Time Trialling - too much about the kit?

ride_whenever

The comment about a roadman TT isn't really surprising, presumably some of your club are ATGNI guys?

dennisn

At the club level our group holds a TT once a month during spring, summer and fall.
2 - 25 milers and the rest are 20 KM. I have rode and watched these things for years
and pretty much the same guys are at the front in them(if they show up) and it really doesn't matter if they ride their TT or road bike. I think this is true at the CLUB level
pretty much everywhere. Oh sure, there is the changing of the guard, so to speak,
as riders come and go but when I go to the races I can always pick the top guys.
We have one rider who is closing in on 65 years old and, while not "winning" is
beating a good 3/4 to 7/8 of the riders who come to race(we get 30 to 50 riders at each
session)

Dennis Noward

clockworkwar

I use a Falcon Shane Sutton Special, from the 1980's I believe it weighs about the same as a carbon bike which is freaky.

I love it because it's a beautiful classic, and its more about man and machine than F1 inspired workings.

But hey thats my opinion, if I could afford a carbon TT bike, I'd probably buy one.

007stucumber

I've got an Airborne, with a rear trispoke, Oval tribars, a skinsuit and overshoes: all for £600 + patience from eBay.

I race against myself.

Patrick1.0

It's all just a challenge, anyway. Why begrudge somebody riding a full TT bike? Sure, if they beat you by 20 seconds you can think to yourself, they've got more than 20 seconds worth of advantage just because of the difference in bike so I am doing alright. But you shouldn't complain when somebody takes tt'ing seriously enough to buy all the stuff that's going to make them quicker. Should they also not train specifically for time trials so that those of us who are concentrating on road racing can get closer to them?

2Fast4Love

What sort of gains (either in % terms or minutes) do you get from the various bits & bobs? At the moment on my standard road bike I do a 23 mile circuit round here in 68minutes. I told myself that until I average 20mph for the full distance I wouldn't get aerobars etc, as I didn't want to "buy" the target I'd set myself.

Now I'm pretty much doing it, so over the winter I may well look to pick up some fresh gear in the sales, how much would you expect me to bring that time down with the addition of aerobars or the other bits & pieces?

Checked the results for the cycling club round here, it's a pretty broad range from the top bods to the also-rans, but I wouldn't fancy rocking up to my first 10mile TT to get blitzed by some 14 year old kid on a mountain bike (as happened in the last set of results I saw).