- It's time for TT vs. Road Bike.
I've compared them on a climb
and I've compared them on a descent
with some interesting findings.
So I suppose it just leaves me to compare them on the flat.
But hang on, I know what you're thinking,
there is no comparison.
A TT bike is born and bred for the flat.
It's designed to go fast, and I have to agree.
But how about we throw in some technical sections.
I mean after all not all triathlon courses
are pan flat out and back along a highway.
Quite often have to navigate technical sections.
In some cases in the first and last couple of kilometres
is when you have to navigate
in the town the event is held in.
So what is the difference between
these two bikes in those situations?
Well today I'm going to be riding
my Cervelo P5X time trial bike and my Cervelo S5 road bike.
Admittedly, one has rim brakes
while the other has disc brakes,
but they're the same bikes I've ridden
on the hill climb and the descent
and I just like riding them.
(bright music)
Now before we get stuck into the technical section,
I'm still interested to see the difference between
the two bikes in a pan flat time trial.
We're all expecting the TT bike to come out on top,
but it'd be interesting to see the difference
and then that'll give us a good benchmark
when we're going into the technical comparison.
So what I'm going to do is ride both bikes
at 350 Watts over a three kilometre
straight section behind me here, as simple as that.
See what the times are after.
I'm gonna ride the road bike first.
Okay, run one, let's go.
(bright music)
Okay I should have checked out
the wind direction before that.
That was hard work.
Now for run two on the TT bike.
Lets go.
(bright music)
Okay that was hardly a huge surprise.
So now lets move onto the bit we're all looking forward to.
Well, I am at least.
Behind me I have a three kilometre
technical section of road.
It's got a bit of everything really.
It's got sharp 90 degree bends,
it's got sweeping fence, it's got bends into bends,
it's even got a slight incline.
I'll be honest, it doesn't leave many opportunities
to use the aero bars on the TT bike.
Which is kind of what I'm after.
In addition to that, it's been raining pretty heavily.
But that's the kind of stuff
you have to deal with on race day.
So it's perfect.
Right, timed run number one, lets go.
(bright music)
Okay lets see how the TT bike compares now.
Run two, lets go.
(bright music)
Okay the moment of truth.
We've come in from the rain to check out the results.
So here we go.
The road bike, I went 4:51,
which is a bit quicker than I was expecting actually.
Then on the TT bike I went 4:59.
So a fraction slower, even though I was able
to get into the aero bars on the TT bike for a brief moment,
I did feel like I was losing a lot more time
on the corners particularly in the wet
just because I've got so much
more weight over the front end.
I was worried about losing the
front wheel and the traction there.
Does it mean I'll be switching
to a road bike for non drafting races?
Probably not.
I mean that's still a relatively small amount of time
and not all courses really are gonna have
that much technical sections during the race,
only brief moments and I'd actually say
any time lost in those technical sections
is gonna be far outweighed by the time gained
on those straight flat sections on a TT bike.
So TT bike all the way for me.
But hey you this isn't the most thorough investigation.
This is just one example of a
technical route on my doorstep.
But it's still thought provoking,
and I'll be honest this is something I've wanted
to try out for years so hopefully
you found it as interesting as I have.
If you'd like to see more videos like this
from GTN you can click on the globe and subscribe.
And if you'd like to see our other TT vs. road bike videos
you can see the hill climb video up here
and you can see the descending video here.