A Time Trialing Thread

Not two and a half minutes then?

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A high head position can cost you a decent chunk of time…get that sorted and I think you’ll be surprised by the results.

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Not on that test anyway.
Based on myself, there’s about a 2 & 1/2 min advantage over a plain road bike when include the whole shebang (TT bike, deep front/ disc rear, TT helmet, suit and shoe covers).

That’s good information thanks. My first go on a TT bike knocked off 1 min so not unreasonable to hope that further position adjustments, skinsuit and deep section wheels might get save me another decent chunk of time.

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Thanks to you - set it up myself based almost entirely on your comments on this forum so I probably owe you a beer.

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Wow…thanks, kev! I appreciate that!!

@kevistraining - contrary to some of the above, I think you could still have some pretty big improvements to make.
As others have said, turtling is one big part. The other is to close the gap between your head and hands. Look at the side-on photo of Jamie Berry just a few posts above yours. Then compare to yours. In your front-on photo, I could put a bucket on top of your forearms and you’d be looking over the top. Essentially, all the wind that’s going over our hands but lower than the top of your visor is going into this bucket.
To achieve this, you’ll probably need to get your head lower by 10cm. Please don’t do this by tilting your head down (not least because it will increase the gap between your helmet and back - you want to close this). And obviously, if you value your life, you will want to be looking where you are going.
Play around with your arms and elbows a bit until you find a position where you can ā€œsagā€ your neck and head down, chin jutting forward.

One final thought; although your extended leg is away from camera, it does look very straight. I am riding a much lower position than I used to, partly because the science says you don’t lose power from being slightly too low (but you do from being too high), partly because you can save a lot of frontal area.

Oh, and a skinsuit with a Nopinz pocket will make a good difference for you, given you otherwise have a great back angle (it also looks like you have little issue with hip impingement?)

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Thanks for the input Greg :+1:

I think I’m happy with my saddle hight from a power output perspective - my legs don’t seem too straight on other pics I have - but I’ve also dropped down to 165 cranks for my TT bike so could probably drop my saddle a bit lower to decrease frontal area and not be too restricted. Worth an experiment.

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Moved arm rests forward and did first ride without excessive side delt burn :slightly_smiling_face: Now I need to try previous lower position and hope reach isn’t too much.

My bike has Profile Design Subsonic Race 35a aerobars and they are clicking constantly. I can limit/stop the noise if bend them apart while riding. Any tips? I can’t stand noisy bikes.

I have put fresh carbon paste where aerobars mount to basebar, grease between arm rest spacers, torqued everything correctly. Haven’t done anything to extensions yet.

Edit: Went 15mm lower. HR was higher but so was cadence. I might be tipping forward since I seem slip forward on my saddle (Fizik Mistica).

No clicking from extensions today. I think they might have been too deep in the brackets in grinded against them.

Before

After

So I lowered my front end and concentrated on keeping my head down and I think I look a bit better this week?

Averaged an extra 5w too but think I’m still getting noob gains while I’m getting used to the bike.

I’ve ordered a skin suit with nopinz pocket because this week I could feel my jersey and number flapping about.

Thanks to the photo I also noticed that my rear mech was jammed and not taking up the slack when I’m in the smaller cogs - not sure what if any difference that would make to drivetrain losses but it’s fixed now.

I’ve also got a feeling my helmet might not be the best choice for me. Think I might be better with something wider and with a longer tail?

Next experiment is dropping my saddle (and bars) down slightly to get smaller overall and seeing if my power is the same…

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2 other very easy aero gains are get some pin head Skewers
Aero Skewers
and tidy up that front brake cable that is sitting in the wind causing drag.

You might want to look at your arm pads as well, if you look closely, your pads are flat & your arms aren’t. It looks like a big air scoop to me. Perhaps invest in a tilt block to close that gap. You might find it more comfortable as well as you’d be using more of the pad. Arm rest wedges

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But my campy WTO scewers are so pretty :eyes:

Arm rests are at 15 degrees - think it might be my Garmin you can see - I’ve moved it down to the flat part of my extensions.

Defo a good call on my front brake though - already got my eye on it :+1: I’ve just made it as short as possible at the moment but trying to think of a routing that would hide it from the wind more - I’m even wondering if it might be better to make it much longer and route it over the top or round the back of my stem?

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@kevistraining

I can see some good improvements there in your before-and-after, so well done on that.
@Aquazepp calls out a few good points, but they’re maybe a bit further down the road. Worth bearing in mind that skewers and cables are 0.5-2W drag, body and arms are ~5-10W plus (probably)! :wink:
The elbow pads is a really good spot. I just bought some elbow cups (and yep, they are for your elbows, not forearms) from Core Triathlon (others are available). Its surprising how much difference arm/elbow location has to shoulder/neck/head. As I pull a little pressure back into the elbow cup, I can sag my shoulders and move my chin down and forward more.

