My bloody rear wheel weighs that!

Much more serious about it than me. When I got second in the ECCA my bike had 2 power meters fitted! Talk about pointless extra weight. :facepalm:

Did the last mid week PETTS TT of the year on Tuesday (there’s actually two more events, a two up TT then a hill climb the following week) coming 4th on the night in very difficult conditions. The headwind for the first four miles or so was horrendous ! In fact I was 3mph down on my average speed for that section compared to when I did my PB three weeks ago 🙁 Anyway in the overall standings (where they take your best 8 positions out of the 16 that are held) I came first in veteran and second overall. To say I’m happy would be an understatement, especially seen as this is my first season as a TT’er. Learnt loads (and still am I hasten to add) and with a good winters training, hopefully a proper TT bike (if the good lady allows :wink:) I’ll come back stronger and faster next year. Really fancy doing some of the longer courses because if my road riding is anything to go by (where I seem to get stronger as the ride goes on) these might suit me better.
I’ve still got three more events to do, (as well as the PETTS ones above ^^) a 25mile one held nearby on roads that I know well then two 10mile ones on course L1015 (Levans) looking forward to these, quite a quick course if conditions are good I’m told 😀

What wheels are those? Aren’t they flexy at that low weight?

Is anyone happy to suggest a good pacing strategy for my first 25 on Sunday’s TT?

Being a weaker climber my thoughts where to maintain a steady pace well under FTP – say HR zone 4.0 – until the 18m mark and then smash the rest by gradually increasing my pace until smashing the last mile. Fwiw I’m thinking I should be able to get 1:10 perhaps? As its my first I’m fully prepared to be Wrong in all aspects!

Strangely I was thinking about trying that that this morning. Is there a website you can find out about where to do them? I’d only do if south wales based. Can’t see anything on BC

Doing on a 13kg basic cyclocross bike wont be ideal but…

ok, so perhaps more evenly paced then, so instead I might start off 5% below FTP, try not to get carried away then use what I have left on that last 7 mile flat section, perhaps also using RPE as a guide to how I’m feeling as I approach the mid section climbs and adjust accordingly.

As you say its a learning curve anyway. From an experience perspective my MTB races are 60 – 90 mins sprint start and flat out for the duration as energy declines, so other than the sprint start I should be able use that as a guide.

A 25 TT is an FTP test, so you should finish with an average power of your FTP. In fact one should really reverse this and say whatever you think your FTP is, a 25 will tell you what it really is 😉

I like heart rate zones because the numbers are easy to look at (X.Y) and they change a bit slower than power (unless you smooth power on your Garmin to, say 10 sec average).

Set a target time (one hour was my target) and break it down into four segments of 15 minutes. Then pick a starting value and ramp it up from there. To be honest, you will be bordering zone 3/4 for most of the ride (sweet spot), with lower at the beginning and higher at the end. I rode to 3.8/3.9/4.0/4.1, and finished hard as I could for the last few minutes. Had 39 points in the red (or 60% Tempo and 40% threshold). By contrast, yesterday’s 10 was 9% Tempo and 91% threshold).

Going harder may have made me faster, but it is also more likely I’d have gone slower. Achieved my aim (just). Pacing will achieve yours.

As you say its a learning curve anyway. From an experience perspective my MTB races are 60 – 90 mins sprint start and flat out for the duration as energy declines, so other than the sprint start I should be able use that as a guide.

How are you measuring FTP – do you have a PM or are you going off HR?

With MTB races, you usually have to sprint at the start to ensure you don’t get stuck behind slower riders on the technical parts of the course. With a TT, you don’t want to do that. However you also don’t want to ride at 250W for 24 miles and then 350W for the last mile. If you’re going off RPE, then make sure you start off steady and let your HR climb slowly to threshold, then just hold on for dear life until 20 miles. Then when you think it can’t get any worse, give it a bit more.

