Time Trial / Time Trialling / TT

Has anyone on here done the Shaftesbury CC club run on a Wednesday night?

It's on the E81a course near Chelmsford, which from Google Maps looks relatively gentle.

I just remembered that I will need arm numbers for the National 12hr.
Before I buy a set of nopinz arm number pockets, does anyone have a set I could borrow for around 12hrs?

I have some medium never used, you can borrow. Pm me

It’s a nice road, flat with a few corners. Not the nicest road around but one you can ride fast.

Awesome, thanks.

Watched the carry on with traffic.
I wouldn't actually choose to ride that road during the day, and the close passing and Russian roulette of opposing sides of traffic trying to squeeze past riders.

I wouldn’t like to ride that in peak traffic time either. Looks like it has the combined worst aspects of single and dual carriageway roads right there.

Looks like it has the combined worst aspects of single and dual carriageway roads right there

True, you'd need to be super aggressive with your primary positioning to force everybody to do proper overtaking. On the other hand, everything looks worse from the side of the road than it does from the controls of a TT bike

We watched a fairly close pass by an HGV, forced by the lorry not slowing down and oncoming traffic not slowing up either.

That point in time swung it for me.
The fella with me said the rider would get a nice tow along from that.....
I don't have the mindset.

I am used to racing closed tracks, you might catch the rider in front, or be caught by a rider from behind at 30 second gaps from the start line.

There is another route about 15 miles away, haven't found the map yet, another clubs TT circuit run on back roads. Will look into that.
Haven't fully ruled out the first one but i can do it early sat/sun mornings when little traffic.
See if i can hit a "28" without shaving body bits :)

Which course?

I think it's an unoffical one around Tenterden Kent, through Appledore (or Applewood) looping back to Tenterden golf club. More hilly, quieter roads. Think the club was Rye Wheelers.
Had a quick look and found clubs website but didn't find TT details.

DC TT courses are quite intense, but in terms of safety, I don’t feel scared riding them. Last weekend from the E2 after leaving the DC, riding back to the hq.

To paraphrase myself on the TTF-

“Just after I finished on the E2 I was almost killed by a Hermes 7.5T truck. Think it was a miss judged overtake and something came the other way, but while along side me he veered left, and I had to hop onto the verge to avoid being hit. The van continued to veer and mounted the verge itself before correcting. Pretty scary.”

Since then it turns out the driver somehow found the HQ and went there to apologise and say he ran a cyclist off the road due to his own mistake. A cyclist himself and showed genuine remorse.

At least on a DC there is room to drift as the lanes are wider. That’s before you get riders coming towards you in the opposite direction.

Found the map finder on the CTT webby.
3x10's near me then.
Q10/33 is the one spoken about the other night.
Q10/1 done that one twice now.
Q10/10 slower road than /1 but A28, wouldn't piss about on that during the day time either.

Traffic around Ashford is really poor at the moment with loads of roadworks and delays getting around town so loads of knobbish driving.
Q10/1 appears to be pushed back to 7.30pm start now from 7.00 so getting an 8pm start slot should see less traffic.
Hmmmm.

Q10/33 is a nice course, road surface is a bit uneven in the second half, at full race speed it requires good bike handling as it's twisty in places. You need to be wary of traffic entering and exiting the garden centre at the bottom of the hill in Leigh Green. But other than that, yes, it's fairly quiet.

Q10/10 is used for a time trial held on New Years Day, and yes, even then it's quite busy and when at the HQ just off the main road in Bethersden you can usually hear car horns honking and drivers bellowing. Must be the hangovers.

In need of some advice: recently got back into timetrialling and bought a PX clincher trispoke off a FB swap/sell page. Wheel looks in good condition and has (allegedly) only be used for 4 Club 10's. The wheel spins well but is about 1mm out of true - I used paypal so can send the item back easily if I want.
Is 1mm tolerable for a trispoke or will it only get worse in the future?
Cheers

I think 1mm is normal for trispokes.

I've owned a couple and that seems to be standard.

Is 1mm tolerable for a trispoke

It's probably within manufacturer's tolerance if it's 1mm total indicated axial run-out. Whether it's tolerable is another matter, I think @xavierdisley found that small amounts of run-out noticeably degrade aero performance of the Hed3

AFAIK, Hed3 is supposed to be <.030" TIR axial, which is 0.75mm in the 99% of the world which has gone over to the Napoleonic system. Some of the Chinese sourced wheels only aim for double that as a QC pass.

Thanks @tommmmmmm @mdcc_tester I think it will be fine for now, just worried more rides/races will make it unrideable incase it gets to 3/4mm etc. (Also PX doesn't have the best reputation so worried the wheel will only get worse)

just worried more rides/races will make it unrideable

As long as you don't mistreat them, carbon trispokes tend to stay the shape they were when they came out of the mould for a long time.

Awesome. Thanks. Also - is rim tape necessary? (not a WW just don't have any to hand)

is rim tape necessary?

No

It's bad on a narrow H3 to be out of true, but more modern trispokes (like the Pro Shimano one) are pretty immune to it because of the bulged rim shape. To be fair I've only ever seen one Pro trispoke that was actually true out of all the pro teams and riders that have had them!

Million dollar question.

Will aero always triumph over power? Have been trying to slowly get more aero this season, on Sunday my power dropped like a stone after dropping the base bars (and therefore extensions also) by 5mm.

Before anyone asks, I can't afford an Aerocoach session, in either time or money.

Well it's w/CdA innit

Will aero always triumph over power?

No, it doesn't work like that. They are on two sides of the same equation. If you make a change to one which also affects the other, you have to solve again to find out whether V has gone up or down.

my power dropped like a stone after dropping the base bars (and therefore extensions also) by 5mm

But did you go faster?