My access to safe road riding is becoming very scarce. I am thinking of training on my mountain bike for 90% of my bike training for my next 1/2IM. The trails available to me are not “true mountain trails” but are instead long, straight trails (similar to fire roads). Haven’t picked out a specific race for my next 1/2IM but I will make sure the bike course is flat.
Any thoughts on whether I can train effectively for the bike portion of the 1/2IM on my mountain bike?
For the majority of training
Tri bike on roads > Group riding > solo riding on a road bike > solo mountain biking > rollers/trainer/stationary
Of course, it’s best to do a little bit of all 5. If you can’t do roads, do trails.
My access to safe road riding is becoming very scarce. I am thinking of training on my mountain bike for 90% of my bike training for my next 1/2IM. The trails available to me are not “true mountain trails” but are instead long, straight trails (similar to fire roads). Haven’t picked out a specific race for my next 1/2IM but I will make sure the bike course is flat.
Any thoughts on whether I can train effectively for the bike portion of the 1/2IM on my mountain bike?
I can understand your concern - especially with the frequency of incidents of late.
I do approx. half of my time on the mtn bike vs. rd bike/tri bike, and I would say that doing only mtn bike would not prepare you for an optimal half split.
I used to mtn bike race exclusively prior to getting into duathlon (no swimming for me), and I found that I wasn’t very good at sustained power for an extended period of time when I started, but I was good at frequent bouts of exceeding my threshold and recovering, as this is what mtn bike racing is all about.
I only got better at ITT by riding my tri bike a lot and doing 2 x 20min. threshold work and doing 2-3 hour rides never coming out of the bars, with very little coasting. I just don’t think you can train like this on mtn bike terrain. You need a constant sustained training effort for 1/2 training for your best performance.