Background- second season racing. Did two Oly distance last year. Doing same two Oly, plus Wildflower LC and Full Vineman this year. Already registered to do Californiaman IM next year. In short, not a lot of experience but dedicated. 6’0" 160 lb (good shape). Currently riding a Trek 5200 with Syntace C2’s and the seat all the way forward on the rails to achieve ~76* effective seat angle (professionally fitted). This feels OK, but clearly a compromise set-up.
Question- I have a limited budget and am considering either buying a new Tri bike or buying a Computrainer. Which should I buy first? Thanks for the help.
I was in the same situation as you, except with a bike much worse than yours (trek A1000). I chose the c-trainer last summer and am happy with my choice. Assuming that you fit acceptably on your bike and you are not winning your races, I don’t see why you could choose to get the bike.
In the tri I did last weekend I really enjoyed passing all the people who spent $$$ on their bike when they would have been better off working on the engine.
Although the conventional wisdom is to reccomend training gear rather than bikes, I would say go for the tri bike. It seems as though you are committed to doing triathlons so you would benefit from getting a tri specific bike… since it sounds like you are in california… you should be able to ride outside more than we can on the east coast. This way you can set up your trek as a roadie and get some serious milage on it too. Also you could also get a normal trainer and spome spinerval tapes and still have a couple of hundred dollars kickin around.
Yeah, it fits OK. It’s comfortable, but clearly not as aero as I could be on a tri bike. I had messed around with a Fast Forward seat post, but this really affected handling, especially while descending, so I’m back to the standard seatpost with the seat all the way forward. This is as close as I’m going to get to a forward and low position on this bike. Probably OK for Wildflower- not as great for flat IM’s.
Given my limited experience, I don’t know if I would cut more time getting into an aggressive tri position on a new bike, or continuing to work on my “engine”. I can currently average ~23-24 mph on a flat Oly course at 98-102 rpm.
this is just from my selfish perspective, but If I wasn’t happy with my bike and I had a choice between and indoor trainer and the “right” bike…
the New Bike wins hands down, I ride outdoors 10 months a year and I want a bike that works for me not a “compromise” ride. Although the 5200 is a good road bike…
put all the parts from the trek onto the new frame.
buy some powercranks.
starting with the PC’s, sneak that trek back to life with like 105 or the equavalent a piece at a time like johnny cash did with that car in the song where he " built it one piece at a time, and it didn’t cost me a dime".
voila !! PC train on the road bike, ride it on rollers in the winter - easily as fun as a CT, and race that new tri bike like a mofo.
How did you know they didn’t work on their engine? They may have been doing a “c” race or have just recovered from an illness. Why did passing people on nicer bikes make you feel so good? How do you know they don’t have a computrainer? How do you know that a lighter bike wouldn’t have helped you more that the computer? I passed some people in nice cars driving my old car and it make me feel really superior, I am now thinking of buying some old shoes so if I pass anyone in new shoes I’ll really feel better
starting with the PC’s, sneak that trek back to life with like 105 or the equavalent a piece at a time like johnny cash did with that car in the song where he " built it one piece at a time, and it didn’t cost me a dime".
“What year is it? It’s a '49, '50, '51, '52, '53, '54, '55, '56, '57, '58, '59 automobile…”
I am wrestling with that same exact question. I currently ride a giant and in the past have just moved the seat up, switched out to a shorter stem and thrown on some syntace for my races. I am thinking of getting professional fitting at fitwerx where they will put on pursuit bars, aero bars with bar end shifters and forward seat post to attain an effective angle of 76. more aggressive than current road setup of 73 but aggressive enough? I am 6’1", 190+, not the best climber and surpisingly enough, the only IM distance race i do is Lake Placid, a pretty hilly course. Or, would say a cervello P2K with a 78 degree seat angle be a better choice (or not)? I’ll maybe be in the aerobars 50% of the time; the rest climbing and descending. I’ve read that a position more close to road is better for climbing.
the money i may save by not buying the new tri bike I would spend on a computrainer. It does come down to the engine. People I know that use them swear by them. You can really dial in on technique and addressing any weaknessess you may have. The quality time spent on it will translate well into racing. train smarter, not harder. A lesson i have yet to learn.
