A Time Trialing Thread

[Aeroiseverything]

Two TTs this week.
The first was on Wednesday on a closed air field. 28.7k, with some minimal elevation here and there.
I had calculated to be arriving really early, to have plenty of time there, get set up, pre ride the course, get a proper warm up etc.
I don’t know how I did it, but I managed to be pretty late, so I couldn’t pre ride the course, just did a few warm up laps next to the course.
Then I had a bunch of things to fiddle with (PM battery had drained after just 4 weeks for whatever reason, my helmet strap had come super loose, I had to change front wheels last minute… just a whole bunch of stuff you don’t want last minute).
I came onto the course, being already pretty stressed out, but hey, everyone else probably is, too.
I found a rhythm pretty quickly. I underpaced the first lap, and took some poor lines there as well. That’s probably where I can shave off 10 seconds without much effort.
Pretty happy with result, coming in second on the day, only losing to a guy who I wasn’t beating even on my best day ever.

The next race was yesterday and it was the state champs. In our area, all the norther states do one combined event, but with winners for every individual state. The tarmac on the course was great, but I hated that it was an out and back course (3 laps), with very tight U-Turns at the end, on this just 5m wide road.
The course was very flat, but also super exposed to the wind. I did a recon ride the night before, and it was awful to ride. 20 knots of wind speed and 34 knots of gusts. The one bit with the front cross wind was nearly unrideable. Fortunately, the forecasted weather was, while still pretty windy, a lot less gusty. Turns out it was correct.
I started in the Men’s Elite Category against a pretty stacked field.
I started out hard and was able to maintain a good and even power production throughout, with probably a little too much left in the tank at the end. I had to remind myself of keeping the head down. That’s where I need to become more disciplined. I saw I was gaining on people on the straights, but lost time one the turns. Probably will have to practice those some more.
I caught my second man at the end of lap 1 and my minute man at the end of lap 2.
29 riders in that Cat, 149 riders in total on that day.
I came in 6th in my category, 8th fastest time out of all the categories on that day, and picked up a bronze medal in my state, with my 440W FTP teammate coming in second.

The fastest guy on the day put out a cool 70W more than me, and beat me be just over a minute. That’s certainly out of reach for me, but with a little more focused training, some better cornering, and some technical tweaks here and there, a tangible improvement is definitely possible until my A Event in September.

[GregElwell]

@Aeroiseverything

The fastest guy on the day put out a cool 70W more than me, and beat me be just over a minute.

As you say, aeroiseverything! Congrats, great result!

[HLaB]

It’ll probably make no difference but Ive bought a pair of 35deg poles of a mate instead of the old 45deg ones I have in the picture below

The real thing I have to do is stop my disc from twisting in the dropouts

[CMeier]

Very nice race report. I stalk you on Strava now to follow your progress ;).
Are those double race weeks common in the northern parts of Germany? With TTs dieing left and right in Bavaria (out of the 7 ones I know, 3 are canceled for this year) I would love to visit the north for a week and ideally do as many TTs as possible next year.
Your A race in September is around a certain lake in Austria? I sadly did not get lucky for that event this year

[Aeroiseverything]

@CMeier

I stalk you on Strava now to follow your progress

I was wondering who that random southern German was

@CMeier

Are those double race weeks common in the northern parts of Germany?

Not really. This was a coincidence, with the Northern TT Series (Zeitfahrserie Nord) having the first of its 5 races on Wednesday, and the state champs being the same weekend.
However, I have found a week where you could participate in two open events within one week.
On the the 21st of June, we have the long race of the Northern TT Series (https://zeitfahrserie-nord.de/termine/), and on the Sunday there is the TT in Rosdorf near Göttingen (http://personal-sports.info/zeitfahrcup/). Obviously the two places are quite far apart, but you might want to go to Schleswig-Holstein first, and then do Rosdorf on the way home.
I’ll likely take part in both races, too.

@CMeier

Your A race in September is around a certain lake in Austria?

