Interesting question posed to me by someone at my run club yesterday:
Would you rather have the bike of your dreams or an extra hour in each day?
The bike of your dreams would be a fully loaded bike with all the bells and whistles you could ever want for triathlon. Top of the line, custom geometry for you, etc etc. This gets to change from season to season. For example - let’s say the P5 is your dream bike. But next year, the P6 comes out. Your bike will magically change to the P6 (or whatever bike you want it to) once a season. Same goes for all the gadgets and goodies.
An extra hour in the day is an extra hour that you can do whatever you want with. Basically your day is now 25 hours instead of 24.
I didn’t hesitate when I said I’d take the extra hour. No bike is going to be able to give me the performance gains that an extra hour of training, sleep, stress-free time with my family, etc would give.
That is an interest concept, although perhaps not the right question.
In any form of goal setting you have to have goals that are consistent with each other…e.g. you can’t have a goal of demonstrating work ethic to your kids and a goal of sleeping in late every day (probably).
A dream bike and an extra hour each day, to me, don’t seem to be mutually exclusive goals. Or, perhaps their are alternate paths to achieve both.
However, at just face value I’d always take extra time…that is the only thing their is a true limit of.
The bike of your dreams would be a fully loaded bike with all the bells and whistles you could ever want for triathlon. Top of the line, custom geometry for you, etc etc.
I don’t find these two options remotely comparable. Aside from the economic and quality of life arguments favoring the extra hour, the basic failure of the bike choice lies in what I’ve quoted. The latest and greatest bells and whistles is a mere snapshot of a single product season. Within 12-18 months, your supreme, top-of-the-line bike will lie somewhere between laggard and run-of-the-mill.
Interesting question posed to me by someone at my run club yesterday:
Would you rather have the bike of your dreams or an extra hour in each day?
The bike of your dreams would be a fully loaded bike with all the bells and whistles you could ever want for triathlon. Top of the line, custom geometry for you, etc etc.
An extra hour in the day is an extra hour that you can do whatever you want with. Basically your day is now 25 hours instead of 24.
I didn’t hesitate when I said I’d take the extra hour. No bike is going to be able to give me the performance gains that an extra hour of training, sleep, stress-free time with my family, etc would give.
How about you?
Hands down, give me an hour extra per day. If I convert 1 extra hour per day (30 in a month) I can have a dream bike every month for the rest of my life. Not that I need one, but I can always make money and buy stuff. Time is finite in a lifetime.
Let’s change the question to “up to date dream bike” - meaning you get interchangeable parts whenever you need them. I.E. - you can magically snap your fingers and your Zipp 808s turn into whatever new awesome wheel there is for the season.
I’m sure you’ll get some short-sighted (or perhaps young and indestructible) folks to bite on the bike, but extra time is the one thing that you can’t necessarily buy or bargain for.
An interesting twist on the question would be the effect of day cycles on your lifespan. Is there a correlation between the number of daily increments and the ultimate endurance of your bodies? IOW, do we simply live a fixed span of time, or do the duration and number of repetitive (awake, rest, repeat) cycles contribute to longevity?
The hour a day, no doubt about it. If you are performance minded, if you used that hour to train or recover it would outstrip any advantage offered by a top end bike.
I was trying to keep my answer within the parameters of your original query. now if you had asked about picking up an extra day (or two or three) each week or a dream bike…
Having THE latest uberbike will gain me very small gains compared to what I have, or even if I bought a budget <$1000 TT bike used.
The extra hour of day training is huge. Me on crappy old school but well-fitting used bike will outperform me on uberbike if I had an extra hour per day for sure.
Hands down, give me an hour extra per day. If I convert 1 extra hour per day (30 in a month) I can have a dream bike every month for the rest of my life. Not that I need one, but I can always make money and buy stuff. Time is finite in a lifetime.
which brings up another question - are we expanding our lifetime by 1 hour per day, or are we “taking” one hour per day off the end of our life, and applying it to each day?
scenario one: originally i was supposed to live for 365 24-hour days, but now i live for 365 24-hour days + 365 hours
scenario two: originally i was supposed to live for 365 24-hour days, but now i live for 350.4 25-hour days.
an extra hour with out any question.
it would be embarrasing to have an uber bike and be passed by someone on an out dated ole clunker who trained more.