Team TT Training Advice

amck111

I was wondering if anybody had any good advice for when it comes to TTT? The goal is a 25 mile, 4 man, Team Time Trial in a few weeks time. 3 of us are fairly evenly matched, with one a bit stronger. Tonight was our first training session, and although it went well I'm sure there are a lot of things that could help us. My main question is how on long front? Should we be just playing it by ear and turning over when the lead man feels like it or do shorter stints at the front; say 30-60seconds?

cyco2

Try one of these from page 3

viewtopic.php?f=40011&t=12845407

amck111

TTT gold.

Advice on Team Trials By David McCann
- 2-Ups dont usually go 'all that much' quicker than TT's
- you cant go 'all that much' faster doing repeated 1 minute changes than you can for 60 minutes solid.
- The shorter your changes, the faster you can go
But,
- The shorter your changes, the more time you spend neither at the front nor on the wheels.

So, the trick is in doing changes short enough that you can go 'a good amount' faster than your steady tt speed, but not so short that you are constantly changing, and cant get a chance to relax on the wheel before your next turn.
A good team of 4 even guys will be doing 20 to 30 seconds at the front. No more.

To go by feel: It should NOT feel like a time trial effort.
If you are going that steady, you could probably go harder. It is, and should feel like (20seconds on / 60 seconds recovery) intervals.
Often the 20 seconds after your turn and getting onto the back can feel harder than your actual turn did- If it feels like this, well done, you are doing it right!
if you are comfortable enough in last place, you maybe could have done a bit of a longer turn.
- Changing.
Although some disagree, and like to keep pedalling a bit and holding their speed while drifting back. Most think the best change from the front, is to swing over and get to the back as quickly as possible. that means freewheeling, (standing up for a quick stretch if you need to and a short sprint back onto the last wheel. Dont wait until you are at the back to sprint - Once your front wheel is level with the last mans bottom bracket, get out of the saddle and lift it. By the time he passes you, you should be at his speed without ever dropping more than a foot behind his wheel. Whole manoeuvre should take no more than 10 seconds.
Changing 2-
The guy who has just gotten to the front, should never lift the speed until he is sure that he guy just swinging off has gotten onto the back. Obviously looking back all the time is a no-no. So again general rule is for first 10 seconds, just keep the speed what it was. Then slowly increase the pressure.
Turns-
The fastest part of your turn should be the last second. You should never allow yourself to die and slow down. You swing over and change just when you are about to die. OR, the second man calls a change when he feels the guy in front is starting to slow. EVEN if this is only 5 seconds into his turn. IF he is slowing, he changes.
Speed-
What I said above shouldn’t be true (but often is)
Even though people are strong and week, the speed SHOULD be constant. weak riders do shorter turns, strong riders do longer.

Unless they are really in trouble, the weak riders should still do a turn, even if they can only manage 5 seconds. It is better than nothing, and MUCH better that sitting on for 5 minutes and then doing a turn that’s too hard.
The only time you stop turning is if you can’t even manage 5 seconds while maintaining the team's speed.
Again, if you miss turns. Better to start turning sooner with short turns, rather than wait until you can do long ones. But don’t get dropped. (!)

Communication.
It can be surpisingly difficult to know if you are going too fast ot too slow in comparision with the others, because it feels so different in the wind. So its up to the others to tell someone if they are going too fast or slow.
If too fast , you tell them "do longer" - that will soon bring them down to the other rider’s speed.
If too slow; "do shorter".
A big problem can be a weaker rider complaining that someone else is going too hard while he insists on doing 30 second turns at a slower speed. Only when the weaker riders are already toing very short turns, must the stronman be told to do longer, and therefore slower, turns.

Order-
The strong guy should usually sit behind the rider who gives the least shelter. this will give him a harder ride while sitting on, and help to even the team out a bit.
BUT, if this smallest rider is also the weakest, he may have a real hard time getting onto the back while the strong guy is going through - So its especially important that he goes through steady and doesnt lift it.
(Or, the small guy allows for this effort when deciding when to swing over and drop back and does shorter turns to make up for the extra effort in going to the back.)

Again this order is best, because if the weak rider instead follows the stron man, he could find it really hard to keep the speed up, although if he is willing to just do a 10 second turn and drop back, this 'can' work too.

Warm up should be ridden as a team tt, riding and changing every 20 seconds at an easy pace, and GRADUALLY building up the speed while keeping the changes slick.

If you are in 1st to 3rd, dont get out of the saddle. ever.
If the guys behind can rely on you to stay seated, they can be confident to sit a lot closer to your wheel and get more shelter than if they must worry about you standing up and throwing your back wheel back into them.

andyrr

Pretty comprehensive advice there ^
I've ridden a good few 4-man TTTs (our national TTT race) and 3 man TTTs so would offer this :
Practice : getting out even 2 or 3 times as a complete team (or, at worst a man down on the full compliment) is a big help and lets you all see who is good and who is not - sometimes the guy that is a good strong road racer is poor in a TTT. Riding a course that is similar to the event can help with determining how you deal with things like a rider that suffers on climbs, varying wind direction that is from your left at one point on the course then from your right at another point - you can swap the side of the pace-line that you change on etc
We generally aimed at a number of pedal revs for each rider, 20 - 25 or so, with that the rider at the front just counts from when their wheel gets ahead of the man that has peeled off and the rider behind can also work out approx how long before their turn is coming. This was a guide only but can stop riders that thing they have bundles of energy at the start from giving it welly to then suffer half way through. If one rider is genuinely stronger then he can do 35 revs right from the off with the weaker guy doing 15 as an example.
Talk/shout to each other - no good a man struggling to take his turn after 5 miles just keeping going through - you must speak to each other.
If you are all a reasonable match and as a team you prepare well then it should be fine - I was fortunate in that generally I was one of the stronger guys in the teams I rode in - we did one Nat TTT that a man who we thought would be at least as strong as the other 3 struggled after a few miles - he then hung on for the remaining 25 or so and in the last miles as we tired he contributed a few turns. I enjoyed these races more than most other events as the feeling of a shared goal and the cajoling of the other team members to reach the end as a well-performing unit was one I really got satisfaction from. We never did particularly well - don't think we ever got further than top 15 in our national TTT but generally we were satisfied that we gave our all.