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Upgrade road bike or get TT Bike?


Dukeblue

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Some advice needed - I would like to either upgrade my roadbike to a full carbon bike (new trek madone or cervelo soloist) or thinking of buying a used time trail bike. the only time I ever use a TT bike is for Ironman and 70.3. Anybody out there using their Soloist etc and converting the bars to full TT with bullhorn shifters and back again for road use? what are your thoughts and experiences?

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Rather upgrade the Road bike you'll get much more fun and use out off it..... And then later on spend and get a full TT specific bike, but for now swap the bars, its less expensive.....

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I have a Soloist and use it for Ironman/HIM/Olympic distance tris and duathlon - I reverse the seatpost and put tri-bars on. It time trials quite well. Obviously not as well as a TT bike, but well enough.

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Depends on how serious you are about TT. Guys I spoke to who has power meters, and then got TT bikes say they lost a lot of power on the TT bike, because the body is used to the road position. To develop power on a TT bike, you need to ride it a lot. Top TT guys train on the TT bike 2 or 3 times per week. If TT is a big thin for you, get a TT bike.

 

If road racing is your main focus, a Soloist with one of those special Cervelo seat posts that can position the saddle in a TT position could be a nice option. I'm not sure about fitting a full TT bar for 2 rides is worth the hassle. Re-doing the cabling & bar tape every time would be too much effort for me. I would stay with some nice clip ons.
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  • 2 weeks later...

I have the same dilemma - I've messed up every triathlon I've done this year...

  • the first one I did without tri bars as it was too much hassle to take my carbon bars off (re cabling, taping, etc) & ended up battling strong winds at germiston lake

  • the second one was a bit better as I went to the trouble of swapping bars but it was a huge schlep for a measly 40km
  • for the third one I converted an old Cannondale which didn't help much more than riding my C40 without tri bars resulting in another poor 40k bike

So I have therefore decided to buy a proper (carbon) TT bike to solve the above problems - haven't yet decided what to buy as good used ones seem to be scarce in SA

 

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Same problem, but I've got a complete seperate TT bar set (cables, shorter stem etcl) takes about 5 min to change.

 

A nice bit of TT bling would be great, but is it worth it for the four months a year of dedicated Iman training ?
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For 4 months of triathlon training a year... definitely worth it!

 

don't forget, if it looks the part it must be worth at least 1kph or 2kph extra as well!!

 

 
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Re-doing the cabling & bar tape every time would be too much effort for me. I would stay with some nice clip ons.

 

but clip-ons aren't that nice - but will do - i've seen TT bars that you can put your STI's on, its shaped like the bull horns, but where the brakes on the bull horns would be you put your STI's so you won't need to change you cables, but still the bar tape though
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