Swimmer to tri training... Don't own a bike

Welcome! I have never trained on an indoor bike only, I do know someone who has. She and I talked in depth about it. The one thing I remember her saying is train hard on a spin bike, harder than you think necessary. And do bricks, bike/runs all the time.
Any bike will do for your first tri. By all means borrow one, even a mountain bike will work. Remember have fun.

Welcome to tri! If you are a confident swimmer, then that is one one big battle already won. (Many new triathletes seem to have minimal to no swim background.) No bike can be a handicap, but it's still possible to train to finish and even to be competitive at some level. For the first (I think) three years after I started tri, I did not have a bike trainer and rarely rode outside for training, though I did own a road bike. I'd guess that 85-90% of my training was on a stationary at the gym. (Occasionally I'd do a longer ride outside.) The advantage of training indoors is that you safely can work VERY hard and do very structured workouts to maximize training effect in a shorter time. Of course it would be better to do this on one's own bike, but if the alternative is not biking at all, or only biking once every week or so when one has time to go somewhere safe to do that, then it starts to look like a good option. I think I podiumed a couple of times in my age group and even won a smaller event overall, while mainly training on the gym stationary.

What worked for me was:

1. Consistently using the same bike, or at least the same type of bike. This is so you can compare power (see below) day to day.
2. Using some kind of metric to gauge intensity of workouts. Avoid "speed" and "distance" if possible--they don't make much sense on those bikes. If the bike has a watt meter (power), use that. Otherwise, you can use heart rate. Power is better, because it gives you a concrete way to see progress. With heart rate, you will just be able to bike "harder" at the same HR; power (a combo of cadence and force) quantifies "harder". (Assume you like numbers and data if training to be a CPA!)
3. Following a structured training program--Jorge's on this website is great but kind of brutal unless you are really focused on biking. Or just the bike workouts in a solid sprint tri program for beginners.
4. Making sure to ride outside sometime before the race to get used to bike handling, drinking, and (maybe--some don't for sprint) eating on the bike.

Thanks! I wasn't quite sure, but hearing that other people have done something similar before helps. I'll definitely make sure to do some brick workouts and train harder on the bike part than I was originally planning.

Hi, thank you for the information and including what worked for you.

I do like numbers and data and plan to track my process. Luckily the cycling classes helped me get familiar with the stationary bikes, so your tips make sense! I wasn't sure how to plan for training, but I'll glance around for some more bike specific workouts for beginner triathletes, including Jorge's. I definitely feel more confident about just training on a stationary bike with your advice.

 

Well...when I was in College I had some friends doing a Duathlon.  They wanted me to do it with them but I didn't have a bike.  It was three days before the race too so I didn't have time to train on the bike even if I did so I told them firmly I wasn't going to do the race.  Well...they gave me a loner bike and I did the race.  I was a strong runner, but when little old gray haired ladies with baskets on the front of their handle bars started passing me I swore I would never do a multi-sport road race on a beefy mountain bike again. 

 

So, 8 years later when friends were signing up for a Sprint Tri and wanted me to join them I called my brother who is the cyclist in the family to see if I could borrow a bike.  My brother came though with a racing road bike and after a painfully slow swim I had plenty of people to pass on the bike and was flying by them on the fast bike. Note: I didn't train on the bike.  I did run training and just biked at the race with no bike training (not recommended but its what I did).

 

 

So, jump forward 8 more years and there was a 70.3 Triathlon in my hometown minutes from my front door.  I had seen the Triathletes racing as I drove through town in previous years and wanted to be a participant the next time the race was in town.  I had a mountain bike and though that would work for training but looked up the bike shop that was paired with the race company for the event to inquire about bike rentals.  They had fast race bikes available but they wouldn't let me pick up my rental at the race expo.  They wanted me to drive over an hour away to their shop to pick up the bike.  Well, the race line being minutes from my front porch was useless if I had to make a 2+ hour round trip to pick up a bike and then to drop it off before/after the race.  So...I decided to look for a street bike in the classifieds.  I figured that if I could find a used street bike faster than my Mountain Bike for $200-$300 I would take it.  If not I would do the 56 miles on my mountain bike and just keep reminding myself that I was not racing those gray haired ladies and pace myself to finish the race at my own speed.  Well...I found an Aluminum Frame TT bike for $300.  It made training a ton of fun.  So much that I decided to not go back to running after the local 70.3 but to stick with triathlons.

 

So...

1) See if friends or family have a bike that you can use free of charge

2) See if there is a bike shop that will rent you a bike for the race and do all you bike training at your spin class

3) watch the classifieds.  I didn't find one my bike the first week of searching nor the 2nd or 3rd week, but I kept watching and when I found a deal that was too good to pass up I jumped on it.  

Edited by BlueBoy26 2017-03-31 4:02 PM

True--you do need to start looking for a bike for the race, and preferably NOT a MTB. The story above reminds me of my own start in tri. My very first race had a substantial off-road section on the bike leg, and we were required to ride mountain bikes, so it wasn't an issue--I rented one and held my own on the bike, though it wasn't my strength. At that point I only had a "bell and basket" type bike here in Vietnam, that I used for errands and commuting. I actually did a few, very casual "training" rides on that around a local industrial park (which is, believe it or not, where a lot of people train here--they open it to cyclists on Sundays).

My next race, though, was an Olympic distance one on the roads, but I rode a similar rental MTB. Out of 136 participants (male and female, all ages), I think my times for each leg put me 12th on the swim, 123rd on the bike, and 9th on the run. I will leave the utter humiliation of that bike leg up to your imagination. Basically I went from front to back of the pack (it was a mass start, too, so ALL those people passed me.) Let's just say that most/all of the people behind me either had a flat or other mechanical issue, were over 70, more than 100 pounds overweight, or missing a limb or two. (I am not exaggerating.) The main issue is that a MTB is super-heavy and isn't built to go very fast on the roads no matter how hard you work. It is like driving a tank in the Indy 500. Especially an issue for a very light rider like me. By the end, I was ready to throw the bike in the ocean! One of my age group competitors kindly pointed out after the event that I may well have won overall had I been riding a road bike. (Actually I did the following year, the only tri I've ever won overall for women!) I think I went road bike shopping a few weeks after the race.

I would definitely borrow/rent a road bike (spend some extra time getting used to it before the race if you have not ridden one before), and if you decide you want to continue in tri, look around for a good used road bike that fits well, as well as a bike trainer (like a stand that makes your own bike into a stationary.) My guess is that with some shopping around, you can find those for under $800 total. Tri bike, aerobars, power meters, and those other fancy things can come later if you have the interest and budget.

Edited by Hot Runner 2017-03-31 7:43 PM

https://youtu.be/pJZ2HyyFPd4


Dude built a 15lb road bike for 1k...