jurgen Zack (atttack) bought his prior conract to ride them. They are incredibly easy on the butt and back.
Titan flex has one ready to go out the door for your price range.
I would go steep, very steep for short courses. Look at the Yaqui which you can get built at 82.5 degrees.
“I would go steep, very steep for short courses”
Why? Some of our short courses have hills.