time trial bikes and 10m tt

fenaz

Was just wondering how much quicker you guys estimate you ride for a ten mile time trial on a time trial bike as opposed to a normal road bike! I did my first ten tonight after starting cycling in June. I rode 24.57 on a windy and wet night which I was happy with however I finished last but one of the people there! Everyone was in full skin suit with aero helmet and on time trial bikes and were mostly riding 22-23 minutes so I was just wondering how much quicker, if at all, I could possibly have gone as opposed to being on an entry level fuji newest 2 £550 road bike. Just interested to know how much closer I could have been but I know that in order to get closer its going to take a years worth of training as opposed to buying better kit. Really enjoyed it though and looking forward to the last two tens before having my first proper winter as a cyclist :-)

Alex_Simmons/RST

Depends on many things.
From 4 to 10 seconds per kilometre faster.

MkyDPky

i live near richmond park and have recently bought a cervelo s1 which i currently have set up as a TT bike with full aero bars and being an aerodynamic bike is quite similar in aerodynamics as a TT bike.
at the start of june before I got my cervelo i had a scott speedster s40 and recorded a 1 lap anti clockwise time of 19.07 over the undulating course, 2 weeks later i recorded a time of 18.13 on the cervelo bike, of course it depends hugely on the course as an undulating course could favour a road bike as it is easier to climb hills on one however only you will know what is best and if others are on TT bikes i would assume a TT bike would help and going on how mine has helped i would have thought it would reduce the time by 1-2mins
hope this helps

bikerZA

It comes down to a combination of kit and training. If you're unfit, but ride with a skitsuit a top of the range TT bike, you're likely to still be beaten by the fitter bloke on his entry level road bike.
Concentrate on getting fit, eating right and doing a good warmup, your times will come down. Couple that with some good equipment, and they'll come down even more.

Jeff Jones

It does depend on many things - position on both the road and TT bike being the big one.

My PBs on our club 10 course (flat, not too technical, very quiet roads) are 23'20 on a road bike with no aero kit at all (was resting my forearms on the tops) and 21'12 on my TT bike with all the gear. Not sure whether the power outputs were the same but the conditions certainly were.

What's also interesting is that last year, my best on a TT bike on the club course was 21'41 (similar conditions) and I was putting out 20W more power. Checked the calibration of the power meter and it seems fine. I'm riding a different frame and have a helmet visor but the rest of the kit is the same. Also, and somewhat to my surprise, this improvement has been replicated in every other TT I've done this year.

The frame/visor are going to account for some of the gains but position is still key.

Gav888

fenaz wrote:

starting cycling in June. I rode 24.57 on a windy and wet night quote]

OMG youv'e only been riding 2 months and you can do a 24.57 on a cheap road bike.... what am I doing wrong to be getting a 33!!!

fenaz

Hi Gav! Its not as crazy as it sounds, Im 20 and ive been an athlete pretty much all my life, ive competed for wales in 800m and 1500m so its not like im coming from nothing. I picked up an injury in december which has stopped me from running! This meant I did nothing for about 6/7 months before starting cycling so I guess I hadnt lost a great deal of fitness, its just getting used to cycling as opposed to running, I suppose theres a fair bit of correlation what with it being primarily your heart, lungs and your legs. Im sure you will get to where you want to be in the future, keep plugging away!

rokkala

Remember as well Gav that every course is different, some a lot faster than others, only way to really compare is againt those doing same course as you at the same time.

Tom Butcher

I reckon a set of clip on bars and a bit of tweaking your position to get the best out of them could easily be worth around a minute.

merlie

... what are we doing right ? ... I ride with a MTB club - we recently did a 10 mile tt on our mtb's on knobblies and the best time was some 24 mins !

rokkala

merlie wrote:

... what are we doing right ? ... I ride with a MTB club - we recently did a 10 mile tt on our mtb's on knobblies and the best time was some 24 mins !