Good guess. I got lucky in a way that I got unlucky. I won a place in the race last year, and then crashed my season to a close. They were nice enough to move my starting spot to this year’s race.

Edit: @CMeier : after stalking your Strava profile, it looks like your Skin suit would greatly benefit from an aero base layer, like Rule 28 and NoPinz are selling… just my 2cents

[Aeroiseverything]

I just received the new NoPinz Hypersonic Suit with the new base layer, and the base layer is raising a ton of questions.
I understand, that after the ban of rigid protrusions ON a jersey or skin suit have been banned by the UCI (see Encapsulator suit) in 2019, the best alternative was using seams to generate the same effect around the upper arms and lower legs.
The idea is to turn laminar into turbulent airflow, to have it attach longer to the limbs, that are upright and cylindrical, which is awful for aerodynamics.
Now, the new cool trick is to use a textured base layer, with a super thin, tight and smooth suit over top of it.

What I expected is, that the textures are a lot more pronounced than the seams on typical Aero socks and sleeves or TT suits, and therefore create greater turbulence and thereby less drag (I am not a physicist, if you didn’t realize by now ).
Basically this:

Now, after a lot of bloviating, I unpacked the base layer and the stripes are relatively far apart and actually rather “flat”.

Side by side with the base layer from Rule 28, it’s even extremely difficult to show it protrude at all:

I put the skin suit over the base layer, and even with a lot of fiddling, a lot of the sleeve remains “untouched”:

Regarding the strips: they are quite a bit further apart on the Nopinz, than on the R28:

R28 has done some testing in that, and found, that the width they chose was faster than a wider width:

Of course NoPinz have done testing, showing the Rule28 base layer performs poorly on their suit.

I am caught in marketing Limbo, and probably none of this will mean anything, and I’ll have to conduct my own testing. Just wanted to let you in on my thought process in all of this, and show you the products and their differences.

[Majoeric]

That last paragraph sums it up….I’ve also learned the hard way that what works for one doesn’t work for another.

Consider this… how much faster was the flow suit compared to the pro 1? How much faster was the super sonic compared to the flow? These gains just seem unrealistic.

[visa.k]

On Thursday I am riding my first time trial ever, having only ridden my time trial bike about 5 times in the past. It’s a 20km race with 10km in one direction and then back. Quite flat or “rolling” (all in all 150m elevation). I tried pacing an ITT yesterday on a local similarly rolling 10km TT course – not quite all out, but still tried to go fast. Managed 324W and 15min5s with an estimated FTP of 319W. The position felt a bit awkward at times, setting appropriate gearing at all times was challenging, and I was a bit unsure where I should turn halfway, but otherwise it felt like a solid effort. I think I’ll set a goal of 30min for Thursday’s TT, and if I can average about 320W, I’m quite happy

[DFH]

It all seems a bit magic doesn’t it!

When asked about the claims that the pro-1 is now actually as fast as (or faster) than the flow suit, they said that they had updated the material for the pro-1, so what were all those trip-seams doing? I know a few riders were a bit miffed at having forked out for the flow suit to then read it wasn’t actually faster after all!

Majority (95%) of my races are CTT, so I mostly wear an Endura SST suit, but have another suit without the silicone on the shoulders. I bought the no pins base layer, primarily for the pocket for my car keys (lack of matching phone pocket is an oversight imo) but also thinking it might give me a marginal gain if I’m not using the SST.

I haven’t tried it on yet, but it’s tiny, I got a men’s large and my 8 year olds MTB base layer looks bigger.

But as above, the ribs are so low profile, I don’t think it’s going to make any difference unless the suit I’m wearing is super tight and super thin like the new nopinz suit . Hoping to qualify for the UCI (gran fondo) worlds TT, and I guess I’ll get a nopinz GB* suit for that - so all is not lost.

*worlds are at home in Scotland, and I’d much rather have a on my suit, much less brexity

[DFH]

It’s good to go in with a plan .