@kevistraining - I agree with you about the helmet. That POC looks like the wrong fit (I’ve highlighted that and a few other things in the image below). The other point on the helmet - look at the before and after photos. Your helmet has rotated down in the after photo, which is increasing the gap at the back. Without wishing to take the pee, are you wearing the helmet as you would a road helmet? TT helmets should sit much further back (see up-thread).
Have a think also about knee angle if/when you drop the saddle, but I estimate you are at 160-163 degrees extension, which I believe is ā€œconsideredā€ (by whom? :wink:) to be too much. 150-155 is more usual.
But bear in mind you may be closing up your hip. Only you can say whether this is comfy.

Final point - I strongly believe you’re flat enough already, and the height difference between back and helmet is exceptionally good. Going any lower with your back/torso is unlikely to give any more benefit; in fact you could even raise slightly IF it allows better head/helmet or hip positions.

Incidentally, I hope you and others find this stuff helpful, and the comments are useful to others. Stuff like this wasn’t easily found when I was trying to set myself up. Ah, the internet!

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I’m sharing a couple of pics of me on 2 different bikes, as much for interest and general amusement as anything. The black bike is my ā€œshortā€ TT rig, the red one is a bit of a frankenbike, but with long distances in mind. I’ve largely taken the position on the black one as a known ā€œgoodā€ setup and rotated about the BB to produce the red one. The improvements on the red one are less weight on my arms and better handling with less weight over the front.
As per @kevistraining - wrong bl00dy helmet, I think. Maybe we should set up a TT helmet rotation pool? :grin:
Please excuse the cr@p in my kitchen.


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Thanks for the extra pointers everyone :+1: I’m finding it all very useful.

I’ve already dropped my saddle and my first impression after 10 mins on the trainer is that I’m going to end up moving it back up a little - I’m planning on doing a longer ride outdoors at the weekend to see what its like.

With regards to the helmet tilt - there is a diagram in the instructions that show that you are meant to wear the cerebrel horizontal and it cant actually tilt lower at the back without taking the bridge of the lenses too far away from my nose anyway. I think I will end up with a different helmet with a tail in the long run.

Also, how do you attach those core triathlon elbow cups? Do you just drill you own holes?

Position looks much better….great job!

If you are comfortable and can hold that position, then see how it goes. You may be a bit too stretched out, but time will tell. This is where geometry comes into play. Since you are working in an arc, when you lower your front, you should (in theory) also bring your arms back just a touch.

But again, if you are comfortable, no need to change anything. Just go out and rock it.

As for the lid, something like the Giro Aerohead may be a good option. Would probably fill that gap. But filling the gap to your back is not a magic bullet and doesn’t always reduce drag. For riders that can keep their head below their shoulders, helmets like your POC or the Kask Bambino are often really good choices.

Great work!!

Hopefully this is the right place to ask my question.

I am a bit of a descending wuss and spend too much time on the base bar. On the poles I feel I have a good CdA which is comfortable (especially on my wrist/hand (ulnar nerve) and arm) and I dont want to change that set up. But I was thinking about my base bar set up, my current bar is 40cm c/c, if I changed that for a 38cm c/c base bar would there be any gain (bearing in mind I am on them admittedly too much) that would warrant the hassle/expense ?

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I’d suggest you need more time. 6 workouts is a fair estimate. Think how you will measure whether its effective or not. In terms of saddle height, I found these interesting, and at the very least, that’s fodder for a recover session on the turbo…

Yep, most of the custom carbon ones are like this. Its not so bad - decent, sharp 3mm drill bit, a drill, some masking tape, ruler, pen. The carbon can be filed a little when you’re done (so if you are slightly out on one hole, you can file it out a millimetre).

@HLaB - without seeing your position, hard to say. But assuming you have a decent TT setup, decent bar, and a decent, narrow aero position, then moving from a 40cm base bar to 38cm will be pretty much within measurement error. On the other hand, moving from a drop handlebar to a dedicated TT base bar might be measurable, more like ~5W, but that’s a guess. And the position you end up in when you’re on the base bars…

Flip the question over; what kind of courses are you riding? How much time are you really spending on the base bar? Less than 10%? Can you use tools like Strava to find out where on the course you are faster and slower than others? There are many things you can do to make your aero position more stable at speed (the difference between the black and red positions for me above is 50mm saddle layback, and a very big reduction in weight on the front, which helps handling).

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@Power13 I’m really interested by this. Do you think its the case that if the helmet is at (or even below) shoulder height, then helmet tail shape is less important? Getting decent info on how to make helmet choices is hard!