tri bike or road bike

As a beginner to true cycling, I was convinced that I would not be skilled enough with the aeros, clipless, etc, etc and also thought I might ride some fun rides with brewery tours tacked on em, so I went with a Cervelo One road bike and had them fit me with an aero set up.  I still love her lots and we have grown a lot together.  That said, I hope to soon get a true tri bike as the distances grow BUT I will be doing a lot of test riding to convince me that there is a true benefit to me.  So to sum it up, I went road due to:

1.  Limited riding ability

2.  In case I did more 'social' type touring rides

3.  Lack of balls to go full aero off the bat

All in all, I keep getting faster on er and I was able to run a 19:30 5k off of her in my sprint in early June, which aint too shabby off the pace of my regular top end 5k's.

I was intending to buy a tri bike last year, but the guys at my LBS persuaded me to buy a road bike instead.  They told me that I didn't need a tri bike until I was "doing more than seven triathlons per year".  (no, I don't have a clue where they came up with that).

Well I bought a road bike, a Cannondale R700, and really do like it.  But at the same time 99% percent of my riding has been either training for, or racing in, triathlons.   A tri bike would have worked just fine too.   

I've considered buying a new tri bike, but at this point my road bike isn't my limiting factor - I am.  My Cannondale is still faster than I can ride it.  Once I start wearing out my 11T sprocket all the time then maybe I'll start shopping for a new ride.

Mark    

BOTH!

Really, depends on what your riding style and goals dictate. I have both, do about 75-80% of my mileage on my road bike, also have it to do group rides and centuries, which I was doing more of when I got it. That's another reason to wait a year before plunking down the coin, to get a better idea of what kind of cycling you want to do.

But, really, if someone is certain that all the cycling the're going to do is triathlon/time-trial related, I have no problem with them going directly to the tri bike.

I voted road bike, but this is my opinion and is based on my limited experience thus far.  I am green to the sport of cycling (unless you count all of the biking I did in my youth before I earned a drivers license) and have been debating over the past several months...road or tri...road or tri.  I have decided that I would like a road bike because of the following reasons:

1. Would like the option of getting in on group rides.
2. Want to learn how to handle a bike very well before moving onto a tri bike.
3. I don't plan on any long distance (i.e HIM or IM) races anytime soon. 
4. Plan on doing several sprint tris a season (4-5 races).

I feel that, for me anyway, the road bike will be the way to go.  I can get experience with how a real racing built bike handles and I can build my engine.  I have ambitions to someday complete a HIM and then a IM distance race.  When I reach that point I expect that I will want a tri specific bike. 

Just my .02. 

I agree with Bear

Both

But get the road bike first

The correct number of bikes to own is N+1 where N = (the number of bikes you have now)

you're welcome

Can you send that to my husband.  He just doesn't understand. 

Related to the thread, I got a road bike instead of a tri bike. I'm very happy with my road bike, but I'll look into getting a tri bike in the next year or two because I want to do longer races (right now, I'm only doing sprints and olys.) 

I have my road bike (a beloved Pinarello purchased in Italy) and my MTB (a VooDoo, anyone remember VooDoo?). I started out as a cyclist and only got into tri-ing when I realized I'd done all three sports at various points in my life successfully. I think I will get a tri bike if I graduate to long course--say, post 1 HIM. I don't want to test drive one now, though, because I don't want to fall out of love with my Italian steed.

Anywho...Roadies ride those things for centuries, dual centuries, blah, blah, so yeah--just figure out what kind of riding you think you want to do.

I have a road bike and just bought a tri bike and that's all I ride. I ride my 98% of the time by myself so the group ride/handling thing isn't really an issue. My coach encouraged me to get a tri bike instead of a road bike since it fit me well and that is my main goal. My bike fits great and it is a joy to ride.

But one can never have enough bikes, right?