Newbie to the forum - interested in giving TT a go

carldavies

Hi all,

Having spent years playing a variety of sports (football, judo, badminton, swimming) this summer I have found my love of cycling again after a 3-4 years of only minor summer rides. (and too much work and not enough play)

I'm currently 26 and in my younger days i was always very good at local races.I have been training throughout the summer doing about 5-6 hours per week either on the road of on my indoor trainer.

I am wanting to give time trailing a solid go in the new year, but have no real idea on how to prepare correctly. Can you give me some pointers on what training i should be looking at now and what to expect from my age group?

thanks in advance!

Carl

love2ride

First join a local club and start by doing their club evening time trials. these don't really have age cats.
You can prepare by over the winter building a base endurance of miles and a month or 2 before the season start, start doing some interval work. first of all don't make them too intense and make sure there is enough recovery between each effort.
as the season progresses and so does your strength, you can lengthen or increase the intensity and reduce the recovery time. Start by say doing 5minutes hard and then rest untill you feel ready to do another do this for as long as you feel comfortable. later on you can do efforts of 15 or 20 minutes to build on speed.
After a while,on normal rides, you can start doing things such as going hard up hills and recovering to the next. Hill repeats on a slight rise, better if into the wind, are good.
But also, a big way to train for them is to ride as many as you can. the more you do the fater you'll get. Make sure you do a warm up before tts and intervals
Hope this helped.

BeaconRuth

carldavies wrote:

I'm currently 26 and in my younger days............

:shock: You are IN your 'younger days'!!! Not many riders are younger than 26 in your average TT mate! The first thing you can expect is to be beaten by a lot of very fit 60-something year olds.

The best thing you can do now for racing next season (the event calendar gets going from about March onwards) is to work on your basic aerobic fitness - that is, keep building up the miles and your general speed gradually. You don't really need to do anything very TT-specific until the last couple of months before you want to race. How many miles and how fast you need to be going depends on what level you aspire to race at. Many people do TTs on about 5-6 hours of training a week. If you aspire to be very good you might need to find a bit more time than that, though.

Ruth

carldavies

BeaconRuth wrote:

carldavies wrote:

I'm currently 26 and in my younger days............

:shock: You are IN your 'younger days'!!! Not many riders are younger than 26 in your average TT mate! The first thing you can expect is to be beaten by a lot of very fit 60-something year olds.

The best thing you can do now for racing next season (the event calendar gets going from about March onwards) is to work on your basic aerobic fitness - that is, keep building up the miles and your general speed gradually. You don't really need to do anything very TT-specific until the last couple of months before you want to race. How many miles and how fast you need to be going depends on what level you aspire to race at. Many people do TTs on about 5-6 hours of training a week. If you aspire to be very good you might need to find a bit more time than that, though.

Ruth

Haha maybe i am still in my younger days!

thanks for the advice, your website is interesting!

simon_e

There's lots of info in the forum archives - search for time trial (and optional terms 'first' or 'beginner') here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/search.php

Training advice is usually found in the Training forum. Without getting too scientific, the training I've read or been recommended is a mix of intervals and "getting the miles in" AKA base mileage. This website's own training articles might help.

It's easy to focus on equipment rather than your fitness, so don't end up thinking you really need a tri bike, deep-section wheels, a pointy hat and a skinsuit. All those things help your time but don't help you or your wallet.

Another thought - you're near Blenheim Palace, so get down there in October:

http://www.bikeblenheimpalace.com/