If you don’t vomit after crossing the line, go back and do it again. 😈

Stick a gel in the leg of your shorts. An ideal time to take it would be coming up to a junction about half way. Then if you have no pockets, you can drop the wrapper by a marshall. I also try and take 1/3 of a bottle and try to sip every few miles to keep my throat wet. If I don’t, I’ll be retching for the last 5 miles. If you know the course, you can plan where to grab a drink at junctions or RABs. If not try to look at the course on maps to work out where you’ll be slowing down and tape a note on your top tube.

I do pretty much this. My Garmin screen is:

3 second power
Lap power (auto-lap every 2k)
Av power
HR
Distance

That does happen. Just not in the TT thread. 😉

Those climbs on the F1 aren’t that bad. It’s a bit worse than the old F1 (north of the new lights at Black Cat), but not too bad. Max is about 5% for a few hundred yards. The fastest pacing would be to up your pace *slightly* on the climbs and recover a bit on the DH before back to threshold on the flats. You want to spend as little time as possible on the slow bits of the course, as these are where you spend most of the time.

Some people I know take a tool bottle. Some just tape a tube to their saddle. Some just take nothing and walk back if they flat. Ya pays ya money….

BTW, from what I can gather from your previous posts, you’re about 73K and pushing about 285W for a 10? You’re probably looking at a bit over the hour for the F1 if you’re average aero-ness for a road bike with clips, skinsuit, TT lid, and road wheels.

Race taper, surely 😉

I carry an 80 mm valve stem inner tube and an innovations microflate nano (I can take the tyres off without levers). I don’t like walking. Gel under the leg gripper, wrapper returned there when empty. MY skinsuits have pockets as they are endurance and road racing.

Hounslow 10 tonight… Might adjust the Garmin display to autolap on distance.

Definitely one to forget! Pace was fine for the first half, but 2/3 of the way round I developed pins and needles in both hands and forearms. So eased back and limped home. I’ve put it down to my new road mitts being too tight, and I had to undo them. Not worn them before and won’t be wearing them again! Of course it could have been oxygen deprivation, trapped nerve, etc…

Pace was a notch higher than the week before (start at 4.1-4.2 and then +0.1 per 4km). Time was 90 seconds down. Very unnerving.

Triked to work for a rest today 😀 . Heart rate barely gets into Zone 2 on the recumbent three-wheeled deckchair.

Well, F1B/25 down and my first 25m As previously posted I’d have really like to have done it in 1:10, ended up with 1:05.28 which I’m pleased with, especially as I woke up with a migraine type headache (not usual for me) this morning and took inbruprofen before leaving home at 5:15am. 😯

However, the whole thing was bizarre. I decided to ride using power but with one eye on HR zones as per TiRed. So first off sticking to 10% below FTP for the first I found myself in Zone 5.1 which I put down to start line adrenalin, so carried on watching and it never changed for the whole race. Instead I found my power dropping steadily albeit (using mrblobbys advice) my 5ms “laps” were going from 13 to 12 mins. At 8m my head was telling me I shouldn’t be doing this but I focused on getting to the turn back. I caught my minute man at about 13.5m – he was full aero TT – and started to wonder if I’d gone too hard despite the low power numbers. Kept it the same then found myself just willing the whole thing to end with about 5m to go. At this point I tried to focus on pedalling circles and staying aero as my forearms were aching and upping power to FTP which i found really hard to keep steady. Although I felt really tired at the end and lightheaded, I think I could have little a little more in. I was fine from a cardio perspective, just the power issue.

Just about to upload to strava but my average I believe is 22.8mph at 206w – not exactly sparkling!

I wonder (ref the migraine headache) I’m a bit off colour?

There were some fast times though, a couple of 56, 3 or four 57’s and a bunch of people around my own time. Not sure of finishing position.

What a hateful thing to do 😉 😀

Cracking effort kryton, especially for a first attempt – surely you got to be wondering if you can go sub 1 hour now 😉