Every spring, after all the charity cycling events (and Tour of Margaret River- though not from 2025 onwards!) – we see a steady influx of triathletes getting ready for the Busselton Iron Man in early December.
We ask the same “Three P’s” of every new athlete who walks through our door – Are you going for a Podium, a PB or to Participate? The level of commitment to the event dictates the degree to which we delve into a bike looking for opportunities to save watts and find speed.
Given the natural order of these things, the vast majority of people are either doing it purely to participate and enjoy the challenge, or if they’ve got a few events under their belt, aiming for a Personal Best on the day. Servicing for the bikes at this level is pretty straightforward and not dissimilar to the routine maintenance we carry out every other day of the working week.
Assuming the athlete has had a bike fit, or is at least perfectly comfortable with their setup, we really don’t have to pay much attention to anything above the bottle cages (of course brakes and shifters and headsets get checked). 90% of the time and attention is devoted to the rear hub, jockey wheels, chain, cassette, bottom bracket, pedals, front hub and tyres.
Said differently, we check:
- 14-16 bearings
- 100+ chain links
- 4.3 meters worth of tyre rubber
Anything that needs replacing, gets replaced. Riders typically want fresh tyres for the rough bitumen of the Busso course. We advise tyre profile and recommended pressures based on tyre/wheel combinations and rider weight. We find the majority of athletes running pressures that are objectively too high. If you’re a sub 70kg person riding 28mm tyres at 90+ psi, I promise you that is way too hard.
If you’re prepping for Busselton, or indeed any other triathlon or road race format, we’d love to have you through the workshop for a chat and for some magic spanner work!
-TLS
