I have a question which I’m poorly equipped to answer… It has to do with a choice between slacker positioning and steep positioning on the bike. My wife is a strong swimmer and runner. Did both in college. Really likes triathlon but cycling has been a bit of a mystery. We’re looking at trying to get a new bike for her to really dedicate 2-3 years to seeing what her potential is in this sport. I like the idea of the Cervelo Dual because we don’t know if she’ll be stronger in road or tri geometry.
Right now she has a road bike. We had it “fit” with a forward seatpost and aerobars when we lived in Minnesota. She did pretty well at races, but cycling remained pretty weak. We moved to Wyoming last summer and converted her bike back to a road position due to the extended climbing around here. I don’t know if it’s the position, the altitude or the sagebrush but she got strong. I am guessing that she improved by 25%. Hardly the same person on the bike. I attribute most of this to the road position (don’t know if that’s right or not…).
So I’m leary of putting her back into a steep position based on past experience. Is the dual a good choice to have the best of both worlds. Is it a tri geometry, or road??? If we turn the post backwards and run the bike slack, would we be better off on a road bike? She’s flexible with no low back restrictions, medium torso, long arms. I’ll try to take some bike positioning photos if that would help. Or even some recommendations on CO front range or SLC area fitters…
Do you mean Dual or Soloist? The Dual is a dedicated tri bike whereas the Soloist is a dual purpose road/tri bike. The names are confusing in this way.
If you’re living in a hilly area I’d personally lean towards a road bike. Also if you’re going to have only one bike I’d also lean towards a road bike because of the greater versatility.
Have a good serious look at the Cervelo Soloist. It’s a road bike that can be effectively rode in the “multi-sport” position of a moderately steep 76 degree or so effective angle. Turn the seat post mechanism around and you’re bike in a slacker road position. Gives you the best of both worlds in one bike.
At this stage, I’d suggest not getting a fully dedicated tri bike as her one and only bike.
If she already has a road bike, why try to get a bike that does double duty?
I think the choice has to do with flexibility. I am old, fat and slow. I need an open hip. I need to get low since I have very little power and need to conserve every watt. I need a tri bike. I am a good 1 mph faster on the tri bike.
If you are like a cat, you can curl up in a better aero position on a road bike than I can get with my fancy geometry and aerobars. Such people don’t need triathlon geometry.
It will be a bike upgrade either way. Her bike is considerably heavier than mine… and I weigh 50 lbs more. Want full ultegra at least with lighter weight frame. So we either upgrade to a true tri bike, or get a better road bike to set up ITU style.
I wish that we could get away from this, steep vs slack or tri vs road discussion. The best postion of rider is very individual. It’s that sweetspot where power, is maximized, comfort is good and that a reasonably aerodynamic position can be maintained. This should be the case on any bike wheter set up for road or tri.
Glad to here about the improvement. Could be in part due to the move to more challenging training terrain. I found my cycling went to a completely new level when I moved from a place that had max climb of about 5 minutes to a mountainous area where 50 minute climbs were not uncommon. My Time trialing fitness, improved dramatically.
I will admit I am a bit old-school, and that I would suggest, training most of the time on a road bike and then when doing final race prep or faster paced training( tempo work, intervals, race sim.) do it on the bike that you will be racing on, if that is a different bike - A “tri” bike, perhaps.
I wish that we could get away from this, steep vs slack or tri vs road discussion. The best postion of rider is very individual. It’s that sweetspot where power, is maximized, comfort is good and that a reasonably aerodynamic position can be maintained. This should be the case on any bike wheter set up for road or tri.
I agree that the best position is very individual. Just looking for some general guidelines and a place to start. I’m trying to at least hedge my bets a bit so I don’t waste a bunch of time and $ looking for that “sweetspot”. I know there’s a lot of “art” to fitting bikes and I don’t hope to understand that based on questions to an internet forum. Just some dumbed down guidelines, if they’re even available…
So simple it’s stupid. People are different. If your wife climbs well, then road geometry is probably good for her. I suck climbing, but I’m pretty competetive (FOP in my AG) on an 81º setup and then I ride the rivet to boot. I do my best climbing in the aero position, but my best climbing gets me passed by fat people on beach cruisers at anything above 8%…
Even my road bike is set up steep (seat well forward).
I think the femur:torso ratio is the reason, because I live at the base of Mt Diablo and work on my climbing a lot. It has gotten better so now it only sucks!
Just kidding…