Spring classics are over, and the CT Stage Race (CTSR) is coming up in just 3 weeks now. The first stage of CTSR is an 8-mile out and back time trial that appears to have a more gradual hill than Longsjo or Green Mountain. Since it’s out and back I wouldn’t consider it a hillclimb and I actually have a reason to work on my TT position.
Over the winter I built up a used Cervelo P2-SL. Nothing fancy, but no more converting my road bike into a TT bike every week. Constantly making adjustments to your main racing bike is a recipe for mechanical problems in races. I’ve only ridden the new TT rig about once per week since the beginning of March, but mostly just on recovery rides to get comfortable. I have it set up fairly aggressively and it has not been as easy transition. I figured I could just hop on a TT bike and be 2-3 mph faster than my road bike, but it is not so easy. TT bikes are evil death machines and are not fun to ride. Maybe some day it will get more comfortable but for now I am hating last every second that I have to spend on that torture machine.
That being said the only time I’m ever going to really be able to do any training on that bike is if I pay $5 to race the Charlie Baker Time Trial (CBTT). The fear of having a bad time posted forever on the website is motivation enough to keep pressure on the pedals all the way to the finish. Think I’m kidding? I’ll loan you my TT bike for the day so you too can have the most horrible cycling experience possible.
So that brings us up to last night, my first shot of the season at the CBTT. Last year’s first attempt was brutal, and I was a little afraid of a repeat. It rained in the morning, but the sun came out early enough in the afternoon to dry things up. Dry bulb/dewpoint temperatures were 66/52°F and wind was from the SSE at 7 mph.
Warmup was casual riding with Erica who had her p2c on its maiden voyage. We stopped a few times to make adjustments to her brakes and shifters. Total warmup time was 30 minutes with a few 1-2 minute efforts at ~70% of TT pace.
Usually when I do this race the guys behind me are decked out with Cervelo/Trek/Specialized p3c/TTX/Transition with aero helms, discs and deep dish carbon rims while I’m on my road bike with a nice orange flag on the back. That’s what I like to think anyways when I get passed before Carlisle center by the three guys in back of me. I didn’t look too carefully tonight but there was at least a decent amount of carbon bling both in front of me and behind me. At least I didn’t have a knife in a gun fight this time.
After waiting around a little longer than I would have liked, I was off and running. Adrenaline will always get the better of me in these things. Even when I think I’m starting off super easy I end up averaging 400W for the first minute. Tonight was a little better than usual but still not great. I looked down after 30 seconds and sure enough my Powertap read 400W. I backed off a bunch and only averaged 330W for the first two minutes. My target power for the race was 300W. After 5 minutes my legs were already burning with lactic acid and my 30-second man was nowhere to be seen.
I arrived is Carlisle Center at right around 10 minutes even which is by far a new best for me, even including the times when I went out WAY too hard. My heart rate was 188 bpm, which was a little on the high side for this point. I backed off a bit and tightened up my position coming down 225 and passed my 1m30s man.
Shortly before the turn onto Monument Road the course rolls upwards just a bit and I started ramping up the power again. I caught my 1-minute man just before the triple rollers when I wanted to be savings just a bit of strength. I came around to make the pass just a little faster than I should have, and I think this caused me to be totally gassed by the time I got over the triple rollers.
The remainder of the race was pretty brutal. My power output for the last 7 minutes was only 234W. Mike Rowell came around me on the downhill before the last riser like I wasn’t even moving. To make things worse, there were two cyclists dangling out in front of me that I couldn’t seem to close the gap on. I came out of the saddle to climb the last hill which kind of felt good, but I have to keep my butt awkwardly far back to prevent my knees from hitting my armpads. Does anyone else have this problem? After getting over the last hill I was completely blown and I was spinning on the descent at 150W. Cars and racers were all piled up right on the finish line. No accidents, but it made for kind of an awkward finish with a slamming of the brakes right before the line. The Concord Police department had a radar set up right on the finishing climb that registered when cyclists came up. Kind of a cool touch for the end of the race.
