Beginner triathletes who are just getting into the sport really quickly start
getting overwhelmed with the amount of gear that they have to buy.
I don't blame them.
It can quickly add up to thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars,
and the bike is by far the biggest money pit in triathlon.
Get a triathlon helmet, get electronic shifting.
You need a power meter.
Are your wheel 60 mm deep or 80 mm deep?
Do you ride tubeless 25, five tires or tubed 23s?
How have you mounted your bike computer to improve aerodynamics in a cross width?
The list of things you can optimize for is never ending.
And the advice that's typically given
by coaches and triathletes is to just gradually pick away at purchasing
the $15,000 or more worth of gear they feel every triathlete needs to have.
As a result, new triathletes either get intimidated and don't even get
into triathlon, or they follow the advice sacrificing their kids education,
or they might just buy whatever they can as money becomes available.
But it's without a system and they purchase the wrong things.
All of these options suck for beginner
triathletes, which is why we are going to straighten your way here and now
with the five critical things that total beginners should worry about and how
to deal with these items, even if they have a small budget.
What's up, Motivators? My name is Taren.
When ordinary people want to accomplish
something extraordinary in endurance sports, they choose motive training plans.
Let's do it.
What we're going to accomplish
with the following five setup tweaks you can make is being comfortable on your
bike, being aerodynamic, being faster, all with whatever bike it is that you have.
You don't need to spend $5,000 or more to be really fast in triathlon.
In some cases, you might just need an Allen key
and a little bit more knowledge than the average newbie.
Let's start off with your dirty bits,
because that's what causes all the problems.
The Saddle one of the biggest mistakes new triathletes make is not getting the right
saddle before doing anything else with their bike.
First off, you absolutely need a split nose triathlon saddle.
As you lean forward onto your aerobars, a normal saddle will put pressure on your
mummy daddy buttons, making your bike almost unridable.
Second, your saddle position needs to be correct.
It needs to be roughly level and at a height where when your leg is
fully extended, your heel just barely grazes the top of the pedal.
And in a forward and backward position
that is right for you, you just need to play with this forward
and backward position until you hit that spot that feels just right.
Without the right saddle,
you're not going to be able to put any power into the pedals,
you're not going to be able to sit in the aero position very long,
and you're not going to even want to do much training.
Next, related to that saddle position is an issue that's really common to new
triathletes, and it's getting the seat into a proper triathlon riding position.
You see, most new triathletes start
by using a road bike with clip on aero bars, and that's totally cool.
I would actually encourage that.
But the problem with this is that the seat
position on a road bike is further back than the seat is on a tribike.
So when you lean forward on a road bike, your hips get scrunched up and you burn
out your glutes and quads unevenly, resulting in cramped city on the run.
If you're using a triathlon bike, this isn't a problem.
But if you're using a road bike, you can ideally flip your seat,
post around in reverse, and move your seat as far forward as
possible to open up your hips, setting yourself up for a much better run.
With your butt in the right spot, it's time to get your arms position better.
For decades, triathletes thought that lower was always better.
With the front end, aerobars pros were totally slammed right onto their headset.
It looked cool, but they weren't very
comfortable, and in a lot of cases, they weren't even very fast.
This super low position creates a ton of tension in the upper body.
You'll fidget or even sit up, losing all of your aerodynamics.
And beyond that, this cool looking low
and level position just creates a big wind scoop between your arms and your body.
Fortunately, wind tunnel testing has
taught us that even flexible pros are more comfortable and in a lot of cases,
even more aerodynamic when they're brought up a little bit with an upward angle
of their arms to take the tension out of their upper body.
If you've got a pair of clipon arrow bars, you can simply angle them up.
Or if you're lucky enough to have a modern triathlon bike like this Canyon Speed Max,
the aero bars are built to be adjusted upwards because bike manufacturers have
learned they were inflicting medieval torture on triathletes.
The next mistake new triathletes make isn't their fault at all.
It's the position of water bottles on the bike.
Road bikes like this Canyon Ultimate, have bottle cages on the down tube,
like most bikes do, so that they're easy to grab.
This is fine on a road bike where
aerodynamics isn't really as important as it is on a tribe.
The best places for your bottle cages on a triathlon bike that are almost
invisible to the wind are in behind your saddle, where you can fit two bottles,
and horizontally between your arms, where you can fit one more bottle.
Spend $50 to $100 on bottle mounts
in these two places, and you will have some of the same
aerodynamic gains that cost most triathletes thousands of dollars.
Finally, the last thing that's slowing new triathletes down is the helmet they wear.
This one is one of the best dollar for speed purchases that you can make again.
Coaches and triathletes have always said that if you really want to be fast
on the bike, you need to get a long tail triathlon helmet.
The problem with this is that it's only more aerodynamic if you don't move your
head whatsoever and aren't in any crosswinds at all.
I've done some personal testing and even checked with wind tunnel experts who say
that in a lot of cases, the triathlon helmets aren't actually any
more aerodynamic than what triathletes especially beginner triathletes really
should be getting, that is an aero road helmet.
New triathletes should always make
the main helmet that they get an aero road helmet.
This is a helmet that looks a lot like
a road helmet but is a little bit more closed in, so it's a lot more aerodynamic.
In a lot of cases, they're just as fast or maybe even faster than some of the long
tail triathlon helmets because you can move your head around comfortably
and they're not as uncomfortable in the crosswinds.
They're as big a speed improvement as a set of new multi thousand dollar wheels.
You can use this same helmet
for triathlons, road rides, mountain biking and casual rides.
It's really one helmet to rule them all.
Make these five changes and you'll be comfortable on the bike so that you'll be
able to hold an aerodynamic position throughout your entire race.
That's how you get truly fast in triathlon.
Your bike and your gear will be set up
to be as fast as possible, all while maybe only spending a few hundred dollars.
Of course, if you catch the triathlon bug and decide to start spending some money
on it, then go hog wild and start buying all the gear.
But for now, while you're just getting started, you can get an excellent setup
that will take you a long way with these few adjustments.
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If you are struggling to get comfortable
on your bike, this video the entire playlist attached will take you through
the basic bite fit process that you can do yourself at home with some basic tools
to make cycling as fast and fun and comfortable as possible later.
Motivator.