Can I convert my Moutain Bike to a road bike for a triathlon?
Sunday, November 30th, 2008 at
6:35 pm
Handsome 3K asked:
I enjoy doing sprint triathlons, but only do two a year. I like to Mountain Bike more than I cycle. Instead of buying a road bike, can you give me some tips (hopefully cheap tips) on how to convert my biek for the road. I just put road tires on my bike and feel a huge difference.
I enjoy doing sprint triathlons, but only do two a year. I like to Mountain Bike more than I cycle. Instead of buying a road bike, can you give me some tips (hopefully cheap tips) on how to convert my biek for the road. I just put road tires on my bike and feel a huge difference.
Is there a better option than Aero bars?
Tagged with: Sprint • Tires • Triathlons
Filed under: How to...
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Your MB frame is built to be strong enough to take the offroad abuse.
Whatever you do, you are going to have extra weight in the frame, using it for a road bike.
take off the handles and rent someone elses’s ( or borrow) road bike handles and install them on yours to get rid of that extra wieght
Not too much really other than the tires and aero bars. the mountain bike is really not designed to tri use. It is oberbuilt for road riding and probably has gearing and geometry that are counter productive.
i tink..u not use to it…
once use to it shld b alrite~~
enJOy riding
Sounds like you are as far as you can go with it. I had a guy in my road bike club he did Ok with the tires and aero bars. On the cheap, nothing elase I can think of to do.
I solid fork and higher gearing would also help.
You might want to switch out the crank for a lighter one with better gearing like a 52/39/30. You might be able to switch out the cassette as well. Take off any thing you can to reduce weight. Definately get the aero bars and put them on as soon as possible. It will take some time to get used to them. Good luck.
You have done all you can do, besides perhaps buying some lighter components. If you like triathlons, get a used road bike, then you will really really feel the difference.
I think you got it – tires. Your not gonna be as aero on the MB as a road bike but hey, that’s kinda how it is.
Trying to change the bar& seat position will just mess you up.
Well.. there are some things you can do, but you can’t convert an Explorer into a Mustang.
Using narrow slic tires helps, also gearing is different, so you could change cassette and chain as well. I don’t know if you could even get a rigid fork so you could have a lighter bike.
But the wheels are smaller on a mtb (26″) vs something around 29″ for a road bike (yea yea, roadies use cc, but I think they’re similar sized to a 29″). This will probably make your bike easier to accelerate but slower in the long run. You would be running handicapped, IMHO.
MTBs and tri- bikes aren’t so different. Both are designed to race very similar distances. Road bikes are completley different animals – you’re not wanting to convert to a road bike – thats a pointless exercise.
You don’t need 27c wheels to be competitive in a triathlon – and you can certainly complete a short course event easily on converted MTB. Many of the top Japanese guys actually race on little frames with 26 inch wheels and totally kick butt.
I wouldn’t even bother swapping your bars out – if you want to optimize your riding position try working with what you’ve got on the MTB – inverting you stem will often give you a zero rise which will lower and spread you center of gravity – in effect reducing the pitch of the front diamonds angles.
You don’t need aero bars to adopt a aerodynamic riding position ! Just drop your forearms onto the top of your bars or place your thumbs over the top of your bars and clasp the stem with both palms and tuck your elbows in.( I’ve hit over 70 kph on sealed downhills on MTBs doing this). You don’t really have to put a lot of effort into controlling the bike in a triathlon – it’s pretty much point and shoot.
To convert to a rig that will really rock you will need a set of rigid forks, a new back wheel, chain, and a couple of biggish chain rings.
If you are a taller person you could try some longer cranks – jump up to175’s.
All these changes will totally depend on the size of your frame, the dish of your new rear wheel , your chain line and your bottom bracket dynamics – but if you can get these things dialed all at once by a good mechanic – there’s no need to splash the cash for a tri-bike just to hit up one or two events a year.
Don’t be put off by people telling you your MTB is too heavy. It won’t be. Now that you can draft in triathlons – who cares about weight?