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Road Bike vs Tri Bike for Lake Placid?
Doing IMLP in 2017 (my 3rd IM - did IMMT and IMNC, previously), and wanted opinions on road bike vs. tri bike for the Placid course.
I live in PA, and am pretty good on the climbs, but my descending skills are mixed - fine on my road bike, but not that great on my tri bike. Gearing for both bikes is identical, so that is not a factor.
My main question is this: Aside from the obvious aero benefits, does riding in the aero position (versus the more upright road bike position) use fewer of the same muscles that are used for running and therefore provide fresher legs for the run?
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While that was a claim made by the primary innovators of Tri-bike geometry (steep seat tube and head tube angles), the actual advantage of using the aero position is that the cyclist requires LESS power to go the same speed. Thus, you are "fresher" not because you are using *different* muscles, rather because you are doing less work to achieve the same (or even better/faster) outcome, time-wise.
As to Lake Placid...if you can ride your tri bike in Pennsylvania, you can ride it anywhere. Keene descent is not steep per se. According to my race file, it is 4.5 miles long, drops 1165 feet, averages 6-8% gradient and took me 8:30 to cover, each time thru. I am one of the slower descenders around here, for several reasons. My biggest issue going down that was the quality, or lack thereof, of the pavement. But I reason that over the course of a 6 hour +/- bike ride, how much time would I gain by going, say, the 42 mph I might be able to on my disc brake equipped road bike instead of the cautious 30 mph I averaged. And then how much would I lose during the remaining 5:45 by not having that aero advantage, to say nothing of how much more uncomfortable it would be?
When it comes to triathlon, aero bars, like disc wheels, are always the better choice, with a few rare exceptions. Lake Placid is not one of them.
I agree, tri bike all the way.
It can get a little hairy going into Keene - I hit 50 mph towards the end (was pretty much committed at that point and had to stay with it) and it gets very choppy down there. However overall the descents at Placid are all very manageable.
The aero advantage of the tri bike will save you big chunks of time over the road bike.
The run pretty much sucks regardless of what bike you ride
Whodathunkit!!