In which I build a bike to win the North Road Hardriders

@cjr has a clincher HED disc I’m sure he’s lend you

@fredtc shall we get a LFGSS bunch of screaming, running fans together to cheer you on a la stage of the TDF?
Should be a laugh and spur you on to win?!

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honestly, if anyone can be assed to get up at 7am in February to watch me cycle past then I'll be astounded. Never mind bringing signs

I would fully suggest though that anyone considering should enter it. Being hilly it's very road bike friendly and quite a fun course when your hands aren't so frozen you can't shift. And the cakes at the school hall are top

Hilly? You want to come and do the Buxton Mountain Time Trial: 1000m over 51km.

Seriously though, I’ve always fancied a crack at this. Few years since I’ve pinned a number on but fitness is slowly coming back to me.

So bike was collected yesterday and ridden this morning. Initial observation is this thing is wild. It’s about as tricked out as a tt bike could be and kind of crazy something like this is relatively affordable. Carbon chainring, di2, ceramic everything, dash saddle, power pedals, tririg omega etc

The saddle needs to go down a bit and the chainring is a bit big for me so will change that. Otherwise feels great

Did a 3 laps of RP and snuck under 50 minutes which is ok, but basically where I would be on the road bike. It was a bit windy so maybe it’s better than I’m giving credit for. Anyhow, it’s clear the main project here is actually going to be some training

I’m looking at High North’s FTP training plans - then I’d have some time to train 2 minute efforts before February

Anyone got a better idea than this
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/training-plans/cycling/tp-362918/threshold-unstructured-12-weeks-med-vol-9-12-hrs-week-click-for-guidance-on-plan

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Subbed.

Nice. I’ll never get my head around asymmetric stays but I trust whoever designed it wasn’t just doing it for laughs.

You reckon there’s any benefit going for deeper wheels? I have no idea what your position looks like but would imagine a fitter would save you some watts if you’ve just bought that bike.

As for that plan, I can’t see what the intensity is like and YMMV but I’d be putting in some longer weeks in there if it was me. I always responded well to the odd spell of big volume ie basically like a training camp.

yes, probably. I've got some 50mm tubs that I'll put on for the race but these will do for training.

Once I've dropped the saddle I'll have a think about dropping the front end too. Not sure I have the budget for a bike fit yet, but who knows.

Exactly my experience - I do a few 200s over Christmas and NY break and that usually brings me good in February so I'll be doing that this year too.

I’ll never get my head around asymmetric stays but I trust whoever designed it wasn’t just doing it for laughs.

I thought it was a bit of a gimmic for frame stiffness but I can't think of any aero advantages to it (yeah, yeah I know, you can't SEE aerodynamics)

Do you use a PM? You’ve got loads of time to test savings from positional changes yourself.

Out of interest, what’s the rough split between road bikes and TT bikes in the race?

Yes, you're right. Just feels like a lot of effort. I'm going to try to stick to the training plan as my first goal then fiddle with the edges a month or so in.

It's probably 50/50. The first half is probably faster on a road bike, the second on a TT. The bike I've bought is pretty light so hopefully this cancels out most of the losses in the first half

Interesting. The mountain TT always draws a big field of TT bikes but I’d love to see some proper hitters turn up on road bikes. It’s only really the top A road section where (to me) it feels like it would be faster on a TT bike.

For ref: https://www.strava.com/segments/1191137

that looks brilliant, I'll be there.

I've never ridden it but I assume the downhill would be a hell of a lot faster too.

Also, Adam Kenway's on the road bike results, definitely a proper hitter

For ref: https://www.strava.com/segments/1191137

Ah I remember reading Tejvan's race reports of that course
https://cyclinguphill.com/buxton-mountain-time-trial-2016/

The downhill is….. errrr fun if you’ve got the nerve for it. It’s a well marshalled race so at least you don’t have to contend with any traffic.

Archibald overtook me down the descent on his TT rig with a full disc on his way to setting his first course record. I’ve never been much of a descender.

It’s a beautiful part of the peaks as you can see from his pics.

Road bike category down to two laps since I last did it in (I think) 2019.

The great thing about the switch to disc brakes from a second hand perspective is there are some huge bargains out there, particularly for TT bikes which are relatively niche. Position is very person specific but I'd experiment with putting the extensions in the 'standard' way round and see what works better for you. I know high hands were all the rage a few years back but I found I stuck my head up to see over them and was quicker in a more traditional position where I could keep my head low and still see where I was going.

If you're on Zwift the 8 week TT programme on there worked well for me the last time I tried to get back to fitness, at least for the first 5 weeks. The top end sessions they then put in for the last few weeks were beyond me, probably because I'm a diesel and repeated Z6 efforts were never a strong suit, but it might be worth looking at for this sort of course.

How is the bike and how is the training?

Bike's good but almost unchanged. Dropped the base bar about 40mm so my back's flat and left it like that. Feels ok and I haven't really felt like throwing any more money at it. I rode the Brighton Mitre end of season 25 in 58.41 for 4th place, which is ok but to be honest I hoped to be quite a bit faster.

As an aside, the race was amazing. Beautiful morning, nice course and so well run and an a £1.5K prize pot for 25 entries. Every woman and every road bike got a prize. Then tea and cakes afterwards, couldn't want for more.

Training not so much. 8 weeks into my plan and have dropped 1 watt on my latest FTP. I know there's a lot of variables but don't feel very strong atm and not really sure what to do. I guess my volume has gone down a fair bit from the summer, but I've been pretty good about the plan so I'd hope it'd do more than maintain where I was. I think also this conversation above about testing in the extensions vs not - I have been and I think therefore my vo2 max efforts haven't been hard enough. And I don't feel like I've adapted to the position in any meaningful way so I'm not certain it's helped there either.

I've never done well on training plans so I think I'm just going to go back to 2 zwift races a week, 1 long ride and as much zone 2 as I can fit in around that. Will find out in 4 weeks how that goes.

Surely 1w is well within margin of error for a power meter.
Maybe that lack of ‘feeling’ fast is just accumulated fatigue?

Oh totally, it’s not a decline. But I’d hope to do a bit better than not getting worse.

Haven’t really get back on the bike since HC season. You’ll be fine