Modified road bike or tri specific?
3354
Member
1404 days
RV posted 2 years ago.
I'm riding a road bike modified for Tri's. I have a carbon frame - Trek 5200. Added a forward seat post and of course areobars. This setup works really well. I did IMWI 06 on this setup and will do IMWI 07 on this bike as well. That being said at some point when I have enough pennies saved up I will also get a tri bike. Altho, the road bike is a bit more versatile. Especially if you do other types of rides/races. Then you may only need to slap on or remove the areobars. There are several threads on this topic here that you could search on to get many more opinions.
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
149
Member
1416 days
Airborne posted 2 years ago.
What's important about a tri bike is not aero tubing, but tri-specific positioning. There's nothing wrong with using a regular road frame as the foundation for your tri bike.
I'm strongly AGAINST just slapping clipons on a road frame, as they'll likely sit too high, and will almost certainly stretch you out too much. But you can certainly configure a road frame with a nice basebar/aerobar/bar-end shifters, steepish seat angle, etc.
Good luck!
Is anyone out there using a modified road bike instead of a tri specific bike? It seems that road bike frames are lighter and less expensive. I've also read that there is no conclusive evidence that the aero tubing used on tri frames is any more aero than round tubing.