The bike is most expensive piece of equipment you’ll buy. Technically, ANY bike will do for competing in triathlons. However, the more streamlined the bike, the faster your time will be during the bike portion of the triathlon. BUT, triathlon-ing may not be your whole life.  Before even going to the bike shop, think about what you want to do on your bike besides triathlons. Do you see yourself tooling around the trails? Riding long distances. Competing in triathlons hard core?

If you see yourself racing competitively or riding long distance group rides, you want to look at road bikes. When starting out, you may want to go cheap. You will ease the strain on your wallet, but you won’t be riding through woods.

If you see yourself hitting the trails, you want a mountain bike. These are not the best for racing, but you still can if  you buy a second set of slick tires for racing on roads.

You can buy a special triathlon bike. Triathlon bicycles are a type of of road-racing bicycles. These bikes are structured to be very aerodynamic–so wind slips over you smoothly and you ride faster with less wind resistance. These bikes tend to have a light frame, an oval or teardrop cross-section (instead of circular), flat handlebars or “aero-bars”, and wheels with fewer spokes or even discs in place of conventional spoked wheels. These will make you ultra fast, but you will be making an investment.

No matter what bike you use, whether it’s the latest $2000 tri-bike or a 20-year-old bike you got at a resale shop, the most important thing is to train, participate in the competition and complete your goal. Remember, you are undertaking a task that few have the discipline to complete. If anyone thinks less of you because of your equipment,  your retort is, “kiss my ***.”

However, you will probably find people are supportive of your effort. On my second triathlon, with my 20-year-old bike (I wasn’t ready to make the investment yet) a woman shouted out to me “you go girl on your old-school bike!”

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Filed under: gear • training for bike

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