This is the story of Andy Trouard’s triathlon bike. You may wonder who Andy Trouard is. He’s 27 years old, and I’ll write more about him later, perhaps in a story that includes U.S. Olympic Silver Medalist (in triathlon) Morgan Pearson. Andy is the newest U.S. male of interest in Olympic Tri, joining Kevin McDowell, Matt McElroy, the aforementioned Morgan Pearson, Seth Rider, and some others.

I will only say this about Andy, to give you a sense. As a sophomore in high school he was on the state meet podium in Arizona. In swimming. He also won the NCAA Division I indoor 3000 meters in 2018. That’s in running. He’s a 3:58 miler and has a track PR of 13:21. So, there’s some promise. Back to the bike, which is a triathlon bike because Andy is turning directly and, for now, only to draft-legal Olympic-style racing.

I got a call from USA Triathlon’s Joe Maloy in late November. Joe is a former Olympian who USAT tasked to mine the diamonds in the collegian rough. He hunts for uniquely talented men and women just like Andy: Champion runner, former swimmer. Joe’s been after Andy for some time as you might imagine and triathlon finally landed him. Back to that call from Joe. “We want to set him up with a good bike fit,” and then see if we can get a bike, that fits, with parts that work, and so on. Likewise the wetsuit, helmet, shoes. Andy’s current ride is a 2010 something-or-other that has, basically, no handlebar tape. Barely roadworthy.

Andy came up to The Compound from his hometown Tucson for a fit session in early December. (And please don't scrutinize this photo; it was not the finished position, though the pics of the bike you see are matched to the fit coordinates achieved during the fit session.)

The result of that session created a conundrum, because road bike makers have largely vacated a geometry that I find useful. It’s what you could call Cervelo geometry. Not long and low; not “endurance”. In my own riding, I can barely get a Cervelo R series bike low enough, but I just can. That’s the geometry I’m talking about. Specialized has lowered the front end of its Tarmac and Venge, in line with a lot of other bike makers. There’s a kind of conformity around, in my size (58cm) a stack and reach of 580mm x 400mm respectively. That works okay for me and QR, Cannondale, Canyon and a lot of others are making that geometry in their road bikes. Or they jack the front end way up and pull it back toward the bottom bracket. Few bikes these days are in between.

Andy has a saddle height – saddle top to BB center – of 77.5cm, on a 5’11” frame. I’m riding a saddle height of 75.5cm on a 6’2” frame. That means, all things equal, I need a bike that’s a bit longer in reach, and lower in stack. Long and low. If that’s what’s right for me it can’t be right for Andy. He ended up with a pretty conventional fit, but he just needs a taller, narrower frame because of his morphology.

While I can ride a Cervelo just barely, Andy rides a Cervelo perfectly. So, I got Cervelo on the line and while they wanted to help those bikes are long sold. It’s been hard getting hold of any bikes, or the parts that go on them and, look, I wasn’t on the hunt for freebies. I had my credit card out. It’s just hard getting bikes.

It was not easy to meet all my imperatives. Beyond geometry, I wanted a top quality frame, without internal hydraulic cable routing, that used easily changeable stem and bars, because the fit session notwithstanding where the hoods sit in space for a new rider like Andy is likely to change in any direction by 10mm or 15mm; and I needed this bike to be easy to pack for air travel. It’s hard to find a top quality frame that doesn’t have an integrated front end. Again, there’s Cervelo, and I bought an R5 last year for all the reasons I list above.

There was a bike that checked all the boxes if I could only get it. The Time Alpe d’Huez 01 has a stack of 581mm in a size L, and a reach of 392mm. In other words, it’s a size I could ride, height-wise – which Andy needs – but it’s shorter in reach, a bit short for me, but good for Andy. It was also a top quality frameset. It turns out Time Bicycles is owned by a friend of mine, Tony Karklins, and I tracked him down. He was vacationing on a boat, in the middle of the Caribbean. “Yes, I have that frame,” he told me between pina coladas or tequila sunrises or rum punches, “but you’ll need to source the parts.”

