New to the board with a question

Triathlon Forum
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Hello all,

I’m fairly new to triathlons and especially the bike aspect of it. There are MANY things I do not know when it comes to this, but the one that is bugging me is about the gearing. I read the post a couple down about riders having the right setup and to be honest, I don’t really get it. Would someone please explain for the uninformed the meaning behind the numbers, why they are important and anything else you could think of? FWIW, I currently own a Trek 1000 (which I bought to do a few tri’s and to see if I enjoyed riding). I’ve found out that I enjoy riding VERY much and I’m starting to look at getting a new bike if I can find anybody in the area that I really trust to give me good fitting. Around 2,000 is what I’m looking to spend, maybe a hair more, hopefully a hair less, but for now, I’m just trying to learn more about it bikes in general.

Thanks for any help,

Scott

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I daresay that 90% of the tri community has no clue about gear ratios, including many picking up hardware at the podium. This board is crawling with beloved bike geeks, who know and care about such things. If you get a flight deck computer on your new bike, it will tell you what gear configuration you are in every time you shift–handy for the ratio impaired.

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WElcome… I am new to and found that this forum is very helpful and informative. Where are you located? Someone here may know where you can get a fit.By the way for the more experianced to answer you(not me)maybe tell them what gearing you currently have ect…

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www.yaquiusa.com
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There’s lots of good bike info on this site , also some excellent info on sheldon brown’s site . And here’s a good basic primer on gearing: http://www.cyclingsite.com/lists_articles/gearing_101.htm

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Tell us where you are and at least one of us will be able to give you a recomendation for a bike fitter.

For 2000 you can surely get a very nice bike that will last you many years… I would definately still hold onto the road bike for traingin, group rides, etc.

The important thing to understand about tri bikes is that they are designed to be used with aerobars in the aero position a great majority of the time while road bikes are meant to be ridden with standard bars.

If you have a good fitter he/she will be able to explain all of that as it pertains to you… The rest of the stuff you will pick up as you read more

hope this helps

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Thanks for the help and the links. They are very informative. I live in Knoxville TN.