hi from South Africa - Triathlon Week

hermdale · 09-03-2007, 10:05 AM

thinking about starting up for triathlons. run a few half-marathons, PB 96 mins. got a mountain bike already, is it easier to start with an Xterra tri, or should i bite the bullet, get a road bike, and do road tri's?

triNick · 09-04-2007, 08:23 AM

Greetings!!!

There is no good answer to you question. Part of the answer would be based on the amount of races of either type you have to participate in South Africa.

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I would say that if you have experience on your mountain bike and you enjoy trail running, go ahead and do some Xterra races, it's still a triathlon. Of course there are probably more normal tri's than Xterra tris around the world, so if you want to participate in more races you might need to get a road bike.

If you have a cross / hybrid mountain bike, you can still use your bike in a triathlon, you would just want to put different tires on the bike if you have knobby tires for added speed.

good luck!

chappy · 10-01-2007, 11:33 AM

I just train on my moutain bike and then rent a road bike for race day for about $25 US a day. That is pretty cost effective until I get good enough to justify the cost of a new bike.

RookieTheo · 10-12-2007, 07:11 AM

Hi, I'm also from South Africa and pretty new myself.
I just find the problem that there aren't enough exterra races and a lot of them have paddling on the first leg instead of a swim.
I don't have a kayak so I have to do road triathlons mostly. I am going to do my first Exterra in November. I'm really looking forward to it but I would like to enter more. If anyone knows of more races. Please let me know

Thanks
Theo