You rode down a 10 mile hill?

merlie

no we didn't. Honest guv... did about a lap and a halft of Black Park Bucks

GiantMike

bikerZA wrote:

It comes down to a combination of kit and training. If you're unfit, but ride with a skitsuit a top of the range TT bike, you're likely to still be beaten by the fitter bloke on his entry level road bike.
Concentrate on getting fit, eating right and doing a good warmup, your times will come down. Couple that with some good equipment, and they'll come down even more.

But you'll never go as fast as you would if you spent several thousands of pounds on the best bike as well. I do TTs (best 10m is 25:55 so far) but I think they're stupid because it's easy to buy performance. People will always tell you to train more, but that's not the question you asked.

How much difference will a full TT bike make compared to an entry-level road bike which forces you into a poor position? I'd estimate about 10s a mile. So, just knock 1:40 off your time and make out you've got a £3000 bike. At the end of the day you're racing against yourself.

Anonymous

The best thing about TTs is you can buy yourself a better time.

Not trained?

No worries, beat your PB with a new wheel.

a_n_t

NapoleonD wrote:

Not trained?

No worries, beat your PB with a new wheel.

Well thats been working for me!

first 10 - 27.34

last 10 - 25.24

no training but lots of new gear

Anonymous

My best last year - 27.14

My best this year 14 weeks after multiple breaks to leg, no training but on TT bike - 26.12!

It is about the bike!

simon_e

The people I've asked reckon the bike and all the gear is worth at least 1:30 over a 10, though a good chunk of that is aero bars, which you can get for £50. Deep section or disc wheels and a pointy hat are probably more significant than the frame.

For data on road bike vs TT bike try this article:

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/h ... aero-19273

I suspect it's a bit like hifi, in that the ROI is inversely proportional to cost. Being a stubborn git and on a sh*t wage (so short of options) I'm determined to go as far as I can on my standard road bike before buying any improvements - after all, there's plenty of room for improvement to my legs and lungs... but I'd still love to try one of those oh-so-sleek TT bikes 8)

GiantMike

How about this for a TT handicapping system? The list price of a bike and its accessories will be declared.

Bikes will incur no penalty if their list price is less than £500. Each bike may be adorned with up to £50 of accessories/improvements without penalty. The cost of the bike or accessories above these limits will incur time penalties at the following rate 1 sec per mile per £100 spent over the allowance.

If a £500 bike with £50 of improvements over 10 miles puts in a time of 26:00, a £2000 bike with £500 of improvements would need to put in a time of 22:44 to beat it.

So, what are those £1200 wheels worth? If they don't save 2 minutes they weren't worth the £1200!

Another alternative would be to set a maximum spend on a bike, say £600. Anybody can spend whatever they like, but anybody else can buy their bike for £600. This works well in lower formula car racing where there is an intention to keep costs down and make the drivers the most important factor in the result.

SBezza

Skinsuit would probably save more time than a frame. Road bike frames can be just as aero, it is the position a TT bike lets you get that makes the difference. Putting tri extensions on the road bike will help get the position to a certain degree.

My bike cost a total of £1700 with the wheels, (it is a aero road frame), I am going faster than some guys that have spent over £6,000 on proper TT bikes, so it is NOT about the bike. You can buy certain upgrades, but after that it is hard work to get quicker.

Once you have all the kit, there is nothing else you can do but train to get faster, you can only buy yourself up to a certain point.

GiantMike

SBezza wrote:

My bike cost a total of £1700 with the wheels, (it is a aero road frame), I am going faster than some guys that have spent over £6,000 on proper TT bikes, so it is NOT about the bike.

The bike must have an important impact on times otherwise nobody would buy TT bikes. If you can beat other riders on more exensive, lighter, stiffer and more aerodynamic bikes then well done. However, if you had the best bike you'd be better than you are now.

SBezza

Not always the case, people buy expensive bikes because they think it is better the majority of the time, and they want a bling bike. It is the position a TT frame allows you to get into, that makes them faster than a road bike IMO. Now the frame shape will have an impact, but the frame shape is a very small item compared with your body, so I would imagine that impact is minor. I know someone that does 19 min 10's on the same frame, so the frame is not a limiting factor.

