Time Trial / Time Trialling / TT

Use a bigger gear

Err... practice more? Is that with aerobars or drops?

Anyone know about the H50/1a? Is it worth having a go for a PB?

Where's your current 50 PB? It's laps of the H25/1, not exceptionally fast but reasonable enough. Maybe a tad slower than Bentley?

Down south somewhere (P885/50). I know the H25/1 - I PB'd there earlier this year but it's not that fast for me with the lump in the middle and the chance of a ped crossing fail. I'll think about it.

Drops, usually on the hoods, but have been a lot more comfortable down in the drops since using a saddle with cut-out. More practise is definitely on the menu, but I was wondering if anyone thought it could be something like a core-strength issue

P885/50 is faster, depends how much quicker you are now. I might be there.

I think it's just an acclimatisation thing rather than any specific area you can work on. Some people can naturally spin better than others, but you can improve.

Yeah, I could probably PB on the H50/1a but it's whether or not it's worth it if I go somewhere faster and cane it by more anyway. I've only got limited weekends.

Cheers! Why did you ask about the bars?

Because I find higher cadences much easier on regular handlebars than aerobars, and as this is the TT thread we might have expected you to be using aerobars.

Train on rollers and velodromes.

My medium gear times PBs:

2012 - 27:11 (road bike)
2013 - 25:51 (road bike)
2014 - 25:43 (full aero)

vs unrestricted gearing on full aero

2012 - 23:58
2013 - 21:57
2014 - 20:58

There's probably some sort of conclusion that can be drawn from that.

Nice to meet @mdcc_tester and @umop3pisdn on Saturday, although too briefly.

I'm still trying to work out how I managed to go so mysteriously slow. I rode the same course at the end of May on what was widely considered to be a slow afternoon. Everyone was talking about Saturday being a quick day and almost everyone else who rode both events (5ish riders) saw a 30-60 second improvement... I went 30seconds slower off a near identical average power. Humph.

What was your medium gear @umop3pisdn ?

Average power doesn't tell you where you delivered the power. You might've pushed harder into the wind or hills last time and slacked off more elsewhere.

48/18 with a 25c tyre, though differnet combinations of rim and tyre will have resulted in ever so slight differences year on year. Think I'd have been quicker on drops last year tbh.

I think conditions were quite varied during the day. We obviously got the slowest conditions out of all of the tandems, easily worth 54 seconds.

The gearing I'm on is just what I have for general purpose riding, there's absolutely nothing about the bike or the riding which is TT specific, I just thought this would be a good place to ask as it's a thread I lurk in where there's a lot of technical knowledge floating about!
Obviously if/when I give this a try properly (September time, touring all summer), I'll play around with some smaller cogs and some cheap bars

Yeah I think this is a big part of it. I felt tired, and despite putting out near identical power (AP/NP) to my previous go on that course, I was 15w down on the SB power that I set on Wednesday. I think that the tiredness, and the associated low motivation meant that I was lazy and allowed my power slump on the difficult sections of the course while I still managed to pushed on a bit during the easy sections.

Slacking off in the hard times is exactly the opposite of what I should have been doing.

We obviously got the slowest conditions out of all of the tandems, easily worth 54 seconds.

Maybe not 54s, but Oliver/Cox must have missed the shower completely, so they probably gained a bit on us. On the other hand, Gaida/House probably had worse conditions than us, which may explain why they only took one second off us on the return leg.

Use a bigger gear

Or shorter cranks :-)

Could well be pacing though, and Stewart said they ran out of gears coming back.

Stewart said they ran out of gears coming back.

I thought they said they were mashing it in the last couple of miles, I got the impression that a downshift was required but not exercised. Anyway, we can snootily disregard any complaints from other crews about their gearing :-)

http://www.etixx-quickstep.com/en/news/show/time-trial-preparation/2288

Just work on flexibility and and trying to isolate your hips from your shoulders. Sounds odd but I guess it's a core strength thing. Get on the rollers and work on keeping your balance at high cadence.