I had the beginnings of a Shimano 9200 groupset and I needed only to fill in the blanks. Calling in every favor I had, making an ornery pest of myself, waterboarding every friend I had in the business, buying the odd part here and there, with some big time help from Shimano, it took me a couple of weeks but I got almost everything in. I really wanted Andy to be on that groupset, Dura Ace 9200, or Ultegra 8100, because I wanted absolutely bombproof electronic shifting on a bike that was easy to assemble and travel-friendly.

Andy’s mentor, as he embarks on his draft-legal journey, is former pro bike racer and national class duathlete Paul Thomas. Paul also understands Andy as a runner, as Paul was a California State Meet champion in the mile, with high school PRs of 4:08 and 8:53. Eventually Andy’s old bike gave out, so he’s on one of Paul’s gravel bikes right now with road wheels and tires, learning not just how to be a triathlete, but how to race bikes.

I did the build on the Time Alpe D’Huez myself, wrenchwork is not a core competency of mine, but I didn’t do the built on my own 9200 Dura Ace bike, Shimano did. I wanted to understand the parts on my own bike, how it went together, and I needed some more experience with the eTube app and the adjustment and config of the parts using that app.

The tires were a bear to find; I wanted tubeless and I wanted fast and durable tires. I was, again, making life hard for myself and I could not find the Schwalbe Pro Ones, my choice for all-around speed and durability. I needed them either in 28mm or 30mm, as Andy was going to spend a lot of time on the bike and I wanted a comfortable, safe tire. Not finding them I just took a set of 28mm tires out of my own stock, and they’re a nice match with the Dura Ace wheels – and what you see here are the new Dura Ace wheels, just launched in August of last year. How hard was I scraping the barrel for parts? I had to unwrap the tape off a set of handlebars I used in my bike fit studio to wrap the bars on this bike.

There are 172.5mm cranks on this bike, 52x36, and 11-30 in the back, 12 speed. The saddle and the handlebars are PRO, which is a Shimano brand. For the stem I chose Zipp Service Course SL, specifically because I like the Zipp QuickView. It’s my favorite mount for head units, and another good reason for choosing a frame that takes a standard stem. The QuickView is a faceplate that mates with certain Zipp stems. On that mount is a Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt, which I had, and it was hard giving that up. I have a ROAM that I use most of the time, so I’ll survive.

If you look at those water bottle cages, yes, they look a lot like XLAB Gorilla cages. They are, basically. It turns out there’s a lot of cross-compatibility between tri and gravel tech. For example, gravel figured out pretty quickly that the idea that triathletes had for where to stick food – on the top tube – was a big improvement on the jersey pocket. Road racers are a little too precious for top tube storage, so this tech jumped from tri right over road and into gravel. Gravel and bikepack enthusiasts also like the idea of bottles not jumping out of cages while riding, as do triathletes. So, much of what XLAB made for tri had utility for gravel, but gravel needs its own brand. Hence Dawn to Dusk, a brand that has a lot of curiously XLABby-like products. It may take an extra few newton-meters or watt-fractions to pull a bottle out of this cage, but for Andy’s use I just want the bottle to stay put so a Kaptive 14 bottle is on both down and seat tubes.

It’s Speedplay pedals on this bike, because both Paul and I are Speedplay devotees (for road), and Andy wouldn’t dare ride anything else.

The bike weighs 16.6 pounds, and that’s with pedals, Zipp’s system for mounts, and with the Bolt, and the cages. If Andy doesn’t make our next Olympic team I’m determined it not be the bike’s fault.

Rounding out Andy Trouard’s new equipment is a Lazer road helmet, Shimano TR9 tri shoes, ROKA Maverick wetsuit (which I'll write about next week) and a selection of goggles. I swim in the F1, but, to each his or her own.

I may have the opportunity to write a little more about this process as it unfolds. Andy has not actually seen the bike yet, in person. It gets delivered to him this week. If the whole thing is a bust I’ll let you know. If it works out, I’ll let you know. I’m as excited as anyone to see if he likes the bike and where his triathlon journey will take him.