my 1st tri, in charleston- how to improve slow bike?
2400
Member
1280 days
Triguy98 posted 2 years ago.
Just how big is this too-big bike?
Get rid of the aerobars, theyre not doing you any favors on a too big bike, you wont be aero at all.
Clipless is a huge jump over toe clips. If your big is just a little big by a cm or two, then this is you best bet for speed and efficiency.
If you're looking to get serious, start saving. Youre going to spend at least $800 on a bike.
As for ride speed, you obvioulsy need to train more. Your standard rides should be at least twice as long as the race itself. Youd be surprised how much mileage a proper warm up and cool down eat up.
You need a structured training program. Check out these three books:
Joe Friel's Triathletes Training Bible
Gale Bernhardt's Beginning Triathlon Training (or something like that)
and Training Plans for the Multisport Athletes by the saem author.
Good luck.
Life is short. Play hard and get dirty doing it.
27
Member
801 days
SlowE30 posted 2 years ago.
The bike I have was given to me by a guy who's 6'3" - 6'4". I'm 6'0". I think he said the frame was a 61 or 63cm.
I moved the spacers under the riser(?) to on top of it to lower the bars a bit. If the aero bars aren't doing any good I'll take them off. I didn't use them that much in the race anyway.
Thanks for the tips so far. Any rec's on good bike mechanics books?
2400
Member
1280 days
Triguy98 posted 2 years ago.
Park Tools' website is very good. Zinn and the Art of Bicycle Maintenace is awesome. I dont like the Bicycling book at all (I hear the new edition is better, tho.)
Yeah, i would dump the aero bars. The drops are going to be more aero with that size frame.
Life is short. Play hard and get dirty doing it.
So... 3 weeks ago I was inspired to attempt a sprint tri. I'm perpetually in "OK" shape from college rugby and occasional activity, so I figured I could get my endurance back up a bit and give the tri a shot with 3 weeks to train.
Training: I swam the tri distance one time, biked the tri distance 3 times (on a free steel-frame fuji road bike designed for someone 6'4"), and ran a 5k about 6-7 times. Nowhere near enough.
The sprint tri was sunday morning. I thought it was well run and not too hard for a first timer.
.3 mile swim, 13 mile bike, 5k... All pretty much flat.
Gear: I wore a speedo jammer (no padding). too-big-for-me free fuji bike with aero bars and stirrup-style pedals. for the run, i had my number pinned to some shorts which i put on in T2.
SWIM: i probably swam a third of it breaststroke because i was tired, the rest freestyle. My split place was 123/330.
BIKE: I biked at a fairly comfortable pace. As far as overall rank/place goes, this was my worst event (126/330).
RUN: I felt soooo sloooow, but apparently this was my best event (place 100/330). Drinking water on the run is HARD! The finish was after a blind turn, so I didn't kick it at the end like I know I could have to catch a few people.
Results:
I was #11 out of 18 in my age group (M 20-24), 3 seconds behind #10, 4 seconds behind #9. My brother, who is in better shape than I, got #4 in our age group, beating me by 4 minutes while wearing a baggy beach swimsuit.
Times:
overall (1:13:33 ) #110 of 339 finishers/ swim(#123 10:43)/ bike(#126 39:54)/ run(#100 22:57)
QUESTIONS:
So, I'm hooked and will do more sprint tri's.... maybe I'll do an oly or HIM next year if I train hard and don't get hurt (i tend to get shin splints and knee probs, and never-ending side-cramps).
What can I do to improve my bike times? I really don't know much about biking fast. Are clip-in pedals that much of an improvement to justify the cost (remember, my bike was free) and lost T2 time?
Any thoughts or areas you think I should work on, based on the above? Obviously i'm going to have to train a lot more next time, and probably pick up a number belt.
Thanks,
Evan