Short Rolling TT Strategy

I’m a road/crit racer, but I do one or two TTs a year. I know how to pace myself relative to other riders in a pack, and pacing a TT on the flat seems pretty intuitive. My next race with a TT has a short (10K) rolling course, with roughly 30% of the course short 5-8% climbs up the rollers.
Am I better off to stay focused on steady power up and down the rollers, or would it be smarter to push a little harder on the short climbs and ease off on the downhill sides? I live in the pan flat Delta, so there aren’t a lot of opportunities to ride rollers and experiment.

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Hi.
If You have TR, You could do sets of Over/Unders, If the climbs are relatively short, going over 100% FTP for 10 to 15 seconds okay, and as this is a short TT, You can go above 100% FTP for longer probably the whole event can be done above FTP.

Removes the guesswork.

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Don’t you have to pay for this? I’m a cheapskate.

General rule of thumb to maximize avg speed is to push harder uphill/headwind and lower on downhill/tailwind.

Edit: don’t forget to push over the top of the hill. If you stop pedalling at the top you’ll lose speed.

So am I!

You can get away with the free account, but this is limited to a single race plan. However, you can upload multiple courses, bikes etc., and store them in your account under the basic plan. You can then simply create the plan using your library of uploaded courses/bikes.

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I like to dabble in short TTs but what I participate in is 10 milers so a bit longer than what you are planning on. My strategy is to try and hold 20 minute ftp pace and try not to go too high on the short punchy hills of 5-7% grade or so. Longest climb length wise on the course I ride is 0.6 miles long (so nearly 1km) with about 80ft of climbing according to Strava.

For most hills I try not to exceed 120-130% or so of ftp (essentially treating it like a VO2 max interval). If I can more discipline myself it’s better if I can hold it to 110-115% instead so I’m not gassed at the top and can spin out going back downhill to gain more speed. Not a perfect pacing strategy but I have only been testing this pacing strategy out less than a handful of times since I only get to participate in this TT a couple to a few times a year max and it’s only been the last few years I’ve had a PM to try to pace it instead of by feel.

Since you’re talking 10km then I’d personally test out shooting for 8min ftp test power levels or slightly higher than that and see how much it hurts…I mean works.

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