My computer had me at 23:51 from the time I started pedaling to the time I finished. Results have my official time as 23:59, so I just cracked 24 minutes. I ran my power file through my CBTT excel model, and figure that my CdA was 0.254. I might be able to lose 0.01 with race wheels instead of the box rims I ran. I figure that’s worth about 15 seconds. 0.244 would be a good CdA, so the big area to improve will be my power output. When is it not I guess?
My average power for the race was 268W, including the 234W average over the last 7 minutes. That seems so bad relative to a road bike. On the road bike I’ve done more than 40W higher for that duration, so there should be plenty of room for improvement as I close up that gap. For 17 minutes last night I was at 285W, and I feel like I should be able to extend that another 7 minutes without a miracle happening, maybe even in the next attempt? With practice and a few minor adjustments I’d like to see average power improve to 290-300 and my time drop to the 22:45 range by the end of the month.
Over the winter I built up a used Cervelo P2-SL. Nothing fancy, but no more converting my road bike into a TT bike every week. Constantly making adjustments to your main racing bike is a recipe for mechanical problems in races. I’ve only ridden the new TT rig about once per week since the beginning of March, but mostly just on recovery rides to get comfortable. I have it set up fairly aggressively and it has not been as easy transition. I figured I could just hop on a TT bike and be 2-3 mph faster than my road bike, but it is not so easy. TT bikes are evil death machines and are not fun to ride. Maybe some day it will get more comfortable but for now I am hating last every second that I have to spend on that torture machine.
That being said the only time I’m ever going to really be able to do any training on that bike is if I pay $5 to race the Charlie Baker Time Trial (CBTT). The fear of having a bad time posted forever on the website is motivation enough to keep pressure on the pedals all the way to the finish. Think I’m kidding? I’ll loan you my TT bike for the day so you too can have the most horrible cycling experience possible.
So that brings us up to last night, my first shot of the season at the CBTT. Last year’s first attempt was brutal, and I was a little afraid of a repeat. It rained in the morning, but the sun came out early enough in the afternoon to dry things up. Dry bulb/dewpoint temperatures were 66/52°F and wind was from the SSE at 7 mph.
Warmup was casual riding with Erica who had her p2c on its maiden voyage. We stopped a few times to make adjustments to her brakes and shifters. Total warmup time was 30 minutes with a few 1-2 minute efforts at ~70% of TT pace.
Usually when I do this race the guys behind me are decked out with Cervelo/Trek/Specialized p3c/TTX/Transition with aero helms, discs and deep dish carbon rims while I’m on my road bike with a nice orange flag on the back. That’s what I like to think anyways when I get passed before Carlisle center by the three guys in back of me. I didn’t look too carefully tonight but there was at least a decent amount of carbon bling both in front of me and behind me. At least I didn’t have a knife in a gun fight this time.
After waiting around a little longer than I would have liked, I was off and running. Adrenaline will always get the better of me in these things. Even when I think I’m starting off super easy I end up averaging 400W for the first minute. Tonight was a little better than usual but still not great. I looked down after 30 seconds and sure enough my Powertap read 400W. I backed off a bunch and only averaged 330W for the first two minutes. My target power for the race was 300W. After 5 minutes my legs were already burning with lactic acid and my 30-second man was nowhere to be seen.
I arrived is Carlisle Center at right around 10 minutes even which is by far a new best for me, even including the times when I went out WAY too hard. My heart rate was 188 bpm, which was a little on the high side for this point. I backed off a bit and tightened up my position coming down 225 and passed my 1m30s man.
Shortly before the turn onto Monument Road the course rolls upwards just a bit and I started ramping up the power again. I caught my 1-minute man just before the triple rollers when I wanted to be savings just a bit of strength. I came around to make the pass just a little faster than I should have, and I think this caused me to be totally gassed by the time I got over the triple rollers.
