It’s been posted before but nobody really touched it.
Does anybody have any thoughts/experience on recumbent riding (indoor gym equipment or the real thing outdoors) for triathlon training?
My first thought is this…one of the principals of training is specificity. I don’t know of a triathlon where recumbents are permitted so there’s less specificity in that training. I think there is a progressive degeneration: training on your bike that you’ll use on race day (best), training on your bike on a trainer (perhaps a hair less than perfect), training in spin class (once removed), on a stationary (twice removed), on a recumbent (a distance relative).
I want to say something positive so here it is - I think training for a triathlon on a recumbent is better than training for the bike leg of a triathlon by using an elliptical.
Ian
I understand the specificity argument completely well. Jack Daniel’s first or second law. But… what about all the serious cyclists/triathletes who train on road, mountain and cross bikes for the majority of their training time? Many only train on their time trial/triathlon equipment a small portion of their overall riding and they still have a ton of success. Training for triathlon on a comfortable recumbent might be a good way to reduce overuse injuries and increase sport longevity and/or training time/endurance. No two-ways about it. It definitely burns calories and increases fitness. I’d rather have a three hour recumbent ride than a 30 minute time trial ride.
Thoughts?
the hip angle difference between road and tri bikes is very small, even 0 if you set it up to be so
the hip angle difference on a recumbent may be a lot, as are the points in the pedal cycle when you can apply a lot of force.
that said, I got a dollar says if you work up to a 300 watt recumbent FTP that you will still kick a lot of ass on a road or tri bike too.
I understand the specificity argument completely well. Jack Daniel’s first or second law. But… what about all the serious cyclists/triathletes who train on road, mountain and cross bikes for the majority of their training time? Many only train on their time trial/triathlon equipment a small portion of their overall riding and they still have a ton of success. Training for triathlon on a comfortable recumbent might be a good way to reduce overuse injuries and increase sport longevity and/or training time/endurance. No two-ways about it. It definitely burns calories and increases fitness. I’d rather have a three hour recumbent ride than a 30 minute time trial ride.
Thoughts?
No two-ways about it. It definitely burns calories and increases fitness. I’d rather have a three hour recumbent ride than a 30 minute time trial ride.
Thoughts?
Is your goal to burn calories or improve your triathlon cycling performance?
Right, I thought that about the 300 FTP as well. Correct me if I’m wrong but when I look at the relationship of the bottom bracket to the seat on some of recumbent bikes the angles are actually much closer to that of a road/tri bike than you’d think. I don’t mean an E-bike but if you look at a some of these you’ll see what I mean: Challenge Fuji-SL, Burrows RatCatcher 18/20, Velokraft VK2 Low-Racer , Optima Baron or Optima Cheetah , Lightening P-38 and/or the RaptoBike mid-racer and/or low-racer.
Nothing to add except that I’ve seen a couple of them at races here in DFW. McKinney Sprint Tri was one, I think. I remember seeing it and wondering, until I saw that one of the racers was an older above knee amputatee and was using a wheelchair to move from the pool to T1. I’m sure the RD was accomodating him, which I thought was great choice by the RD.
Tri has traditionally been open to different bike geometries. I really don’t see them taking over, and they generally don’t cause other riders issues, so no harm, no foul.
Correct me if I’m wrong but when I look at the relationship of the bottom bracket to the seat on some of recumbent bikes the angles are actually much closer to that of a road/tri bike than you’d think.
How do you figure that? Hip angle is way more open on a recumbent.
. I’d rather have a three hour recumbent ride than a 30 minute time trial ride.
Thoughts?
If you just want be a recreational triathlete then I think you have your answer right there.
.
Couple winters back I bought a recumbent trainer for using over
the winter. My experience was that while I enjoyed putting in
miles on it and it kept me thinner, that I was not in good “real”
biking shape when I got back on my road/tri bike. At least
for me, the fitness didn’t translate. It was comfy though 
Good luck,
-Joe