Pro for 8 months!

Triathlon Forum
1

I am in the amazingly lucky position to bemoving to Australia in September to train with a bunch of Elites and try and turn me into a world junior champion. I’ll be out there for bout 8months!

As you guys seem to like chatting about Tri-kit, I thought you could give me some tips on what is the most reliable and hard wearing kit to get - and I’m only 17, so on a real budget!

I have a 1 year old Giant TCR with Ultegra componnets (a shop bike from a pro) which I bought for an amazing price, I intend to take this out, and put some tri-bars on it.

I have the choice of 3 different wheelsets I could take - Rolf Vector Pros, Shimano 105s or Mavic Cosmos? Which should I take?

What Tyres and Tubes are best? Should I buy them in bulk from France before hand -or are they cheap out there??

What cheapish tri kit - cycle kit, run kit etc would you reccomend - or is it cheap in QlD?

Are there any wonder gadgets I should save for??

Cheers

Sam

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Hey… i’m only 19… so I can sorta relate. If you intend to do worlds, you’ll be in a draft legal race, hence I’d get a pair of profile jammers, or cinelli spinicis (s/p?) instead of full out tri bars, which wouldn’t be legal anyhow. For wheels, I’d take two pairs, probably the mavic cosmos as a training wheel and the vector pros as race/back up wheels (or the most durable wheels for training, and lightest wheels for racing). For the tires, and tubes, I don’t know the prices, but I ride Axial pros on my training wheels, and I have some tubulars for my race wheels. When i replace the tires, i’m gonna get some conti 1000’s because they’re super cheap here (Canada), but thats a pretty presonal decision.

Run kit-I have both training shoes, and race flats, if you have the money, IMHO get race flats. For training I have 1 dry fit top, which I wash alot, but I think its alot better than cotton.

Racing- last year at Jr. Nats I borrowed someones aquablade top, but this year I’m getting a Sugoi tri top, and on the bottom I just wore speedo jammers. This year I’ve gotton some Aquablade jammers, and thats what I intend to race in. If the bike portion isn’t that long, this setup works well.

Cycle - just get some decent shorts, thats all, a jerseys nice but I’d spend the money of shorts first.

Wonder gadgets - umm… race belts and speed laces are nice little things which help save time, a gel flask maybe, but I just tape a gel to my top tube.

Good luck and have fun, and remember - SWIM… thats the best thing that you can do to get better, (and if you can’t swim well… forget doing well in a drafting race, that was a very interesting lessons which I learned at Nats)

David