Am I making a mistake by minimizing cycling training?

How in the bag is your cycling? What is your average speed in a tri?

Last year on my road bike I was getting about 16 to 17 mph on rides - that being said, I didn't ride it all that much, I am not comfortable with it - it's too fast, too light, the traction is questionable, and I seriously hate being clipped in.

That is probably laughable to "real" triathletes - I have no delusions of being anywhere in contention - I expect to finish far, far down in the pack, probably in the 80th percentile area - and if 80% of the people in the race I am signed up for beat me, fine. In fact, dead lady is fine with me, because this is solely about me against me.

But in the bag, yes, in the sense that riding 12 miles is nothing.

Still, by not following the cycle portion of the training, I wonder about issues from muscle strain/fatigue transitioning between disciplines to whether I am missing out on learning something.

It sounds like you need to ride a lot more in order to become comfortable on the bike and to so that you can start to enjoy cycling. You will also find that it is really easy to make up bulk time on the bicycle leg, much more than you can by improving your swimming or running.

Thanks - I ride a lot, as much as time allows, I put in somewhere a little over 5000 miles total in the past two years - just not on the road bike. My primary bike is a hybrid, also use a fat bike in the winter and a Mt bike at times.

I just have no comfort or confidence on the road bike- too fast, too light, too sensitive to road conditions - it's like some sports car, and I am not a sports car kind of guy.

But I spent a good chunk of change on it and I am going to try to get comfortable with it before my first scheduled Tri which is last weekend in April.

If not, I can always ride my hybrid.

So 2500 miles per year?

MotownBikeBoy said:

Thanks - I ride a lot, as much as time allows, I put in somewhere a little over 5000 miles total in the past two years - just not on the road bike. My primary bike is a hybrid, also use a fat bike in the winter and a Mt bike at times.

I just have no comfort or confidence on the road bike- too fast, too light, too sensitive to road conditions - it's like some sports car, and I am not a sports car kind of guy.

But I spent a good chunk of change on it and I am going to try to get comfortable with it before my first scheduled Tri which is last weekend in April.

If not, I can always ride my hybrid.

Ride your road bike everywhere.

If you're concentrating on using the road bike for riding Tri's, why not just buy a tri bike to start with?

:huh:

The coach running the program didn't recommend a dedicated tri bike, his opinion was it is too stiff and the posture in the saddle is too low to be comfortable for beginners.

And it's a done deal at this point by over a year.

I know, man up and do it.

Despite being what I consider the hardest part of the sport, a sprint Tri's swim is pretty short. The difference in time between a good swimmer and average is just a few minutes. You do need to swim well enough to finish and be able to ready to ride. More time can be gained by being faster on the bike and the run.

Per wikipedia, a sprint tri's bike leg is 12 miles. The ones I participate are all longer than that - 16 to 25 miles. But let's use 12 miles as the reference. Twelve miles at 17mph takes about 42 minutes, at 1mph faster you drop 2 minutes. I suspect that you have a lot of "free" speed that you are not taking advantage of and getting a few more mph would take little effort in training and positioning. Dropping 2 minutes off the swim is a big deal and take considerably more effort.

Gains in biking and running will translate into more time saved than gains in swimming.