500m TT training?

Blonde

Anyone got any training info, for 500M TT and/or flying 500m (apart from doing it, that is)?

I can't ride on the track at all, apart from at structured fortnightly sprint sessions (which don't always include flying/ standing start 500m) alternating with fortnightly derny sessions and going to the ACT league from September onwards - although it's mostly longer endurance events (points race etc) there. How can I train for 500m TT or flying 500m using the road/turbo? Obviously for taking the best line and flying/standing starts, I need to practice on the track, but any tips on how to make best use of time and how to also use the road or turbo for training would be very much appreciated. I have some idea about warming up using steady and progressive effort, then either threshold training or interval training with aerobic recovery in between efforts, but some specifics would be great. This would be on top of 3-5 days of 25 mile round trip commuting and a weekend road ride, as I don't want to lose those.

Also any tips about which items of kit are essential and which are not, would also be helpful. I assume I will need low-pro bars of some sort to pursue this at any level, but please don't go mad with suggestions for expensive kit, as I'm only 4th cat. It's the training I am really interested in. Posted 38.585 seconds for my first ever go at 500m on Saturday (from a sort-of flying, not standing start, and after 20 minute warm up, plus 5km, plus 2km efforts) but with no special bike/kit or specific training, so wondered if I might be able to do it better if I actually take it seriously. (I'm female and in my 30s if that matters).

Thanks in advance....

Eddy S

The 500m TT is all about getting out of the gate fast and nailing that 1st lap. The rest is about the pain of the 2nd lap!

You can train that explosive start by doing over-geared starts until you get over the gear. And the aim is go for quality and technique, not quantity. These are easily done on your road bike and fully transferable to what you need to do on the track bike. I have a very quiet and straight piece of road where I do mine. Do the effort, active recovery, turn around and do the effort, active recovery, etc, etc and stop when the quality drops. Oh yeah, and it’s going to hurt.

These need to be backed up by slightly longer (road based) intervals to get you through that 2nd lap.

The current women’s 500m TT world record was set by Simona Krupeckaite on drops. At World Cup/elite and Masters level, the women riders use all types of bars.

It really depends how comfortable you are doing that kind of effort on drops. You might get on better with an aero base bar for your track bike plus an adjustable stem to fine-tune the position. The idea is to give you something to pull against without tucking the front wheel. The ski extensions are not necessarily required to start with as you could end up losing time in transition in a 500.

I got my 1st complete set of aero bars on eBay for about £35 or so plus BBB do a pretty strong and chunky adjustable stem for not a lot of money so you don’t need to spend a fortune. I use a Deda adjustable stem on my carbon race aero bars and the BBB stem on my training bars.

The most important part of the set up is pedals and cleats that won’t pull at the start and this is where you might need to invest.

Aero helmets can wait till you’re racing...

If you want to chat about this more offline, drop me a PM.

Blonde

Many thanks, that's really helpful. Must admit I hadn't thought of the cleat/pedal issue. The Look pedals I have on the track bike at the moment, just won't adjust, even though they are one of the more expensive models. (I got them at a quarter of the original price, but was still pretty irritated that the tightening bolts just won't tighten!). I've done the standing starts a few times (only twice using a start gate) and was always a bit careful because of the pedals but have managed so far. Must see about some that I won't be worrying about the whole time though, as I feel I can't really go all out in case they release. I hope my partner can help me standing start practice, holding me up and counting me down so I can practice a bit on the road - may have to find a flat bit of road first as we live on a hill and there really isn't any flat road for a few miles. Standing starts on the drops seem to work fine to me so far, so I'll just stick with using the drops for now, though I think the reach on my track bike is a bit too short at the moment. The over geared training sounds very useful for building strength and gaining more ability to accelarate from standing. You're right about it hurting, but it seems you recover quite quickly from shorter but more eyeballs-out efforts than longer but less intense ones. I noticed the longer effort I did on Saturday (2km), hurt my legs for longer afterwards. I took a good 15 minutes to recover from that even though my pace was much slower on that than on the 1km and 500m efforts I did afterwards (with shorter rests between each). Thanks again for those tips.
L

trackworldcup

standing starts on big gears on the road bike never ever translate well to the track unless your road bike is fixed

pedals, either shimano spd-r if you can find them (shimano stopped making them as they were indestructable)

failing that something like the exustar pt12s with straps or adapting look pedals to fit straps

Alex_Simmons/RST

Choice of gearing (within reason) to train starts makes no difference to one's neuromuscular power.

I hate doing starts on anything other than the track bike. It is built for it. Road bikes aren't cut out for that sort of training and it's only a matter of time before equipment failure occurs. When applying full force effort, equipment failure is not a pleasant experience.

As for equipment, just run what ya brung.

In terms of training:

Lots of start practice
Lots of anaerobic capacity and lactate tolerance work.
Be prepared to feel sick.

Blonde

trackworldcup wrote:

standing starts on big gears on the road bike never ever translate well to the track unless your road bike is fixed

Well, the commuting bike is fixed, because otherwise it's just too much maintenance and too much braking involved on my commute, which just eats components. As we live on a hill, I ride only a 69" or 70" gear on that bike though!

Blonde

Thanks Alex_Simmons - Heh, yes well reflux, repeating my tea and seeing I am in a kind of back tunnel with stars in it has already been experienced....oddly the hearing goes muffled as well, but that seems to be on the faster derny efforts, where I have to keep it going for longer.