Time Trial / Time Trialling / TT

The old chestnut of the rising wind that pushes you back from the turn

Not if you had a headwind out.
Headwind out will allways cost you more time than is possible to get back in the tailwind, so don't 'save' yourself for the return leg.

But also don't go all out into the wind and leave yourself nothing.

For a moment, I was looking into spending £70 on a pointy hat. Then I remembered I'm on £12K, I live in Central London, and I've got a kid to raise. And people went sub-50 for the 25 without even using tribars. And they look stupid. And I don't even have a skin suit or shave my legs.

Sometimes, when you hang around this forum too much, you can forget that you're a cyclist and not another vacuous bike porn consumer.

"Buying speed" works though.

Good job it's boring so i never want to.

ah, but you have to give yourself the chance to be as fast as you can be

I do. With the equipment I have. If I get fast enough to be competitive then I will invest and win. Otherwise it is still just a race against me and I define the rules for my little competition, be it no aerobars or whatever.

might as well do it on a shopper then!

an aero-shopper, obviously.

I don't own a shopper so buying one would break my rules wouldn't it?

Better to do it on a Chopper. Just swap the bars out, and stretch out forwards on the seat like the superman position. That small front wheel is clearly aimed at lo-pro TTists.

I was actually thinking of welding the Soma and the Condor together and competing in trike races. Less competition = more chance of success = ftw!

I don't own a shopper so buying one would break my rules wouldn't it?

you could change the rules to allow strictly once-per-season Shopper purchases.

Sometimes, when you hang around this forum too much, you can forget that you're a cyclist and not another vacuous bike porn consumer.

Not me, and I guess not you either. The fasionista hipsters are a really small part of the big wide world in which we exist.

I think "Combine" just refers to multiple clubs participating (Willesden, Westerley, etc). It's a solo event afaik. Mar 22nd is a Sunday. I spoke to Rich today and he said it's not a good course, reckons if you do 1:05 on it you'll do sub-hour on that fast course I've done. Where? West of London somewhere. 2009. President Clinton? Obama? Rudd? Dunno really.

I'm not a member of any lah-de-dah West London club, so I'm excluded.

Didn't want to ride anyway :p

I don't know if it excludes other clubs (wouldn't fucking surprise me though bloody archaic Brit TT system!) but I could find out I guess.

I've decided to change the rules nimhbus and it allows me to steal TT bikes to improve my times. My new ride..

Ha, that bike is clearly on drugs and you have just earned a lifetime ban Mr. hippy

Well, it may be the only one of its kind in the world, but it clearly doesn't look distinctive enough not to change hands in Brick Lane for fiddy dorrah next Sunday.

hippy, what do you mean, 'Livestrong'? Are you going all straight and serious on us?

hippy, what do you mean, 'Livestrong'? Are you going all straight and serious on us?

It's a new way of taking performance enhancing substances without being detected.

Armstrong wasn't racing on those wheels though. Bet his HED 3 goes on eBay this week :D

hippy - saw a link on a West London Tri calendar thing that mentioned those CC113 WLC events were for member club, er, members only.

LIVEWRONG..

http://www.thehippy.net/gallery/albums/userpics/10001/IMG_1803_sml.JPG

Armstrong wasn't racing on those wheels though. Bet his HED 3 goes on eBay this week :D

hippy - saw a link on a West London Tri calendar thing that mentioned those CC113 WLC events were for member club, er, members only.

Ah, ya cockbag, I just sent a post to Rich about it. Nevermind, east London scumbag.

To respond to some of the comments here

Combine events.
I checked with my expert on this.
These are strictly speaking club events where a number of clubs have joined together to aid organisation. Presumably the organiser could be asked to allow an entry as a private time trial just as in any club event.
If you really want to ride a particular club's events you might consider joining that club as a second claim member - that is second to the club in whose colours you normally race. This is usually fairly cheap and doesn't involve any real commitment. Some might say it's like having a bit on the side, but in fact it doesn't involve the same problems. The same tactic can be used for association events.

The Old Chestnut.
I did say a rising wind back from the turn.
It's very common that around dawn there's a flat calm but as the sun starts to warm things up the wind gets going, and this is the time of day when a lot of time trials take place. Usually sod's law causes this to work against you, but there will be exceptions; naturally, I believe the exceptions always benefit my rivals.

My posts may seem to contain a lot of words, but each one has its purpose.

Buying Speed.
I don't think there's any doubt that tribars are far and away the most cost effective way of buying speed. However my experience is that just bolting them onto your existing set up doesn't work. A smaller frame than normal is needed to reduce the height of the bars - you're not going to be holding the bottom of the drops, you're going to be resting your forearms above the bars. It's necessary to get your back as near as possible parallel with the road. This is about reducing frontal area.
So all you need is an old frame with a short head tube and a reasonably long slot in the rear fork ends (i.e. not vertical drop outs) and you've got the basis for a fixed TT bike which will have the potential, on a reasonably still day, to make the owners of expensive carbon exotica look sick.

naturally, I believe the exceptions always benefit my rivals.

Tsk, tsk. As a time triallist of course you shouldn't even be thinking about your rivals but only about your own PB. ;)

If I was to use clip-ons, I'd use the beaut ahead system to slam my bars and then fiddle with the saddle.
All this messing about with my road bike setup means the reality is: 1. I'm not going to touch my road bike. 2. I may build a TT specific bike at some point.

If I was to use clip-ons, I'd use the beaut ahead system to slam my bars and then fiddle with the saddle.
All this messing about with my road bike setup means the reality is: 1. I'm not going to touch my road bike. 2. I may build a TT specific bike at some point.

Quite right.

Conventional road bikes are not really suitable for time trials. This might be a problem if we weren't keen on fixed wheel bikes, which are a cheap way of being highly competitive (Boardman, O'Bree and others).

hippy + fixed tt bike = boardman or obree? hahaha :)

I wonder about using a cheapish alu track frame, a size down, would be a reasonable option? I guess it depends on the nature of the courses you ride the most. TTs seem to me to be fairly non-technical, ie. out-and-back on an A-road so track geo would be okay. The steep seat tube angle gets you rotated over the bb, low head tube allows proper height tt bars... hmm..

Might go and have a look at Planet-X's offerings.. they were doing built up fixed and road tt bikes for low dosh..