Road bike use during tri training

Triathlon Forum
1

So I bought a used road bike last year. It was to be used during my winter riding. Well due to surgery in December I haven’t been on it as much as I was planning. Since I’m getting back to training for the upcoming season, I was wondering where a road bike comes into play. I do have a tri bike that I trained on 100% last season. For those with more than one bike, what percentage of rides do you use each bike? Do you use a road bike during your long rides? As your race date gets closer, do you limit, or eliminate using your road bike?
Thanks,
Andrew

2

Once it warms up I will ride 30-40 miles a week of commuting miles on my mountain bike, and an additional 120 - 150 miles a week on my road and TT. I typically use the TT for my speed or tempo rides - depending on the week, 25 - 70 miles of that kind of riding - and the road bike for dedicated long rides or easier rides. I know others that do it almost the opposit, and some who pretty much only ride the TT. At the end of the day it probably boils down to preference.

I will only use my TT when I know I’m going to pretty much stay on the elbow pads, and with the longer or slower rides I always seem to get up on the bull horns.

3

In season I always do my long rides on my tribike. For other rides I use whatever I feel like at the time.

4

My road bike is used for group rides. Today I did a metric century ride with the road bike. Last week, I used it for the Solvang Century.

My tri bike is for solo rides - tempo and interval training. I need to ride it more for longer rides as well.

5
  1. Setup your tribike for everyday riding (maybe road bars and clip ons)
  2. Ride it exclusively

I changed my approach a lot here, ok an occasional MTB tour is fine, but 90% of my bike training should be on my TT machine. I changed to road bars with clip on aerobars though. Amateurs don’t get nearly enough miles per year, to make a TT bike work as a second or third bike. Pros are different with 25k + km/year, but from my 9k per year, 8,5 should be spent to train “as I race”.

I change between roadbars and an integrated aerobar, but alway get the same position in the aerobars …