Now that my season is over for the year, I’d like to start putting in some miles on the bike and run. The bike I am riding is a soloist and I have the seat set forward from when I raced it earlier in the year (before the borrowed P2SL- Thanks Jim!). My question is this: Should I put in my winter miles with the seat forward, or switch it to a more relaxed position? As of now, I don’t have clip-ons attached. Any ideas on the best way to go? this is my first “off season” of real training, so I’d like to get things as close to right as possible. thanks in advance for the advice and smart remarks.
Train in the position you will race in.
Did you race the soloist in triathlons or just the P2SL. I’m interested in how the soloist performed as a tribike, with tribars, seat forward etc…
Seems a bit silly to leave the seat forward if you’ve removed the aero bars.
What is your winter training - on the trainer or can you ride on the road? If you ride on the road do you ride alone or will you be doing any group riding? Do you live in a hilly or flat area?
For off season training, put the bike in the most comfortable position you can. For many people, that would be on a road bike or on a soloist in the road setup. Once racing starts coming closer, I’d suggest, as others have, to train the way you will race. But I doubt you will suffer by not being in the aerobars in Dec.
Additionally, I’m pretty sure it was in one of Slowman’s articles that he explains the forward/low position of a tri bike is most comfortable under a fair bit of power. The winter is no time to be hammering…
Friend of mine puchased a P3 and is a bit bewildered that he was faster on his Soloist. First season on the tri bike though, so maybe he needs more time to adapt.
well you are not riding in the same way if you take off the aero bars, your hands are now in on the hoods and the drops are likely to be not a lot of use. With your hands on the hoods, this will affect how you sit and the hip angle is now different from what you had when you were riding in the aer bars. So the short answer is yes you need to move the seat to retain the same hip angle as you had when you rode in your bars. Bloody uncomfortable if you don’t , but that is from my own experience. However, if you were not set up comfortably to ride the bars in the first place but was set up to ride the hoods or come kind of compromise position one see’s a lot- it might work just fine to leave it where it is. If you don’t ride in packs just leave the bars on and ride the same way all the time. you are fastest on what you ride on most often.
I rode the soloist in early season triathlons. I loved the stiffness and ride (huge upgrade from my old CAAD2 Cannondale!) It was very comfortable and (relatively) fast, but I had shorty aerobars on it which I never really had dialed in. The P2SL was a much more pleasant ride as far as the cockpit, but I guess it’s supposed to be since it is a dedicated TT bike. I was faster on the P2, but I also had more training/experience…I feel the soloist climbs much better if that is an issue. As far as offseason training, I’d like to be out on the road as much as possible even with the beautiful Pittsburgh weather. Group rides usually don’t fit into the schedule and there are some decent hills in Pittsburgh. I plan on putting the aerobars back on the soloist and keeping the seat forward unless anyone can convince me otherwise.
I have a soloist, which i usually have set up in road position with shorties but I flipped the seat around and threw on long bars for two tri’s this summer that were non-drafting, man, it was awsome in the other configuration, its comfortable in road, but I was very impressed with the other position - super stable. I didn’t have the best run off it, but i attribute that more to me - but I went 1.30 for 56k, and then I did go through 10k in 38 without pushing it… then it went downhill… but just to summerize, very very impressed with the dual nature of it.
Would it be worth it to by a pair of longer bars?
as opposed to buying a new bike? in my opinion yes…
If I was gonna be switching around alot, buy a new seat clamp… and another saddle, and just set it up once and swap seats out - i found i had to raise the seat abit too…
but it for me it doesn’t take alot of time at all… take off shorty bars, swap on long bars…reset seat post high, change head around… total time around an hour? and that would be alot shorter if I had the different seat post heads.
my cavet
I don’t think buying a specific tri bike would make me measurably faster than my converted soloist…I’ve never owned a pure tri bike though… but I’m quite of the opinion that its the rider that is 99% determining of the bike split outcome. I’ve ridden my soloist to avg 38km/h non-drafting over a 56k course with long bars bars (and I avg 1.02-1.03 for non-drafting with shorties)… so I have abit of work to do yet, but I’m also a student so cash is an issue. I think Simon Lessing won Lake Placid on a soloist set up as a tri bike - definatly the rider that determines the outcome!