Tri / Triathlon / Triathlons - do they float your boat?

In my experience cycling without socks is fine, but if you have to have then for running you may as we'll put them on for the bike too!

Bought a garmin forerunner 910 on eBay yesterday as one came up with a bin and terrible listing for £165, I just hope the seller didn't lie over emails about condition, so I'm all set to be a proper slevlss I'm looking forward to not having to count laps in the pool anymore! Just need to flog a bunch of stuff to pay for it!

In my experience cycling without socks is fine, but if you have to have then for running you may as we'll put them on for the bike too!

Bought a garmin forerunner 910 on eBay yesterday as one came up with a bin and terrible listing for £165, I just hope the seller didn't lie over emails about condition, so I'm all set to be a proper slevlss I'm looking forward to not having to count laps in the pool anymore! Just need to flog a bunch of stuff to pay for it!

What are you currently using? I might try to eBay a cheap 310xt. I use a cheap Forerunner10 and during the Tri I stoped it at T2 but forgot to start again until ~2km in to the run......

Funny you should mention it, but I've been using a forerunner 305, which does the cycling and running very well, although like the 310 it's a bit bulky! which is now for sells for cheap!

£50 without a premium hr strap or. £70 with!

Thats cheap indeed.. Do you swim with it? And maybe a dumb question, can you wear your hr strap while swimming?

You can, but it doesn't read at all - the signal is attenuated too much through water.

It's not about the signal really, just about having it on so you wont have to get under your suit to strap it on in T1. Didn't know they were water resistant. Thanks!

Yes I swim with the hr strap, but as mentioned above it's not even worth having it on as it makes getting my wetsuit of more tricky and doesn't record much other than the time, I've got a quick release for the bars of my bike and a strap it clicks onto, so I put the strap on at t1 then remove the computer and click it onto the strap in t2.

Obviously straps and quick releases come with it.

Hi.

I did a couple of sprint triathlons last year and might do a couple more this year as my GF got really into them over the past three years or so.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, I did the last two on a SS Pompino which ain't really a tri bike(!) and found myself spinning out on the flats.

So that fact, coupled with my rash purchasing has landed me an old, light Cannondale 2.8 frame with some aggressive geo and I was gonna turn that into a tri bike.

Now to the question at hand: gearing.

I've read around a bit and am thinking 1x10 with 50 up front and 12-26 on the rear (or thereabouts). I might want to take the bike riding on non-tri routes so the bigger cassette cogs are for hills.

I ride 48x18 SS around town and my area - Streatham up towards Crystal Palace - has some biggish hills.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Surely the cheapest option would be getting a smaller rear cog on the pomp?

I'd be tempted to turn the cannondale into a proper road bike with clip ons if that isn't a suitable option.

^ Is a SS with a big gear is a good idea for a tri? Nearing the end of the bike leg, you want to be upping your cadence ready for the run, no?

May be manageable in a sprint, but for anything longer I'd probably want more than one gear.

Well I bought the Cannondale frame on impulse so I'm not going to bother re-cogging the pomp for any tri's.

I'm building this bike for fast, flat riding - that much is for sure - it's just how I go about it that's the question.

Normal (2x10) gearing with the appropriate chainring/cassette combination?

I regularly find myself in the little ring either during TT warmups or rests between intervals, or on hills during Tris where I want to prevent my power from spiking.

Then again I've got spindly little legs...

Some people on some forum or other said to go double up front for warm up/down and "grovelling back to HQ".

This is completely new territory for me.

Even worse... I run a compact on most of my bikes.

I'm considering a double for the TT bike because this year I'm mainly doing shorter races but I'll probably stick with compact in case I go back to long distance racing next year.

Having done Iron on a fixie, wouldn't really recommend it, unless you just want to say that you've done an IM on a fixie, like I have.

I did an Iron Man fixed once.

For all you know that might be true. You don't know me - this is the internet.

Anyway - thanks for the advice. Having crunched the numbers I reckon I could get away with 1x10 with the lowest ratio at about 35GI. I'm off to the cycle jumble on Saturday and I'll see what I pick up.

Woo my club are subsidising entry into the bananman team time trial again this year, 3up racing for swim bike and run, was great fun last year and hopefully this year I'm fast enough to make the club a team.

Although dorney is boring normally, being able to do a proper team time trial was ridiculously fun and fast.

Anyone doing crystal palace this weekend?
Happy to shout free encouraging abuse

2 weeks till Windsor - anyone on here doing it?

Will be good for the bike and swim, looking at my trIning I might struggle towards the end of the run as I haven't done more than 10k in months!

Thinking of doing one for looming mid-life crisis; got a couple of years to get myself into good shape. I think this quote sums up my thinking best:-

Tri's great - being mediocre at 3 things makes you pretty good overall. Go in at whatever distance sounds most fun / challenge / suited to you - I'm slow but have endurance, so started at IM and still haven't done sprint or Oly.

2 weeks till Windsor - anyone on here doing it?

Will be good for the bike and swim, looking at my trIning I might struggle towards the end of the run as I haven't done more than 10k in months!

Cockpunch all the cunts that throw all their wrappers over the place. I rode down there the day/week? after that last year and there were gel wrappers and bottles and shit everywhere. Fucking losers >>>

Yep, it really pisses me off especially at dorney lake where there are tonnes of wild animals about and loads of discarded junk, people seem to enter a different mindset when "racing" - how much extra time is putting that wrapper back in your pocket going to cost you?! At the same time organisers should take responsibility and clean up as well and maybe give a time penalty to anyone spotted littering...

Yes littering is one of my pet peeves, racing or not. I see a discarded gel wrapper of some sort or another on just about every ride I do and loads during TTs and Tris. Last TT I just shoved the spent wrapper back up the leg of my shorts because I don't have pockets and in an ultra once ran 20miles carrying a couple of spent gel wrappers because I couldn't find a bin... it's not that hard and littering is a disgrace.

I wish I had the photo of me emptying my skinsuit leg of gel wrappers after the finish of the National 24hr..

It's for another thread, but last year I tried taking a photo a day every day for the year.

It's my contention that I don't believe I ever go a single day without seeing some kind of litter (and I live in the middle of the countryside). This upsets me and so, inspired by the "photo of the day" project, I thought about starting a photo blog where posted a daily photo of litter. Obviously I then pick the litter up and bin it, but I don't think I'll need to work hard at all to spot some litter every day. Sad.