"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - 8mile TT - Looking for advice

Doing my first TT this week. It's 8 miles, flat, out and back. I am normally race tri's but figured this would be fun. I'm shooting to break 20 minutes but its a big fat maybe. I'm going to just go out and push hard, hope I can hold it, and die after I cross the line. It's short enough, why not.

My questions is on drinking. Do you even worry about it for such a short race? Should I use an aero drink between my aero bars or a bottle on my seat tube? Or just tough it out for 20 minutes and drink afterwards. It's an evening race on Friday that starts at 6:30. I'm in Dallas and expect the temperature to be in the low 90's.

8 miles? You're not going to drink anything, especially if you're on the rivet the whole time.

Put a couple of sips into the bottle on your seat tube, just incase.

My advice:

1. Warm up.
2. Warm up HARD.
3. Continuing warming up.

Don't worry about water, if you're hydrated before, 20 minutes isn't enough to worry about.

Pacing is very important in TT's so I'm not sure you're 'go out hard' idea is a sound one. Usually you should go out easy - your adrenaline will be making you go way too fast anyway.

If you buy the aero data, the bottle on the seat tube will be slightly faster than no bottle at all.

As for going out as hard as you can, I think you'll find that a mistake. 20 minutes is longer than you think. I would measure my effort just a touch until the turn, and gradually ramp it on the back leg until you die at the line.

I won't necessarily go out as hard as I can, just try and hold 24mph or a tad faster. I'm just not sure if I can hold that pace for the whole 8 miles. In my latest tri my avg was 21.3 over a 16mile course. It had a few small hills and a slight head/cross wind for half the course. Figure I could probably hold a little faster for 8 miles dead flat, maybe.

I'll be sure and hydrate a lot leading up to it and go with the bottle on the seattube with a little water in it just in case I get real hot.

so, if it's out and back then you'll probably have 4 miles of headwind, right? make sure you account for that.

I can relate, because there's a similar TT in Austin that I use as a benchmark quite regularly... Similar temperatures, etc. I get a little bit more scientific when I run this because I use an SRM for pacing, but hey... It applies to everything.

Don't bother drinking, first off. 8 miles is too short. You're gonna be thirsty at the end, but that's OK. I did this last week in Austin -- 98 degrees during the run, and was fine without a drink.

Because this is a shorter TT, aerodynamics matter more since you can push harder. Try and get as aero as you can stay for the whole time... It'll help.

As for pacing, do this. Go out at a pace you feel like you can hold for about half an hour. It may feel easy in the beginning, but it won't later. Keep this up until the turnaround. Once you hit the turnaround, ramp it up pretty significantly. When you're about 1/2-2/3 of the way back, just go for it. Don't look at a HR monitor, speedometer, anything. Just GO as hard as you can. You shouldn't have anything left at the end. My rule of thumb is that if I have enough in me to sprint for the line, I probably could have gone harder.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for all the advice everyone, especially UT Dude, thanks for the tips on pacing. I'll have to play the wind situation by ear. I've heard on an out and back with wind to go harder during the wind and less with the wind. I think the way the course is it will be mostly crosswind if anything. We'll see. I'll just drink before hand, warm-up a lot, and die at the end. Haha.

I wouldn't worry *too* much about the wind. It's Texas, after all, and it changes directions every 10 seconds, anyways...

tajsss: UT_Dude turned a great TT last week -- his advice is solid. It's how I've learned to TT as well. The TT is my weak-spot, but these methods have brought me up to around that 25-25.5mph zone with a road bike and clip-ons.


When you're about 1/2-2/3 of the way back, just go for it.
Yeah, I turn on the afterburners at that elbow where 45 turns back into Mo Pac too ;)

Haha. Yeah, I generally wait until after that last hill, but it kinda depends. That whole backside, being downhill (generally), is a good place to burn it up.

I need to go a bit easier on the way out next time, though. Last time, wattage on the trip out and back was equal, and negative split times (especially on this course) = good.

What TT in Dallas is this?

That's still pretty good though. Flat power means a positive effort, which is in the spirit of negative splits. On top of that, it is downhill on the way back, so I'm sure you were faster later anyway ;)

Well...

I hit the turnaround at something like 8:45, which means it was 10:00 coming back. I'm still trying to figure out how, power being equal. As best I can figure, the headwind on the way back in got me there.

Interesting. I know I'm going to get in under 19:00 if I hit the turnaround in 9:50 or so...

Must have been the wind. You were headed for 17:00 :D

I was aiming for a 17:30 haha.

As such, I was dissapointed in that past run, but I know I put out enough power (270W average over 18:45). I think my best option for the next one is just to back off on the way out and gun it even more coming back. Being 3 weeks out of TT nationals now, and only 1.5 then, i've got the position and the aero gear as to where pushing a 17:30 with that Wattage should be easy.

Ah well. Now I just need to learn how to turn crits and RR's into TT efforts :rolleyes: .

What TT in Dallas is this?

Dam Bike TT. It's put on by IronheadRP. They're a tri company, but put on this one TT every year. Here's a link.

http://www.ironheadrp.com/calendar/calendar.htm#thedam

Oh yeah, that's right. The GF does their Tri's, now I remember seeing that on the list.

Good luck, I'll be interested to hear how the event goes.

I was aiming for a 17:30 haha.

As such, I was dissapointed in that past run, but I know I put out enough power (270W average over 18:45). I think my best option for the next one is just to back off on the way out and gun it even more coming back. Being 3 weeks out of TT nationals now, and only 1.5 then, i've got the position and the aero gear as to where pushing a 17:30 with that Wattage should be easy.

Ah well. Now I just need to learn how to turn crits and RR's into TT efforts :rolleyes: .

Do you ever do the Tuesday Nighter? It was brutal tonight. There were three UT guys in the As riding well. There was a small break off the front about 1:30 that stayed away. The pack was whittled down to only 10 of us on the third lap! We all actually discussed not doing the 4th lap, but stuck with it. The winds were amazing. Our average speed was down to 23.5, but it was much harder than the times we've done 27.

This would have been a good night for some mad TT skillz -- guys were trying to bridge that 1:30 all night long. I worked it with a couple guys a couple times, but couldn't close it. I haven't suffered like this in a loooong time -- it was delicious :D

Yeah, i've never done it, but I may ask for it post-nationals/age based.

I'm sad -- no Thursday crit this week :(

Yeah, i've never done it, but I may ask for it post-nationals/age based.

I'm sad -- no Thursday crit this week :(
Yeah, that's pretty rough. I'm not doing the crit for the foreseeable future though -- the Tuesday Nighter just works out better for the family schedule.

Hope to see you out on some Tuesdays after your big races. You really need to experience it. I've gotten 3 guys to try it this year, and they're all addicted now. They even got licenses for "real" races.