First time trial advice

wolleur

Hello, I've been talked into doing a time trial on thursday, (k12/6.7) It's only a 10k, and I'm looking forward to it with a fair amount of trepidation as well as excitement.

I ride a standard entry level road bike, 50/38 chainring and have done 1000 ish road miles @ 15-20mph in the last six months. I'm not expecting any great time but it's mainly going to be a bench mark to compare any improvements against.

I'll be riding the 12ish miles to the start so that can count as my warm up!

My questions are....

1) How best to prepare between now and thursday, should I rest the day before?

2) Should i pace myself or go 'full bore' and shun the pain!

3) Are there any tweaks I can do to me/ my bike to shave a few seconds off my time.

4) Should i just chill and concentrate on getting round since it's my first TT and all.

All advice appreciated! Cheers

brownbosh

1) i think is personal so i wont answer other than to say keep your legs turning over try and sleep well and keep hydrated. ALWAYS RIDE THE COURSE BEFORE THE RACE!!!
2) Personally i would go balls out from the gun on a course that short UNLESS there are any climbs or uphill drags in the latter stages.
3) Wear clothing as tight as possible, raise your saddle by 2 or 3 mm and slide it forward by 3-5 mm. Stay as low as you can throughout the ride.
4) Never ever ever ever ever just chill. TT's are supposed to be a world of agony. If you havnt felt the pain you havent tried hard enough. Slow a little just as you are about to pass out.
Good luck!
:shock:

Anonymous

Ride the course beforehand.

On the warm up do a few stints of 2 mins at TT pace with 5 mins recovery in between.

If it's that short, balls out from the gun my friend, let agony be your guiding light.

John.T

1. Just get out on your bike but don't bust a gut. Wednesday just a short spin in low gears. On the day eat at least 3 hours before the event and make sure you are well hydrated.
2. Ride as hard as you can while still able to maintain the pace. Try to avoid blowing up as that will lose you much more time than going a bit too slow. This is your first race and is really about gaining experience.
3. Just make sure the bike is in good working order. I would not make any alterations to your position. Use this event to gain a bench mark and experiment in training later based on what you think may help. Changeing anything just before a race is not a good idea wether it be the bike, your clothing or your nutrition. Go with what you know. Test changes in training when mistakes do not matter.
4. Basicaly yes but don't forget it is a race so treat it seriously.

markos1963

The TT is so short you won't need any drink/food, so take on liquid before during your warm up. This means you can take off your bottle cage and anything else like pumps/saddle bags etc(don't forget its so short if you puncture you're out anyway and you can walk in) Practice riding on the drops even climbing if you can to help with aero position, keep elbows in and head down and go hell for leather. Good luck

John.T

Not too sure on some of that Markos. A 3K walk in Look cleats is no fun. I always take a mini pump and a tube and tyre levers with me. The weight will not make any difference at all but at least you can ride in if the worst happens. Same with the bottle cage. No point in taking it off. And never ride with your head down. At best you may get DQed and at worst end up in the back seat of a car. This did happen to a mate of mine many years ago. Fortunatly the car was a soft top.

brownbosh

Im with markos no surplus cage puncture kit or pump. Unnecessary.

markos1963

John.T wrote:

Not too sure on some of that Markos. A 3K walk in Look cleats is no fun. I always take a mini pump and a tube and tyre levers with me. The weight will not make any difference at all but at least you can ride in if the worst happens. Same with the bottle cage. No point in taking it off. And never ride with your head down. At best you may get DQed and at worst end up in the back seat of a car. This did happen to a mate of mine many years ago. Fortunatly the car was a soft top.

Yes sorry, I didn't litrarlly mean head down, but keep well down and eyes up. As for pump,bottle,saddle bag etc its a personal choice. 3k in cleats might not be fun but if you're taking it seriously then the risk might be worth it.

wolleur

Cheers all, seems pain is a recurrent theme!

I've been round the course a couple of times,mainly rolling but there's a steep, small but significant hill at the end so I need to work out how to get up it and have some cadence/gas left for the last 500m to the finish so i'll go out tomorrow and have a few goes at it.

Thanks again for the advice though, I'm going to be brave and post up the result, a bit more motivation for me.

Alex_Simmons/RST

Advice to go all out from the start is misguided. You don't even go all out from the start for races as short as the individual pursuit (2-4 km depending on your category). Doing so will result in blowing up very quickly, forcing you to slow significantly in order to recover and will lose you far more time that you gain.

That is not to say you should ride easy from the start. The trick is to ride at a solid pace you think you can sustain and to pick it up gradually after a couple of minutes, if you think you can. The first minutes will not seem that hard but it will begin to bite as you get further along.

As for position, agree not the time to be playing with changes. If you have a normal road bike set up and bars and they are not level with/higher than the saddle, then the most aero position is typically with the hands on the hoods, elbows bent so that the forearms are (close to) horizontal, head/upper body tucked down as far as you can but watching where you are going. Hands on the drops presents more frontal area to the wind (unless the bars are fairly high and that would make the forearms horizontal).

2-3 easier days beforehand but include a few short hard efforts the day before.

batch78

Listen to Alex.

Strip everything from the bike if your happy riding without a drink or puncture kit etc.

Wear your tightest, but comfortable and used, clothing.

Make sure your hurting just as you crest that climb, then keep the pain going till the line, not before, not after, you'll know you've given 100% about then at the right time.

If you like TTing there are things you can change, position etc, to help but it'll take weeks or months of adjustments, not days, to find your optimum.