one they get a road bike, get comfy on it and it’s hard to talk them into getting a steep tri bike if they are already happy on the road bike. Two bikes, seriously not that many women will go for that.
Another reason and a big one here, if the woman, or guy for that matter is 5’4" or so or shorter you can pretty much get a steep angle on a road bike just by moving the saddle foward. Larger frames need a steeper seat tube angle as you have to move the saddle proportionately more foward to get from slack to tri geometry as the frame gets bigger. Smaller frame, say a 48cm, you scoot the saddle foward on it’s rails and you go from 73 to 78 degrees…
Talking with my ex about her getting another bike. She rides a nice Kestrel EMS500 with the saddle foward and the tip just a bit behind the BB. Her reach is fine using Syntace bars and a 70mm stem. She wants a tri bike as she notes that I will NOT ride my road bike in a tri and most other competitive athltetes have dual bikes. But the thing is that based on the past she doesn’t like the foward position and isn’t likely to drop her bars much further so a lot of the time trial/tri bike reasoning is lost. So basically it would come down to getting a new bike simply to have a “race” bike she could trick out.
Smaller frame, say a 48cm, you scoot the saddle foward on it’s rails and you go from 73 to 78 degrees…
This may have something to do with it… if you look at the geometry of smaller road bikes (e.g. less than 50cm) you’ll see that instead of 73 degree seat tubes they often have 75-76 degree seat tubes…
Yeah, I often wonder about whether to set some women up with shorty style aerobars or regular clip ons. The girl i was referring too in my first post is a pretty FOP competitive racer. Even won a few local races. She uses Syntace C2s and although she is probably a little stretched past the 90 degree benchmark, she’s definetely no straining and is getting good skeletal support through the bars. They worked great for her in Kona last year if that’s any validation. I have another friend who is MOP-FOP and she just got a sweet new Carbon Giant. She want’s to make it a tri rocket but I can’t see how the hell we’re going to use anything but shortie bars on it. But then again it’s a road frame so what do you expect.
The two girls locally who are probably faster than my friend both ride P3s which are set up pretty aggresively, foward seatpost, integrated or bullhorn bars. But then again both are 5’4" or so and the difference in the tri bike to the road bike is more noticeable to them.
Granted guys have the more toys the better philosophy going but my ex has more wheels than I do and for a good while had more tricked out bikes than I did. Hell, she still arguably has more tricked out bikes than I do and is pondering the purchase of a new bike. We’ll have to go 650 so she can keep the 404s she has but she likes the idea of a P3C and can’t seem to figure out why I’m getting a P3sl:) I also think guys get a little pressure to have the hottest stuff out there. We are more competitive gear wise than women. We feel slow if our bikes look slow, hell it’s the truth right. Now when it comes down to it women are a hell of a lot more competitive than guys, but they have other ways to express it rather than buying lots of expensive carbon fiber stuff. Sheesh, I thought women were supposed to be the material object oriented sex;)
If you told my wife she would need tri shoes if she got a tri bike she would definitely want one. In here world you can never have enough shoes.
Possible explanation is that women tend to have proportionally longer legs so a tri bike leaves them too stretched and the shorty bars are for clearance with their knees/elbows?
I’ve noticed this too. Here may be a couple plausible analyses: Long femur bones pre-dispose many females to riding slack. The problem then becomes the attendant long top tubes combined with the short torsos. Bad. The notion of simply shortening the top tubes doesn’t work as it results in a host of handling issues like excessive toe overlap, too short wheel bases and absurd turning radius. The only people who have it figured out are Cervelo right now, with their shorter chain stays and curved seat tubes reaching back to the rear hub moving the rider’s feet back and opening up the angle betwen the femur and the torso. On C cup + women there is the issue of their leg hitting their boobs at the top of the pedal stroke, with a more rearward foot position this is reduced. While a road bike doesn’t solve all these problem at all, and in fact creates quite a few (femur/torso angle and too long top tube) it does enable ample room for a long femur bone. There are more elegant solutions though. Bad advice from the local “expert” put them on a less than optimal bike. They inherited a bike from someone else. One of the criteria for theiir purchase may have versatility: The buyer wanted to do tris, group rides, tours, etc.
i’ll float the explanation i heard from a male pro - he said that at his average IM speed of ~24mph (i.e., a lot of time in 24-27mph) the aero advantage of a steep tri bike were “significant”, but that this aero advangage was considerably less significant at the average speed of a top female pro (~21.5mph), such that other considerations (i.e., power & comfort) point to road bike w/ clip ons.
<willing to try a triathlon without feeling the need to be “competitive”>
Not sure what of the part of the country you are in, but would disagree. Most of the gals I see in triathlon are out for blood and totally hardcore…as I see the same thing with every woman trying to qualify for Boston. At least in Boston qualifying, they are racing the clock.
As for the bike. I also find woman don’t really care. They are out there to kick ass and the minor details of “seat angle and extension” is overshadowed by their training and determination. If it has two wheels and a chain, they are fine. Heck, when down a IMFL a few years ago, I stayed at the same place as the women’s winner (Bella) and she commented that the Inside Out mechanic gave her a hard time about her 105/open pro wheels…