How to approach a time trial?

harringtonp

I take the cages off. Slim cage bottle combos design to fit neatly in one of the triangles are meant to have aero benefit as there is a bit of a sail effect.

ford2600

I know nothing about deep section wheels, power meters and the like, but at some stage (if not most of the time) the primary battle will be in your head. Some really interesting stuff here about what has an effect on performance.

http://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/21

harringtonp

Stickybottle just regurgitated an article on fitted jerseys. Here's a quote

"Testing a rider wearing a fitted, versus looser winter top was worth 83 seconds over 40km. That’s more than 5½ minutes over 100 miles."

yop

Didn't go to plan at all, went out well felt good but from 16km out I felt twinges in the left calf.
Weather was good, little wind, wet but nothing to put too much off.
https://www.strava.com/activities/609367320

From 29km the left calf cramped, I had to stop pedalling 3 times and speed went way down, hitting the drags I was sub 30kmph which wasn't good.

Time was okay, officially 1hr 38 seconds. Power was way down @283 watts.

But its a start, new to that course so have learned a bit. Sub 1 hour is the goal on this course at some point in the next 2 remaining 40kms in this series.

J Madone

yop wrote: »

Didn't go to plan at all, went out well felt good but from 16km out I felt twinges in the left calf.
Weather was good, little wind, wet but nothing to put too much off.
https://www.strava.com/activities/609367320

From 29km the left calf cramped, I had to stop pedalling 3 times and speed went way down, hitting the drags I was sub 30kmph which wasn't good.

Time was okay, officially 1hr 38 seconds. Power was way down @283 watts.

But its a start, new to that course so have learned a bit. Sub 1 hour is the goal on this course at some point in the next 2 remaining 40kms in this series.

Your almost there, took me at least 4 attempts to break the hour, Once I did I broke it every time since. #Believe in yourself

yop

J Madone wrote: »

Your almost there, took me at least 4 attempts to break the hour, Once I did I broke it every time since. #Believe in yourself

Thanks Sir, great moto that. :)

lennymc

excluding training, what can you buy to make you instantly faster for TTs.
Skinsuit
TT helmet
wheels
Shoe covers
Bike
aero gloves
lady shave (for the legs)

anything else.

I'm just idly browsing the interwebs looking for things to buy.

magicbastarder

every time i see this thread title i think 'approach it from downwind so they can't smell you coming'.

Taxuser1

we had our club champs 10 mile TT last night on the IVCA Batterstown out and back circuit. Probably the closest in years with the Top 6 testers separated by 20 seconds, each to a man a decent rider all A1s and A2s. I'd imagine even in that 22 and a half minutes there are some of those experienced lads who probably think they could have ridden it differently or changed something or had that little bit more aero gear !

The wind was cross headwind out and tail cross back. Lad who won it was possibly the most aero rider I saw on the night, had all the bells and whistles and ultimately did the fastest outward leg which he never relinquished much more than a few seconds coming home

So what did I learn !?

I knocked a minute and a half off my PB on the circuit for shades under 24 minutes so a combination of things went right. I was more aero having converted the wife's aluminium frame into a TT front cockpit and because it's smaller I was more natural in a TT position with the front end much lower than the back. I'd taken off bottle cages, brought the saddle forward so my knees were over the pedals, I'd say a few changes to position might be needed as I was a bit cramped - only my first attempt in a proper TT on it so I probably have all the angles wrong. Anyway, I looked better than if I'd been on a road bike. (that said, my minute man was on a road bike and still beat me by 25 seconds, bloody Ras riders with their week long cycling holiday)

I learned that pacing was ok, I'd come up with a strategy to take it seriously easy for first 4 kms and then give it hell into the wind for the next 4 and sail home with the wind. It sort of worked, you never quite know if your easy, steady portion is actually miles quicker than you wanted until you start to up your effort and find there's nothing there!

I was able to keep a consistent effort to the max of my capabilities over the distance so it looks like I got it right to within my capabilities on the night. I was dead when I came home in the final two kilometres and even though I tried to raise my effort, I couldn't go much quicker so maybe there's work to be done on that.

I learned later that much of the losses were made into the wind so I could possibly have gone harder for the outward leg and tried to hold on coming home - that said I was 4 avg kmph slower than the faster guys coming back so they were just way better than me out and back!

I didn't actually start to try and up my game until 6 minutes into the ride because I didn't think I'd get home if going any earlier. Incidentally I was already 30 seconds down in that first 3.5kms to the winner and lost a further 14 seconds in the next 6 minutes and finally lost by a minute 23, so almost equal time loss with and without the wind.

However the most I learned was the warm up. I thought I'd done a good one but in hindsight something was lacking because my heart rate never got to the really painful numbers I'm used to when I'm on the limit in a race but know that I can sustain. I couldn't get to the average I was hoping to go at which I thought I could hold - that might be worth a few more seconds possibly on a different day. Part of that might have been the weather conditions but most of it was not getting the warm up right, I think. So lesson learned there - get right into your warm up and feel the sweat.

So all in all, I reccied the course, I came up with tactics, I did a **** warm up and then tried to stick to the tactic and it sort of worked - only I'm a **** tester ! Like everyone else I came out of it thinking I could go faster and looking forward to the next one !

harringtonp

Out of interest would the Batterstown course be described as fast ? Looks reasonably so from a strava profile.

On HR you will never get to race levels in a TT. That's partly because in a race you could be coasting, hit a hill (early on when fresh) and bury yourself for 5 minutes and then recover. In TTs you are measuring your effort and the heart correspondingly responds. I'd venture to say that if you hit max HR in a TT or near it you are not riding optimally

Taxuser1

harringtonp wrote: »

Out of interest would the Batterstown course be described as fast ? Looks reasonably so from a strava profile.

On HR you will never get to race levels in a TT. That's partly because in a race you could be coasting, hit a hill (early on when fresh) and bury yourself for 5 minutes and then recover. In TTs you are measuring your effort and the heart correspondingly responds. I'd venture to say that if you hit max HR in a TT or near it you are not riding optimally

you'd need to ask some of the regular Boards lads, one of whom has the record on the course, whether it's considered fast or not. Certainly with the wind coming home it's fast but the road itself is fairly poor, patchy surface akin to country roads in places, certainly not smooth tarmac. It's quite open as well, no shelter on either side. However it's as flat as you could get I suppose, barely perceptible drags.

I think in relation to my heart rate, I probably misspoke. I was expecting it to be higher as I've been able to carry a higher average over a similiar length in threshold sessions. I couldn't transfer over the powermeter in time so was relying on the HRM and was trying to get to a recent FTP Hear rate test average and I wasn't hitting anything close to that number. I put it down to the warm up and possibly the effects of a recurring sinus infection which flared this week, possibly it being outdoors and not on a turbo ? I'm probably only looking for excuses !