First time trial tonight

jrduquemin

I have my first time trial tonight. I'm looking forward to it but need some pointers.

Anyone got any advice for a TT newbie? I'm riding a normal roadbike, no TT loveliness just yet, but am working on it....

Cheers,

Jules

Tom Butcher

Warm up well and go hard but not too hard from the start or you'll pay for it later. Stay as aero as you can and try and keep it smooth. If you have any say in the order try and get someone slower in front of you and someone faster behind you.

disgruntledgoat

Don't get distracted by anybody elses equipment or approach, just concentrate on what you're doing.

Don't go off too hard, if you use an HRM you want to be at or around your lactate threshold, anything above for too long and you'll have to back off to recover, focus on your breathing and keep a good high cadence. In face focus on anything apart from the horrible pain you'll be in

Finally, most important, it's for enjoyment, so enjoy it.

freshtrax

Did my first one last week,so can't tell you too much, however for what it's worth I'd suggest:

1. Ride the course first and least once so you know what to expect and where to go.
2. Make sure you're warmed up properly, probably by riding the course.
3. Push hard on the flats and downhills, don't use them to rest. I used a Garmin HRM to check my effort levels on parts of the course prior to the actual event and noticed that on inclines my HR averaged about 90% and downhills and flat about 82%. Pushing harder on the flats allowed me to cut approx 2 minutes off my expected time over an 18 mile TT.
4. Enjoy

Good luck, where are you riding?

jrduquemin

I have no idea where it is

My housemate is riding it so I am going with him. It's a 10 mile out-and-back with a roundabout as the turnaround.

Regarding the warmup, for a 10 mile TT, what's advisable for that? I didn't ride into work today but I wish I had now as the 12 mile return route would have been more than adequate for the warm up.

I'm aiming to get under 30 minutes as I can average about 20mph on a good day to work and back. Bearing in mind there are traffic lights etc on my commuting route.

Bronzie

freshtrax wrote:

1. Ride the course first and least once so you know what to expect and where to go.

and more importantly, make sure you know where the start is - easy to get to the start late if you're not sure precisely where to go.

Finding the finish is easy..............it's exactly 10 miles after the start

Bronzie

jrduquemin wrote:

Regarding the warmup, for a 10 mile TT, what's advisable for that?

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12567172

jrduquemin

Thanks for the input guys. I shall let you know how I get on tomorrow.

jrduquemin

I did the first time trial last night. It was an out-and-back course up in Great Missenden, gradual climb up to 1st roundabout at 3 miles, then slight descent to the 5 mile turnaround.

Everything went ok with the warmup, got to my start with a couple minutes to spare so felt reasonably good about that. Went off quite fast, around 25 mph though my average for the first 3 miles was just over 23mph. Got to the descent at the 3 mile mark and could see my minute man in the distance but couldn't reduce the gap. Hit 28mph at this point and thought I was doing ok.

Got to the turnaround and hit a monster headwind which knocked me back down to 16mph. Climbed back up to the first roundabout without too many problems though I could barely keep my speed up to 18mph. On the 3 mile descent back to the start, I got overtaken by a rider who left 3 minutes behind me, though I didn't think too much of it and concentrated on my own riding.

Eventually got to the finishing straight and sprinted as hard as I could across the line.

Finishing time was 28 minutes 12 seconds, which I was quite pleased with for my first attempt.

I have another TT coming up on Thursday so will be fitting the TT aerobar I bought to see if that helps with my aerodynamics.

Bronzie

Pretty good for your first ride - doesn't sound like a particularly quick course.

When fitting tri bars, be aware that you will probably need to move your saddle forward in order to be able to keep getting the power out
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... t=12575423

jrduquemin

Got my tribar fitted now, and have moved my saddle forward and up a bit to extract what meagre power I have.

My average speed went up 1mph on the way into work this morning and my heartrate was around 150-160bpm most of the way so it looks like I have it set up reasonably well.

Gonna try and get under 28 minutes this Thursday but will have to see what the conditions are like if it rains.

One of the TT riders got 22 minutes on Thursday last week, that sounds pretty fast to me