I don't know if I would go faster with a more aero bike, or if I got a more aero position. I know if I want to go faster the cheapest way is too train. It is easier to lose weight off myself than the bike, not that this is a major factor in a TT to be honest.

fenaz

Interesting views, I think its clear from everyones responses that a time trial bike or even aero bars makes a big difference, however the actual difference depends on the person! As someone mentioned above im not going to go out and spend hundreds of pounds on a tt bike, id rather get as fit as possible first and to a level where further improvements on a road bike are going to be hard, I guess then is the time to think about upgrading!

What strikes me is that, coming from athletics, its clear that cycling can sometimes be a sport where not everyone has an equal chance of doing well! In athletics generally the best person on the day wins, in cycling you can be the fitest/fastest person there and come nowhere near a win right? Myself, being a student atm, there is no chance im going to fork out thousands of pounds on equipment, which I guess puts me at a disadvantage compared to some people, which I assume is the reason kenyans/ethipians etc are yet to have a go at cycling, is it possible that if they could afford it they could do what they have done to athletics?

Still a lot of fun though :-)

SBezza

Get some tri bars for £30, and you are half way there. If you can lower your road bars to get the front a bit lower, fiddle about with the seat to get comfortable, you have the basis of a good position, you simply do not need to spend thousands of pounds to get reasonably quick. Aero position, deep section wheels, skinsuit, overshoes and a aero helmet will make a bigger difference to times than a frame IMO

It will never be ideal on a road bike, but I know someone that does 54 min 25m TT's on a road bike with clip on's. It is the person on the bike that makes the biggest difference. Fast riders will be fast no matter what bike they ride on, they might not be as fast, but they will still be near the top.

a_n_t

SBezza wrote:

or if I got a more aero position. .

looks like you could get a better position going off your photo tbh.

nick hanson

Take note of Andy Wilkinson.This year he did a come back to do a superfast time on the Anfield BC 100.
The other weekend he did comp record (over 300 miles) for 12 hours.
Over 25mph, ALL DAY!
He said in an interview after the Anfield,that it's most important to be able to achieve an aero position on the frame you ride ie tri bars or clip on bars if the front of your frame is low enough,& have a good set of wheels.The rest is just fractions of seconds.
(I presume he counts the aero helmet worthwhile)
Track down some pics of his bike,MEGA large clearances,round titanium tubing (think he said he clips aero bars on his general purpose/hybrid bike.
Position is everything,A well set up frame ,made out of 531 will be pretty much as quick as the latest flash treck,at road bike race speeds.
Must REALLY pi** off all the people on 6 grand specials :shock:

a_n_t

agreed. I use my winter bike for TT's now as I can get a much better position on it than my wilier which cost 4X as much!

SBezza

a_n_t wrote:

SBezza wrote:

or if I got a more aero position. .

looks like you could get a better position going off your photo tbh.

You are right, and it is something I will look at over the winter, I wasn't going to change it mid season, then again, lower is not always better, if you can't get the power out.

nick hanson

a_n_t wrote:

agreed. I use my winter bike for TT's now as I can get a much better position on it than my wilier which cost 4X as much!

Very nice looking bike,that.how do you rate the wheels compared to standard rims,& have you reconned on how much time they save,over,say,a 10 mile TT ?

a_n_t

Definately an improvement over the zondas I was using before. I went about 30 secs quicker when I first used them but I've been going quite well recently anyway so not sure what percentage was down to the wheels

markos1963

a_n_t wrote:

agreed. I use my winter bike for TT's now as I can get a much better position on it than my wilier which cost 4X as much!

Interesting choice and not unique, took part in a club 10 last night and the guy in front had a Ribble winter bike as well, fairly basic set up with aero bars and some deep section rims. Must have been good as I got nowhere near him on the road.

a_n_t

A low front end on them 150mm compared to 195mm on my wilier, plus I cant get aerobars on my carbon bar'd mortirolo.