Hey all. Aging triathlete here. Purchased my one and only tri bike about 14 years ago. Sort of an impulse purchase to be honest. It’s been fine, but I think it’s time to consider an upgrade.
Any tips on how to get smart about choosing a bike? I know fit is the most essential part. And I understand that different bikes will fit differently. But I’m not sure how to go about evaluating those bikes relative to me. I’m considering getting a fit in advance of buying a new bike so I can get a sense of what type/brand of bike might be best for me.
Did you get any further with this? I had a cheapie Tri bike for 10 years and upgraded to a nice one when I was stepping up to full distance. I can’t quite believe but that was 2015.
What I did, and would do again in a shot, was see a bike fit specialist in advance. He took all the various measurements and compared them to the geometry of basically all available bikes. We narrowed it down to a handful where my key geometry measurements sat in the middle of a given size. I.e. where I was on the cusp of L and XL we discounted, where I was bang on in the middle of an XL then that went on the list.
After purchase I went back to have everything set up perfectly. It was a road bike and I had tri bars fitted as part of that session. (Almost of my riding is around the local hills so a road bike+bars was more preferable to a TT bike).
The initial fit for done on a Retul bike. It is basically a fully adjustable stationary bike (looks quite like a Kickr!) so they can nail down exactly what is right for you. They film you and measure everything from every angle.
The bike I ended up with I’ve had now for 5 1/2 years now and it has never once caused an issue. I revisited the fitter once a couple of years ago to get things checked and we made some minor tweaks but the whole experience was excellent. I would recommend wholeheartedly.
I think the best way to start the process is to use the stack and reach measurements. You can measure these from your existing bike, and then compare those numbers to other frames. It will help you start to narrow down the choices to those that are similar to your current setup.
A couple of links here, but there are plenty of others:
FWIW, I used this approach when buying my new gravel bike, and it worked out well for me.