I’ve entered my first triathlon later this year.
Now I’ve already identified that in terms of minutes per £ my first investment will be some swimming lessons.
So assuming that I can swim and that I’m relatively fit, is it worth the investment for a set of tri bars to go on the bike? Or just concentrate on pedalling quicker & keeping my hands on the drops? It’s a pretty flat 40km bike section

Try asking on a tri site?

For a flat race, tri bars will make quite a big difference – also bear in mind that after the swim, your arms will probably be reasonably tired and tri bars are a lot more comfortable to hold an aero(ish) position on than the drops.

Get some 2nd hand on ebay (looks for ones that can get the pads low compared to the bars rather than the comedy upright position that a lot of Triathletes use…

Also invest a bit of time on getting a decent position. As clubber mentions, a lot of triathletes have a silly high position where the tri bars are doing them little good.

Tri bars – yes. Move your saddle forward and up (more power, and easier to hold a tuck) and tilt it forward a bit. Decide if you want under- or over-bar tri bars. The ones I have came from a mate and they go over the bars, I would like to have ones that went under, to get a bit lower.

Having said that, don’t get too obsessed with aerodynamics – you still need to pedal. In one LBS I had a chat with the guy and he managed to save something daft like 2 minutes off a guy’s 10mile time by raising the bars and making him LESS aero – but allowing him to get a lot more power down.

Ta for the info chaps (especially chaps) I’m off the fleabay

In one LBS I had a chat with the guy and he managed to save something daft like 2 minutes off a guy’s 10mile time by raising the bars and making him LESS aero – but allowing him to get a lot more power down.

I call shenanigans – 2 minutes off a typical time would require >25% more power, even assuming the aero didn’t get worse.

Single Biggest advantage over a regular road bike are Tri Bars or clip on Aero Bars. 2 minute time difference would be about right. Aero wheels give the next biggest advantage.

Cyclingnews.com did a comparison sometime last year between a Regular Road Bike & A TT bike. Adding components to the Road Bike to see what gave the biggest advantage.

whatever you do, make sure you train with them, as they’ll cost you more time than you’ll save on the day if you don’t.

Also, if you don’t have a smooth and powerful pedalling style when seated, you’re best off using the drops – even more so if there’s a stack of corners on the course.

If you’re Surrey based, I have a set of profile ones you can try.

I call shenanigans – 2 minutes off a typical time would require >25% more power, even assuming the aero didn’t get worse.

Where’d you get that number from?

It’s not too unreasonable anyway. If the guy was bent out of all shape so much that his back was screaming, his lungs were cramped up and he had to keep sitting up and resting cos of the discomfort, then that would seem fair (based on my own riding with a power meter).

Power goes as the cube of speed. Hence 25% is the difference in power needed to go from a 28 to a 26.

You’re talking about rubbish positioning there. The solution to which doesn’t involve simply raising the bars – no way will you get 25% extra by that (and I’ve seen vanishingly few amateur triathletes whose positions were so low that it isn’t possible to train to be efficient in that position – far more are sitting too high with lots of drag).

Before we all get geeky and techy, let’s just leave it at “don’t get yourself so low that you can’t pedal properly” – for almost everyone, there will be a compromise between how efficient a position you can get (ie how low) and how much power you can generate in that position.

Stretching/etc can help too though so even if you can’t get a low position comfortably to start, you can gradually lower it if you work on your flexibility.

Here’s the link to the cycling news article. 12.4% Gain in power by going from Drops to Clip on Aero Bars.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2008/features/jeffs_need_for_speed08

The solution to which doesn’t involve simply raising the bars

Clearly not. Why do people on forums always assume you’re declaring some idiotic assumption to be absolute gospel fact, despite how ridiculous that assertion would be? It was a dimly remembered conversation from at least 5 years ago about someone I’d never met. The use of terms such as ‘something daft like two minutes’ should signal to the reader that the post is in no way an accurate reflection of the exact events.

All I am saying is that the most aero position isn’t necessarily the fastest in terms of time. Why’s that absolute rubbish?
Forum users are mostly not stupid, so don’t assume the most stupid interpretation of what they’ve said! 🙂

We saved a lady tri about 10 minutes off her bike leg by showing her how to set up her bike properly, how to ride it properly and how to stop without riding onto a grass verge and falling over sideways into a ditch which was how she had been stopping previously.

aP that’s superb – reminds me of the Bike Snob comments re: tri riders and how they can’t ride

trb I recommend this setup 😉

Nice aero helmet cover.

Not sure about the stripey blue print though.

Acjim – where did you find that picture of me?

Definitally tri bars they make it a lot easier. If you get good and ride elite they are basically banned hence why you don’t see them in the olympics.

But training hard will make you a lot faster than new bars.

Personally I’m loving the shades, I think they’re Oakley Blades or something like that:

A mate had some, went awesome with his denim look (carrera?) shorts

If you get good and ride elite they are basically banned hence why you don’t see them in the olympics.

Yeah, but that’s because they ride in packs rather than solo.

doesn’t it go as the square of the speed? drag and all that?

Drag force goes as the square of the speed, but power is force times speed, so goes as the cube.

I bought some profile aero bars , jammers or something like that ..jammed my bars as low as they go and got into a good aero position …took 4 mins off my previous effort on the same course…not all the tri bars but largely was the aero position of being alot lower than my road riding position.

it largely depends on the course though. watched the port of tauranga ironman the other week on tv and alot of guys there using a drop bar set up

also who ever said aero wheels next best thing … trad rimmed and spoked wheels better until you can maintain over 22mph(or is it 25?) otherwise the aeros weight is a hinderance rather than a gain

Triathlon? Please don’t do it! Joke of a sport.(IMHO) 🙂

trad rimmed and spoked wheels better until you can maintain over 22mph(or is it 25?) otherwise the aeros weight is a hinderance rather than a gain

Rubbish. You get the aero advantage at all speeds – it’s just less if you’re going slower. Only on really mountainous courses is weight more important than aero, even for slow people, and very few triathlon courses are anywhere near mountainous (we’re talking Yorkshire Dales tri and the like here for those who know what that does).

It is indeed not true about wheels being the next most important though – an aero helmet is more important. Meanwhile getting a good position is far, far more important that either.