How rolling is it? You’ll save a lot of time raising the effort on the uphills, and holding it over the crest. You can take some micro recoveries on the downhill bits (just imagine coach Chad telling you it’s ok to back pedal for a few seconds!)

I’d treat your first one as a free hit - especially if you’re likely to race the course again!

Good luck and have fun (oh, and make sure to get some race pics so you can look at your position and find a few things to work on for next time).

[visa.k]

Thanks for the tips! Here’s a pic of the profile from Strava. A couple of steeper hills but nothing too major.

I’ll try to raise the effort for the hills! I think it won’t be a problem, I have felt pretty strong on 120-130% FTP surges lately. Finding the right gearing in time might pose a problem, but I hope it will work out
Also, good point about the race pics!

[theakstons]

Design your own Scotland suit, if i was to qualify I’d definitely go for that over a GB suit…

[DFH]

I’ll dig into the rules and see if that’s allowed!

Kyle Gordon had his TT helmet sprayed with a saltire for the commonwealth games, I was thinking of going that route

[visa.k]

Just filmed my TT position for the first time. Obviously I am not wearing a helmet here, but otherwise it felt pretty similar to what I tried outside.

With no real experience with time trialing, I am a bit uncertain about what I should do with the position based on this. I feel I could get the back slightly straighter/more extended in the scapula region if I just concentrated on it. I tried “dropping between the shoulderblades” but I don’t know if it worked too well. I could also probably shift the seat 1-2cm forward and still be inside regulations.

[HLaB]

I’m certainly no expert but I think if you go too flat sometimes you impede your hip joint which stops you getting power out. Also to my eye your saddle is way too high, I think you want a more horizonal foot at the bottom of your stroke (rather than toes pointing down) and putting strain on your cafes/quads. It might be completely a wrong adage but an old lbs owner told me toes down is great for sprinting but not for comfort and power.

[theakstons]

Do that too! Or use vinyl wrap and you can always get a photo prior and take it off for the actual event

[BenB]

I’m not a fitter, but I always try to put my laptop roughly where i’ll be looking down the road, it makes a difference in head/body position. Make sure you can see where you’re going in real life.

[CMeier]

Oh, didn’t see your edit here. Sorry for the late reply.
I can’t make the 2 TTs in one week this year, we got to plan our vacations quite far ahead at work sadly. But will keep an eye on those northern Germany series for next year. A 50km, not Triathlon Team, time trial is non existing here besides the king of the Lake. I’d love to try that.

About my TT suit and Aero base layer - thanks for making me look deeply into it!
Velodrome test in February (Giro Aerohead)
TT suit alone cdA 0.2062
Road suit + Rule28 cdA 0.2057

Velodrome test in April (TT5 helmet)
TT suit alone cdA 0.1953
TT suit + Rule28 cdA 0.2010

Don’t need to discuss the fourth value after the digit for velodrome testing, that’s margin of error (and not only the measurement, but myself alone).
So if we just say x is better than y, it would indicate that Road suit and Rule28 should be faster, BUT I tested that difference in February with another helmet. And for some reason never saw it cause I also tested other helmets at that time and it was stuck in my head that POC Tempor + TT suit = fastest.
The team TT suit (Sportful Rocket) has its zippers on the shoulders as a trip layer and rough fabric on the “back” of the zipper, see attached picture.

[CMeier]

The nopinz being wider Strips could be solely due to the speed they designed the suit for? If you check the 45km/h section you see that the wide Strips would be even faster for the Rule28 base layer, just “a lot” slower when you lose speed.

[visa.k]

Thank you for the comments! I ended up setting the saddle lower. Here is a photo of me about 100m from the finish line.

It looks like I should try to close the gap between my head and hands, probably by setting the hands slightly higher as well as getting the neck into a better position.

The TT itself went quite okay. 29min 1s on a 20km course with a strong 6m/s sideways wind that was slightly on the tailside on the first half and turned to a headwind in the second half. I averaged 315W, about 15W less than I would have expected on my road bike.

Next time I’ll try to keep the power slightly less variable and aim for a slight negative split, this time I started just a bit too fast.