That’s excatly what I do. i race in Zwift on a TT bike, train on it, never get a draft and haul those heavy ass 808s up AdZ
I’ve only been doing one or two triathlons a year, for the last couple of years, focussing instead on time trials, and the thing that’s really struck me is the number of people in tris who have spent a lot of money on tt bikes, who then can’t stay in the tt position. I mean, what is the point of spending £5k on a bike and then 30 miles into a half, you’re sat bolt upright noodling along? I’ve lost quite a bit of bike speed over the last two years but the one thing I am pretty good at is staying in the tt position. I’m very comfortable on my tt bike. I think there’s a bit of a misconception that a tt position should be uncomfortable to be fast, which just isn’t the case.
I do also wonder about the whole triathlete position on a tt bike to be able to run off the bike well. Surely, pacing the bike right is the main limiter to how fast you’re going to run? The rest is just rubbish flexibility and core strength, so work on that.
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Largely agree with what you wrote. In my (only) ironman race review, I definitely noted that I passed quite a lot of people towards the end who had originally come storming past me because they had resorted to sitting up on the base bar whilst I was able to stay aero. Staying aero makes up a lot for poor power numbers!
If you could recreate the position on a road bike, then true. But a lot of what we’ve been discussing above in relation to this test is that you can’t. The steeper seatpost on a TT bike means you are much farther forward over the BB. This opens up hip angle etc, and it’s that which generally allows you to run well. Unless you can slam the saddle forward on the road bike, you just can’t get far enough over the BB, so you tend to have a choice - still get low, but then be super compressed in the hips, or stay in the same relative hip angle position, but then be much more upright in terms of body position.
The latter is slower due to increased cda. The former is going to compromise power output and your run.
Which comes back to my original skepticism of this entire video … I didn’t believe they had recreated an optimised TT bike position precisely on a road bike. And from what others who’ve watched it have said, that was correct.
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I’ve experienced it mate, it’s not fun when your hip flexors don’t work and you’re hobbling into t2 with a marathon to contemplate. Oly/half not so much.
A lot of people pass me when I’m climbing and upright because I keep the power down and pass them back on the descent…mostly it’s bexause I’m a better swimmer than I am a biker though 
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My TT bike is still in the bike box after Hamburg. I should probably check it for gunk!
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I set my r3 disc up with clips ons exactly the same as my p2 for swissman this year.
Super comfy. It did feel slower on the non steep bits, but i did not have 1080 and 808 on, just the stick hoops.
However downhill i was bucket loads quicker than the P2 due to confidence.
Thinks I will get some 50mm aero wheels for the r3 and use that rig for all long / hilly racing and then keep the p2 for the short / flat stuff
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What the original article attempts to demonstrate is that Aero Road are narrowing the performance gap to dedicated TT bike. @SB20 post would seem to agree
My experience on a new TT bike, the P3X, is that TT bikes are also closing the gap on Aero Road bikes. Having now ridden around 400km on it, I would say that it rides, climbs and descends much more like my road bike, It may not be significantly faster than my old TT bike, but it is a hell of a lot nicer to ride
So Road Bikes are bridging the performance gap to TT bike, while TT bikes are bridging the comfort and handling gap to Road bikes
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