My question is at what point in geometry differences between bikes (TT, Mountain bike, commuter) do you compromise fitness gains, and and I guess neuromuscular adaptations ?
If the distance between the saddle and BB remains the same shouldn’t that most closely represent the key muscular gains.
Basically, can I ride my MTB for all of my training?
Would it be possible to do most of your training on a mountain bike at equivalent efforts (say race pace) to prepare for long distance triathlon?
good question and i am curious to see what the experts have to say as recently I have been spending a lot more time on my road bike than my tri bike, (very curious as to what the effect will be but have not raced yet since the change will find out in 2 weeks), my thought is that varying up which bike you ride on would recruit different muscles and overall lead to improvements in fitness that are beneficial across the board but that you would still want to put in the majority of your miles on the bike with the geometry you are planning to race on (at least 60% of the miles) if racing fast on that bike is your goal…
Mmm
It would be interesting to see how much of a difference a road to tri bike is (small difference), compared to a tri and a mountain bike (huge difference).
You hear pro athletes like Normann Stadler who ride their road bike 95% of the time, and then for 8 weeks ride their tri bike before Hawaii.
Road to TT is probably not much of a change. But there is one, with no doubt.
Mountain to TT that is a huge difference. At least to me. I don’t know what it is, but I can not put the same work in on my MTN bike as I can on my road or TT bike.
I would say there is a reason race car drivers practice driving race cars. If driving a minivan (the pedals and wheel is all in the same place) on the freeway trained them, they could really log some serious “training” miles and Ms. Gestapo would crush Lewis Hamilton.
floyd landis was a mountain biker
his first road race he had to start cat4 or 5, 15 minutes back
he passed everyone and won overall
seems to me there wasn’t much difference.
pedalling is pedalling, there are surely some small gains to be had by focusing on the TT bike most of the time, but theres plenty of people who don’t do that and are pros who are fast on the bike too.
I did 95% of my training on Mountain bike one year, and really suffered in that years (flat) IM; cramped due too little time sitting low using the aerobars.
The last years I have used road bike & fixie most of the time, with seat quite forward and bars low - no problem in IM.
muscularly, very little difference between all these positions, with one exception: neck. you can ride your road or MTB most of the time and do very well in triathlon, if your position on all these bikes are proper. but this is muscularly, i’m talking about. riding a tri bike requires some technique and that’s gained only by riding a tri bike.
It’s a good question and it really needs a true scientific study.
You say that if the pedal to seat distance is equal that it should be primarily the same…that’s not quite true and it misses the main determiner in this equation and that’s hip angle.
To demonstrate, find a spin/stationary bike in a gym and do the following experiment:
watch your heartrate during all 3 5-minute timeframes. I’m guessing that perceived exertion alone will prove to you that hip angle is a major consideration. (I think it’s the primary consideration).
Now as to various bikes…I set my mtn bikes up very close to my road bike on the top bar (at least in terms of hip angle). So for me to change from road to mtn bike isn’t a difference and I reap those benefits in my mtn bike racing.
On the TT bike I have an adaptation to make and I can feel it in higher recruitment of my glutes and the lower quads closer to my knee. But I have found that all my riding generates cycling fitness and it only takes another 10-20% of training time on the TT bike to ‘feel’ (I’m guessing) that my fitness is fully adapted to that position.
If my ‘guess’ is right you only need about 1 hour per week on the target bike (at the target hip angle to be precise) for full application of all of your cycling fitness.
But that’s only part of it. You also need to make adaptation to the tissues that contact the seat as well as at the neck/shoulders. These are ‘comfort’ adaptations and in short races won’t affect the results. But for longer races they can make a very big difference.