The remainder of the race was pretty brutal. My power output for the last 7 minutes was only 234W. Mike Rowell came around me on the downhill before the last riser like I wasn’t even moving. To make things worse, there were two cyclists dangling out in front of me that I couldn’t seem to close the gap on. I came out of the saddle to climb the last hill which kind of felt good, but I have to keep my butt awkwardly far back to prevent my knees from hitting my armpads. Does anyone else have this problem? After getting over the last hill I was completely blown and I was spinning on the descent at 150W. Cars and racers were all piled up right on the finish line. No accidents, but it made for kind of an awkward finish with a slamming of the brakes right before the line. The Concord Police department had a radar set up right on the finishing climb that registered when cyclists came up. Kind of a cool touch for the end of the race.
My computer had me at 23:51 from the time I started pedaling to the time I finished. Results have my official time as 23:59, so I just cracked 24 minutes. I ran my power file through my CBTT excel model, and figure that my CdA was 0.254. I might be able to lose 0.01 with race wheels instead of the box rims I ran. I figure that’s worth about 15 seconds. 0.244 would be a good CdA, so the big area to improve will be my power output. When is it not I guess?
My average power for the race was 268W, including the 234W average over the last 7 minutes. That seems so bad relative to a road bike. On the road bike I’ve done more than 40W higher for that duration, so there should be plenty of room for improvement as I close up that gap. For 17 minutes last night I was at 285W, and I feel like I should be able to extend that another 7 minutes without a miracle happening, maybe even in the next attempt? With practice and a few minor adjustments I’d like to see average power improve to 290-300 and my time drop to the 22:45 range by the end of the month.
4 comments:
Sounds like something is not right. 13% drop in power from your road bike position? That is an awful lot.
If you are running a radically forward saddle, then the bars also need to be radically forward and down. Basically take your road position (in profile) and rotate it forward around the BB, so that everything moves, but the angles of your limbs in relation to each other stay the same. Pads hitting the knees can happen with long cowhorns, which promote an extreme forward lean. Sometimes trimming the pads is the only solution. I like to have them in close to each other, which gives a bit more clearance for the knee. Then try to be comfortable with the elbow slightly ahead of the shoulder. This will keep your chest open even though your forearms are nearly touching. If you do this, and keep a flat back with your head/aero helmet level, then even if you have to raise the pads a bit you'll still be aero. You will also need to go out easier, much easier. You want the effort to be much more even. The long wait on the starting line there makes it twice as deadly to go out too hard. The first 3k should feel too easy. Then wind it up gradually. You'll be faster. Deep wheels will be worth more than 15 seconds over box rims on a course of that length, for sure. The faster you go the more they are worth. And I heard a rumor that the FSR TT was changed again and it will be flat this year. Not sure if that is true. Good luck!
Advice from THE nega-coach? Nice! How much is that going to cost me?
Yeah, 13% percent power drop, maybe I need to stress that this bike is an evil death machine some more…
I’m not a flexible person, and the position on my road bike that I produce the higher power at (not in the drops) is much more upright than a TT position. If I were to post pics of the 2 positions it would be obvious that my hip angle is way more on the road bike. I also don’t think it helps that most of my training in the past 6 months have been endurance, tempo, and hill repeats. I’ve spent about 5 minutes in 2009 in the drops, and it’s usually just at the end of a race when I’m sprinting.
I have my TT bike set up with one of those goofy looking Adamo saddles with the dual tips. The nose is set as close to the 5cm limit as I can, but with the shorter saddle length I figure that puts me even slightly further forward relative to my road bike (with a standard length Toupe saddle). When I get tired and slide forward onto the nose I feel WAY further forward. At that point I’m almost positive I need to stretch it out and get a little lower. I like your idea of rotating my road position around the bottom bracket, hadn’t thought of it that way. I suppose that probably is the basis of all the TT fit formulas. I’ll have to look into that for both a standard seating position and sliding forward on the saddle position.
My armpads were initially set up so that my forearms were practically touching (levi-like), but I moved them out just a bit because my shoulders couldn’t take it. Maybe it would help if I stretched out a bit.
I would be thrilled if the FSR TT were flat!
Thanks a bunch for sharing your advice.
Jay - if I stand on my TT bike, I smash my knees into the bullhorn ends as well. I find, however, that staying seated doesn't drop my speed at all going up the final climb, but I do come out onto the bullhorns from the aero position. Try that and see how it feels.
you are funny.
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