- Morning, Trainiacs.
We got some bike decisions to make.
Go for the OG road bike, the new road bike?
No?
Is it a tri bike kinda day?
What about the entry-level Ventum, the Ventum Z?
No, no?
(grunts)
We're taking the fat bike out for a ride.
Now, a lot of the beginner triathletes out there
might be going like, how many bikes do I need?
Well, the answer is, just one.
These are bikes that you accumulate
over the course of many, many years.
Don't stress about it.
And when you're ready to step up to your first tri bike,
we're gonna give you some guidance
on which tri bike you should get,
what you should look for, and how you should
go about buying your very first tri bike,
because you wanna make sure that you don't pay more
than you need to.
You wanna make sure that you're gonna buy something
that has value for a long time.
You wanna make sure that your total cost
is a really good value.
Good bang for the buck.
And you're dealing with somebody from Winnipeg.
I'm professionally cheap.
Dealing with a pro, here.
(energetic groovy music)
We don't get hills like this in triathlon.
What do I do with this.
Whoa.
However, you don't see this is triathlon.
Just a tad more scenery on the fat bike.
Just reviewing that sweet jump footage.
That looked way cooler in my mind.
I felt like I was so high up in the air, but not.
So, Trainiacs, as you get into, (grunts)
get into the sport, a lot of you
might be looking at people like me,
rolling around transition with bikes like this
that cost upwards of $15,000
and thinking that this is what you have to do.
I assure you, that is very much not the case.
And I can show you by like my experience
that you do not need a super expensive bike
to do well in triathlon.
And the reason that I know that
is because I have done as fast
as a 31-minute sprint triathlon, 20K bike.
I think it was a 1:04 Olympic-distance triathlon 40K bike
on a fairly tough course.
And I did those bike splits with a $600 triathlon bike
that I actually got for super cheap
because it was in a fire.
Like, literally, it was browned and in a fire.
And when I actually qualified
for the 2018 Half Ironman World Championships
with one of the fastest bike splits in the day
at 70.3 Austin, I did that on a bike
that I borrowed from the local bike shop.
It was an entry-level Cervelo P2
with really basic Shimano 105 components.
Like, a $3000 bike, nothing too terribly fancy.
You can still put out very fast times on a tri bike
that doesn't have to look like this super sexy beast.
In fact, in our book, "Triathlon Bike Foundations,"
which has 100% five-star reviews on Amazon,
I outline the start to finish,
what's the first thing triathletes should buy?
What's the second thing?
What's the third thing?
What's the fourth thing?
And it is all the way up until the 10th thing
into the bike that I recommend that you get a tri bike.
Like, it's way, way into the lifecycle
of being a triathlete, because I think
that you can do fairly well with whatever bike
you have access to.
And it's not until you say, all right, you know what?
I've done a few triathlons, I'm committed to doing more,
I'm gonna be doing this for a few seasons,
that you really even need to think about buying a tri bike.
So now that you don't have to stress
about buying a tri bike right away
if you're a total beginner, what happens
if you have decided, okay, I'm in the sport,
I'm going to be in for a little while,
what kind of tri bike is the best bike for a beginner?
Well, really it doesn't matter,
but I think that there are three main things
that you should consider
when you're buying your very first tri bike.
Number one, I think
that if you are buying a beginner tri bike,
and that's anything that's under $4000,
in that case, try to look for something that is used.
And the reason that I say this
is because bikes are like cars.
They depreciate very, very quickly.
And specifically in that beginner triathlon bike market,
there are a lot of tri bikes that become available.
So A, that makes it easier to find a good tri bike
that's used, and B, it becomes harder
if you buy a more high-end tri bike
to end up reselling it and making your money back.
So what you will end up doing, typically,
is you will have a beginner tri bike,
your first tri bike, and then several years later,
I guarantee you're going to want to upgrade from that.
And if you have a ton of money into it,
you're gonna take a big loss.
