Time Trial Basics

disgruntledgoat

I've been riding for 10 years now, racing for 8 but decided, over the winter, to go completely back to basics on all my training and racing.

In the past i've rocked up to the Tuesday night TTs organised by the local club with no aero bars and no intention of doing anything other than a bit of speed training. This year, howver, in an effort to win what basically amounts to a mountain time trial at the end of the season (3 miles rolling followed by a 3 mile climb), i;ve bought some decent clip ons and will begin training specifically in June for that.

Tomorrow is my first TT in 2 years and my first with aero bars so my two major questions are

1) What are the "pointers" for getting a decent position on the bars. I'm planning to set them up tonight, so what should I be looking for when I do?

2) What works for you guys as a warm-up for a 10? bearing in mind i'm not taking a turbo or anything as I'm riding out to the start (all of 3 miles).

Alex_Simmons/RST

1. Well no "rules" of positioning for aerodynamics work for everyone but here are a few thoughts on a reasonable starting place via John Cobb (as summarised by Andy Coggan):
- Acromion process at or below origin of latissiumus dorsi
- Ears over elbows
- Arms tilted up slightly
- Saddle height such that cleat-pedal interface essentially parallel to ground when at bottom of stroke
- Hands together, with elbows no wider than narrowest part of leg

You may find however that in order to attain that postion you need (i) special equipment and (ii) quite some time in order to adapt to it.

Also, wear a tight fitting skinsuit.

2. warmups are fairly individual things. For a 10-mile, about 15-30-min of steady riding with maybe a short 30-sec foray at 10mi pace should be enough. More if you are cold perhaps, less if you are hot.

3. the biggest issue (aside from your fitness and aero) is pacing. Just don't start hard. In fact try really hard to start easy (you'll actually be going harder than you think you are).

celbianchi

Phil - some good stuff (as usual) from Alex there.

I decided last season I'd do a bit of testing, I had some aero bars which I use in the two long mountain time trials over this way. I just stuck them on my road bike and went and did a few 10's last season.

Looking back on it, I think I was too stretched out with the position I had, (I have now bought a TT bike), but used the aero bars again on Sunday on my road bike for the Teesdale Mountain TT. I decided to shorten the reach from the pads to the end of the bars, so I was resting closer to my wrists on than my elbows. This gave me a much closer position to my TT bike.
I'd say try and get your position with the arms, such that you have as close to a right angle at the elbow joint as you can, I have a picture someone took of me last season and I was really too stretched.

Also in the MTT I made a conscious effort to ride into the race rather than sprint off the line, get my HR up to 90% and keep going as hard as I could.

I felt much better and indeed took 11 minutes off my time of last season and moved to 12th place. It was a better day weather wise than recent years, but my time compared to the big hitters was closer than in previous years.

I attribute this largely to the pacing and my tweaked position on the road bike with aero bars.
If you are like me, your head will be telling you that you are not going hard enough at the start, ignore it, it's worth it. I am going to master this in 10's, I think a problem is you think it's so short that you need to be eyeballs out, but I think the first 3 mins can be hard but not flat out and you'll go quicker.
I'm using the club 10's this season to master pacing.

Pokerface

Good advice on the pacing. Last year I did the club 10's which is 3 laps of a set course.

I always went full board out of the gates - and by the third lap was cooked. Always very obvious in the split times.

So this year - I am going to make a concerted effort to GO SLOW for the first lap and build up for the following laps and see if I have more gas in the tank at the end.

disgruntledgoat

By and large, I've normally done quite well in my pacing of TTs over the years. I think it comes from all the big climbs i've done on the continent. You want to get up them as qucikly as possible, but you don't want to blow up half way.

Chirs Boardman did a really good article on it once likening it to rowing a boat to shore with a hole in the bow. The faster you row, the more water comes in, but you still need to get to shore as quickly as you can.

disgruntledgoat

Well I must have done something right... 24:05 last night against a previous best of 24:30 on a course with a big hill in the middle of it.

4th place but still 1:30~ off the winner.

Pokerface

disgruntledgoat wrote:

Well I must have done something right... 24:05 last night against a previous best of 24:30 on a course with a big hill in the middle of it.

4th place but still 1:30~ off the winner.

Must have been the massive tailwind.


Well done! My first TT of the season is a week from Thursday. Will be interesting to see where I stand fitness-wide in relation to last year....