Higher temp and humidity is better for racing faster.
But where is the sweetspot before it gets too hot/humid,
When Nike did the initial Breaking Two project, they aimed for a temp of around 7-12c/45-54f. As cyclists, we have more wind, so I presume it’s a little bit warmer than that, but probably not a lot. Maybe low 60f?
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Thanks for that info, thats actually lower temp than expected.
So morning rides now with summer temperatures and higher humidty might be good compared to later in the day.
For hour records in the velodrome they normaly target something around 30c.
My guess is for running because the speed is low, a low temperature for body efficiency is more important.
But for cycling because the speed is so much higher a lower air density is more important than the efficiancy you get from a lower body temp.
(Campenaerts Chose to do his attempt with a short sleved TT skin suit because of the extra cooling he could get given they were making the Velodrome 30c)
I would say the sweet spot would be personal, how hot can you go before your performance degrades because of the heat, which of course can also be trained as they talk about heat acclimatization a lot on the TR podcast.
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Okay, but the hour record is fast, so cooling is also high, so below 30c then atleast.
And also sun is a big factor for how overheated we get.
I would maybe guess morning before sun is too high/strong and around 20c would be nice.
Yeh, I didn’t mean to suggest that 30c was the ideal, more that the ideal would be as hot as you can handle before degrading performance, and diffrent people fair diffrently in the heat.
There are other factors that affect air pressure outdoors though and it can be more complicated than just hot=low pressure.
If you really want to get geeky about it you could find a weather station near you that publishes air pressure readings and take a look back over the past couple of weeks to see what time of the day that the air pressure is usualy the lowest.
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Im more about best time of day, more than historic. But fun to compare a little more technical when comparing TT rides at different times. Have used some pressure/density calculators. But seems wind then temperature counts most.
In the UK time trailing scene we have a term for what you are looking for where all the element come to geather to make a fast ride, these are the day’s where PB’s are normaly set on any given TT course. We call it a “Float Day”.
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