But if you've already bought that bike used
and it's still in good shape, maybe just two seasons old,
you can ride it for a season or two
and then once you decide that you're going
to be even more into the sport for lifetime
and you can invest upwards of five to $15,000
on a bike, at that point, you can potentially sell
that bike that you bought used for close
to what you bought it for.
Now, if you are buying your first tri bike
and money isn't an option and you're going
over the $4000 mark, in that case,
then it's a luxury purchase and you're not looking
to make money or even preserve money, buy whatever you like.
But if you're looking at doing that beginner,
entry-level tri bike, ideally look for something used.
Next, and this is a big thing, with the groupset,
with the crank arms, with the shifters,
look for either Shimano Ultegra,
Shimano Dura Ace, SRAM Force, or SRAM Red.
What's gonna happen is if you end up buying
those entry-level Shimano 105 or SRAM groupsets,
when you go to resell that bike,
there are going to be a heck of a lot
of competitors out there that have the same components,
the Shimano 105
and the comparable entry-level SRAM groupset.
Now, if you have a slightly nicer groupset,
A, it's going to wear a little bit better,
B, it's going to be just a little bit nicer
to ride while you have the bike, and C, it's going
to set your bike apart from all of the other bikes out there
because there are so many beginner bikes out there
that are getting resold.
If yours has slightly nicer components,
it's going to end up holding its value a little bit better.
And then the third thing is, if I had
to recommend one brand over the other, I love my Ventum.
I legitimately think that it is a game-changing bike
because of the lack of the downtube,
which I'll talk about in another video,
and they have the Ventum Z,
which is their entry-level tri bike,
that still lacks that downtube.
But for people who don't have mechanical experience,
they need a bike that basically builds in
some sort of protection for the whoops factor.
The what happens if I get to a race
and something bad happens?
And in that case, you're going to be a lot safer
if you have a more common bike.
Now, I will say, a lot of the parts and bolts
and everything that are on the Ventum bike
are so easy to find that you can go to Home Depot
and find them, but its more specific parts,
you'd be better off with one of,
we list this in the book here,
one of the 10 most common bikes.
And what we use for that, in this book,
is the top 10 most common bikes
at the Ironman World Championship,
based on the Kona bike count.
And those bikes are Cervelo, Trek, Specialized,
Felt, Canyon, Argon 18, Scott, BMC, Quintana Roo, and Giant.
If something goes wrong with one of those bikes,
and particularly if you have Shimano components
as opposed to SRAM, again, I love SRAM,
but Shimano components with one of those top 10 bikes,
at just about every Ironman event,
you're going to have a tent or a booth
with a lot of the components and parts
that are on those bikes and are on that groupset.
So if something does go wrong at the race,
or even at home, and you don't yet
have a really good relationship with a local bike shop,
odds are much better that they're going to be able
to fix it for you fairly quickly.
And then beyond that, for your first tri bike,
if you're on a budget, stick to those principles
and then just buy any bike that you like the look of.
The color doesn't matter, the exact real manufacturer,
it doesn't really matter.
The exact groupset, it doesn't really matter.
As long as you stick to that ideally, a used bike,
ideally, a very common bike, ideally, Ultegra
or Dura Ace components, you're gonna have a bike
that is really, really fast, that is easy to work on,
that is easy to repair,
that has a big kind of built-in buffer
for the oops factor, and you're gonna be able
to resell that bike when you do want to buy
that dream bike in a few years for very close
to what you paid for.
And then, all of a sudden, you can get the super bike.
So Trainiacs, I hope that that guide helps out.
If you wanna check out more things that you should buy,
go check out "Triathlon Bike Foundations"
at triathlonbikefoundations.com.
That's where you can get the ebook, the audio book,
or if you want the paperback book,
this little, that thing right there,
you can get that at all of the Amazons all around the world.
Go check it out, go buy a bike.
Buying bikes are fun.
Later, Trainiacs.