i did it!

sloxam

today i have achieved a 10mile tt under 30 minutes. i am well chuffed, especially as i cycled 8 miles to get to the course too (good warm up).
the course was the K41/10 wolvey/ cross in hand.
it has taken me 2 years and a loss of 4 stones to get there! i lugged my 16 and a half stone mass around the course in 29.56 at a speed of 20.1 mph on my trusy roubaix.
hurrah!

feno46

Well done mate, good effort, I hope to be in a similar situation this time next year.

ash68

Yeh good on ya mate. Us mortals all set our own targets and when we reach them it doesn't half feel good.

MattBlackBigBoysBMX

ash68 wrote:

Yeh good on ya mate. Us mortals all set our own targets and when we reach them it doesn't half feel good. [/quote


Well done!

rdaviesb

Well done that man!

hugo15

Great effort. Well done.

purplemad

Oh wow, fantastic, well done

nolf

Good job!!

Now try and average 20mph for a 25

Restless_legs

Brilliant! Losing four stone is superb, sod the riding time.

HungryCol

Restless_legs wrote:

Brilliant! Losing four stone is superb, sod the riding time.

Seconded

popette

HungryCol wrote:

Restless_legs wrote:

Brilliant! Losing four stone is superb, sod the riding time.

Seconded

thirded.
Well done - something to be really proud of.

sloxam

nolf wrote:

Good job!!

Now try and average 20mph for a 25

i've done 46miles at an 18mph average.
i seem to be able to maintain a good steady pace around 18mph. i struggle to up the speed and maintain it for a sustained period, hence the time its taken me to achieve the 20mph for 10.
any tips to get to your challenge nolf?

nferrar

Nice one, personally I always found 25's easier than 10's just need to try and keep focused (I can remember drifting off loads of times thinking about various stuff only to realise my speed was dropping ). I'd certainly aim for a flat course (preferably not too prone to winds either) for your first 25's and don't panic too much if your speed's dropping below the average you're aiming for as long as your still putting in a decent effort, you might be on a slight rise, crappy road surface, into a head wind etc.

sloxam

how much difference would tri bars make? i don't have any on and just get down on the drops as much as possible.

Mark Alexander

well done! great start.
tri bars will make a difference. they say 30 secs to 2 min over a 25.
thy are a must. at the start you don't need to buy time (i conciously didn't) but tri bars are a must. I think it makes a psychological differnce at the start more than anything.

I've started this year, started with a long 28 now down to a short 25. (10miles)

nolf

Do speed work and interval training. 2 * 20 minute intervals are a good mainstay of this.

Try 2 minute intervals as well.

If you've got a heart rate monitor, get your heart rate up to above your lactate threshold. You can do tests to work i out, but basically whatever is a sustainable pace.

For me I can cruise on the flat at about 20mph for quite a while- so my heart rate at this level is what I call my lactate threshold. Go 10%/15% higher than this for the 2 minute intervals and say maybe 5% higher for 20 minute intervals. Intervals should really really hurt.

1 thing about cycling, is that to really perform well it invloves tremendous pain and effort!
Do the 2 * 20 min intervals once a week over winter, and once a week do 4/5 * 2 minute intervals (2 mins on, 2 mins off).

This + tempo training + endurance training (long slow rides will help you use up your fat reserves quicker if you need to to shift more weight) over winter should get you in shape for super times next year.

Tribaars are useful, but as i'm a cheapo student I like to just lean my arms on the top of the handlebars with my hands in front like in a tri bar position. It's quite comfy (found I had to do extra stretching though) but if you go over a pothole you will die

Dave L

RE: Tri-bars......

I rode time trials for 4 years before they even came into use (showing my age there), but after I started to use them I failed to improve my 10 PB at all, and only got my 25 time down by 37 seconds.
My theory was that, while I had quite a low, flat backed position on my road bike, when I added tri-bars to the same bike, any gains brought about by my arms being closer together were negated by the fact that my back was no longer so flat.
I'm not, therefore, convinced that tri-bars make that much difference on a standard road bike and are only worth using on a low profile time trial bike.
(I'd be interested to hear what others think though).