Triathlon bikes have made cycling better for you, even if you don’t ride one 

Despite being optimised for a specialist cycling discipline, the best triathlon bikes have improved tech for all cyclists, even those of us who don’t ride them.

Triathlon and TT bikes are often described as the Formula 1 cars of cycling. Their uncompromising focus on speed may seem detached from the more practical and versatile bikes we ride day to day. But like in F1, technological advances and expertise trickle down from the peak of research and development to benefit consumers. 

A Mercedes F1 car might one day have a positive aerodynamic influence on the company’s saloon, which improves fuel efficiency. Likewise drag-reducing tricks on triathlon bikes often find their way on to less race-focused bikes, helping us ride faster for less effort. 

Here, I’ll explain three more ways triathlon bikes have benefitted everyday riders, whether you ride one or not.

Internal storage 

Integrated frame storage is ubiquitous on off-road bikes these days and it’s becoming increasingly common on endurance road bikes. 

After testing a couple of bikes with an internal storage compartment, I became a big fan of the feature. Saddle bags get filthy on the trails and are prone to rattle and sway whereas frame storage keeps the spares you need secure and makes that puncture repair kit harder to forget. 

So I made sure the gravel bike frameset I bought recently had down tube storage.

Who do mountain bikers and gravel and road cyclists have to thank for this handy innovation? Well, it seems as though triathlon bike designers looked at a tri bike’s oversized, aero-profiled down tube and saw an opportunity to carry things there without spoiling the frame’s carefully developed aerodynamics. 

Road cycling would never have spawned this idea because racers are followed by team cars and mechanics, but long-course triathletes have to be largely self-sufficient in the event of a flat while still having the fastest bike possible. 

Internal frame storage was the neat solution, which designers of other kinds of bikes have developed to their needs. 

Short-nose saddles

Many cyclists, myself included, prefer to ride short-nose saddles these days. The shorter length and potential presence of a central cut-out means there’s less soft-tissue pressure as you tilt forward to try to get aero. 

This is another welcome innovation that triathlon bikes deserve credit for. The best triathlon saddles are often short with a cut-off, stubby nose designed for the extremely forwards position the fastest triathletes hold. 

Seeing how effective this shape was at opening the hip angle to boost power output and comfort, saddle designers mimicked this shape on road bike saddles. It also allowed them to comply with the UCI’s 5cm saddle rule. This stipulates that the tip of the saddle has to be 5cm behind an imaginary vertical line going through the bottom bracket, so with a shorter saddle you can sit further forward. 

Higher and faster 

Triathletes have long known that a high stack and long reach is faster than going lower and shorter because the position is easier to hold and it reduces the gap between your head and arms. 

Surely but surely, a similar realisation is dawning in the much less progressive world of road cycling. Walking through the pits at the start of a WorldTour cycling race this year, I was struck by how many pros were running under their stems. This bucks the road cycling trend of slamming the stem as low as possible for aerodynamics and aesthetic reasons. 

I welcomed seeing this for a few reasons. Personally it validated a change a bike fitter had made to my own Canyon Ultimate last year. Once I’d felt the benefit, I predicted road cycling pros would start going higher too. I also hope that fewer amateurs put up with an uncomfortably low front-end because it’s what stronger and more flexible pros do. Not to mention that, as a cycling tech journalist, any progress in bikes is cool to see. 

So what role did triathlon bikes play in this trend? Well, we have to go back to the start of the 2023 season when a UCI rule change enabled taller time-trialists to increase stack and reach in proportion to their height. In time-trials, this has resulted in WorldTour cyclists riding triathlon-inspired higher and longer positions. I believe that the effectiveness of this on a TT bike has prompted pros such as Stefan Kung to raise their road bike position. 

As a result, it’s possible that future generations of the best road bikes for triathlon will feature a higher stack, so you’ll have to run fewer spacers to have a comfortable and aerodynamic position.

What’s next for triathlon bikes?

Triathlon bikes are a specialist kind of bike that are expensive to design and produce but don’t sell in massive numbers. Increasingly major brands are merging their tri and TT bikes into one UCI-compliant model that can be adapted for either discipline. 

Having fewer frame moulds saves manufacturers money, so it probably makes good business sense, which in a way could safeguard rather than threaten the future of triathlon bikes. 

Even as more forms of short-course triathlon emerge, where a tri bike brings less benefit, and amateur participation in Iron-distance races dwindles, I hope triathlon bikes remain viable.

The specific and exacting nature of the sport they’re raced in has generated numerous technological improvements. After being tweaked for different disciplines, these innovations have benefited most kinds of cyclists. Long may it continue.