The course is 5km flat and open, 5km and 250m of climbing, then 80m of descent then the same in reverse.

I’m wondering if it’s better to be on a tri bike or not (or at least in my case, setting my bike up for a TT position). Anyone got experience of this course?

I looked at the course. its the climb from llanberis up to pen-y-pas, down to the road junction and back again. you’ll spend the bulk of your time climbing so do it on a bike you are comfortable climbing on. can’t see a TT bike is going to offer much advantage.

I looked at the course. its the climb from llanberis up to pen-y-pas, down to the road junction and back again.

Is it closed road~?

I’ve done it. I used a regular road bike. To be honest you want to make the ride as easy as possible and save your legs for the run. That’s tough.

That was my thought too. If I want to fit the tri bars I have I have to slam the bars way down for it to be worth it, which makes it tricky to ride on the normal bars which I’d probably want on the climb and descent.

I can however put my elbows on the bars which might be worth doing for a couple of 5km stints, it gets me really low and is not too unstable.

Is it closed road~?

No, it’s on a weekend as well. But fortunately not in the school hols.

Light road bike – there’s a few tasty corners on the pass!
Maybe a skinsuit for the downhill bit

Yep – I’d def go for a road bike. I’d kit it out like a pro’s bike who plans to either be chasing a faster swim group or making a breakaway – i.e. with stubby tri bars.

As per your other thread – I’d recommend some vision minis – and I’ve even found some on the bay for you….

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/185411879527?hash=item2b2b68c267:g:OCwAAOSwKOdiVwNQ

edit – arse, just realised they are not in the UK – scratch that.

I had a set of them back in the day for these sort of courses and the odd draft legal race I blagged my way into. The arm cup is about 5mm off the bar tape. They are def not as comfortable as full tri bars but are a lot more comfortable and stable than resting your fore arms straight on the bars.

Or go proper old school and source some spinachis.

No, it’s on a weekend as well. But fortunately not in the school hols.

Oooft.

I have a bid on some carbon Prima Noosa on ebay, and I’m prepared to go to a reasonable price too. I think they’d be ok given I don’t want to mess my normal bars about; and being stubby and carbon they wouldn’t weigh down the steering much like my last pair do. Might also come in handy on the MTB for some kind of ultra endurance ride if I ever do another one.

I’ve used both on that course. Was quicker on the road bike, mainly cos it was easier to go flat out down hill with the confidence a road bike gives over a TT bike

That was my theory as well, StuF.

I put clip-on aero bars on my road bike thinking I could get best of both worlds, but I think I’m going to take them off. They require some adjustments to the saddle position that make it rather uncomfortable on the normal bars. This isn’t a problem if the whole course is using the aero bars, but not when most of the actual riding time will be spend climbing on the hoods.

I may have bike choice nailed but everything else is a mess. I was ill in the run up and had loads of work on, so I’m fat and under-prepared. Oh well!

Also the road for the sprint tri is closed, apparently. Phew.

I thought this would be good way to get round the issue but most aero bikes have custom seat posts

Redshift

I got my saddle position slightly wrong in the Ironman, it was never quiet right as I was 50:50 in and out of the aero bars and afterwards I didnt feel my bits for 6 weeks.

Im actually registered for the half series including next weekend but a huge list of injuries and about 4 stone has ruled me out for this year. Enjoy it.

Interesting, my seat post is round as I do t even own an aero road bike 🙂

Hope you get back on the bike/in the water/in your shoes quickly.

Well, the road bike was definitely the right choice. The flat section was over in a jiffy and most of the effort was climbing.

Some cracking corners on that descent too, was great to carve them up properly and with confidence.

Thread resurrection…

My wife is doing the sprint version of this for 2024 & someone just mentioned if it’s under British Tri rules she’ll not be able to use her flat bar bike due to width restrictions but the generic website faq says any bike is fine.

Can’t find anything in the official rules to confirm one way or the other. Any previous competitors got any insight?

Not done the slateman in years im sure they allow flat bars or they did back in the day. Send them a email the guys at always aim high are good eggs that organise good events and im sure they will say yay or nay

Cheers for that

I saw people on all sorts, I don’t specifically recall flat bars but I’m sure they were there.

I looked at the BTF rules a few years ago about bars, and from memory there was a minimum width – but it was really quite narrow (something stupid like 30 or 35cm) and aimed at stopping utterly stupidly dangerously narrow base bars on TT bikes.  I remember it because a friend had one such stupidly narrow base bar (a couple of cm narrower than permitted) on  P2 – I rode the bike for a few miles and I thought it was dangerous – you went from the aerobars onto the base bar and its got MORE twitchy and unstable, not less.