Another possible suggestion/compromise along the lines of what was already proposed. The 5200 is a nice frame and you can usually get a good price, I’d think at least $500, for the frameset. You could buy a Cervelo Soloist frameset for $899 from Excel or a Yaqui DL(~$1100) and just put your old components on the frame. Overall, it will cost you anywhere from a quarter to half of what you’d pay for a new tri-bike.
The Soloist should accomodate your 76* fit. Of couse, try to get a professional fit on whatever frame/bike you get.
Both bikes will serve double duty for road and tri-. If you’re willing to go with just one, tri- dedicated bike then you could pick up a pretty nice, cheap frameset from Chucksbikes($300-$400).
The money you save could go towards that Computrainer or PCs or Zipps or whatever else your heart desires.
I will preface this by saying I own a triathlon bike store and sell triathlon bikes for a living but I also own 3 Computrainers.
Before a Computrainer will do you any good you need a bike that fits. You said your bike was “professionally fitted but represented a compromise”. Since you race on the bike and not on the Computrainer I would work on getting a non-compromise bike first. I purposely didn’t read any other posts in this thread before I responded so as not to be influenced by what they may say, but that’s my logic and .02
Your doing just fine. My advise is that if you got the money to blow go ahead and get the computrainer and a new bike. I am in the process of building out a fifth road bike a lemond reynolds 853 steel bike specifically for Mountains of Misery. In my opinion aerobars on the LP course are a waste but on the other hand I can’t talk them off wifes Aegis so there. As you know I never use aerobars, my feeling is that I should be able to get in a suitable aero position with drop bars. Toward that ends I am still perfecting let alone aerobars. Bottom line just stick with the Giant, if your getting itchy get some kind of upgrade like carbon handlebars or something like that for $200.
Patrick I’ve trained using rollers and weights over the winter. Here’s my website that covers winter training… http://www.angelfire.com/retro/355_rider/index.htmlI rode today, into the cold wind and over two mountains each way. My current assessment is that I am stronger than ever and two and one half months ahead of my previous years training in terms of power and technique. This weekend I was leading attacks at at 27 mph up 2% grade for 2 miles, and feeling fine after a 50 mile ride.
Do whatever will get you in the saddle the most. A new, better fitting bike might be best, unless you live in an area with inclement weather in the winter. If there is no difference in saddle time, do whatever will give you the best quality saddle time. A computrainer might do this better, if you take the time to learn what the graphs mean, etc.
I purchased a CT and the required new Dell last fall, expecting to be practicing at least one loop of the Lake Placid course on the CT by now. I got rollers for X-mas to smooth my stroke, improve balance, and solve a CT contention problem with my SO who is also training for LP. We bought PC’s just after X-mas instead of getting new Tri-bikes. I picked up the POSE book and video last month.
I’m still confident that if I stick with all the training/technique aids I will have a much better engine and transmission for both my bike and my run over the long term. However, I now strongly suspect that I would be stronger this July for LP if I had simply purchased rollers last fall, and worked on LSD roller rides. Perhaps in front of a huge HDTV plasma display with the money I saved!
When I bought the CT, I expected to routinely be doing 50+ mile LP simulations by now. Instead, today I did a 7 mile flat CT ride with my PCs essentially ignoring all the CT’s fancy features, and I am trying to improve enough to ride my PCs on rollers!
What is the biggest problem you have with riding PCs on rollers? Bike handling skills, or, needing the rest because your hip flexors are fried?
Just curious…
Reaching the handle bars!
Actually, since I wrote that my PC flexibility has improved considerably. I’m probably about ready to try out the PCs on rollers. Though now that they are cleaning the sand off the streets around here, I’m itching to get back out on the real roads!
-Bill
P.S.
Sorry the reply took so long, I’ve been away from the forum. Just not enough hours in the day…
Bill, glad the streets are getting cleared for you! Be careful on rollers with PCs…I NEVER once wrecked until I was riding on rollers with PCs. I’ve wrecked 4 times now! What happened is that when I got tired, I just didn’t make it to the top of the stroke smoothly and it causes me to swerve to one side…off I go! Twice I was dumb enough to be in my aero position thinking I could just will my foot up a few more strokes before taking a break…Wrong! Anyway, just be a little more careful and don’t take any chances when you start getting fried hip flexor smoke coming out of your shorts …you can gut through a while longer on a resistance trainer, just don’t do it on rollers. Good luck this year!