So just in case I decide to race it again, I was wondering how I could get my time from 11 hours to 10 in the next transvésubienne.
Going up one starting wave should make it easier to pedal most of the bits at the start so that’s a few minutes saved. But then what will be your advice on getting faster…? I aim to sub-10 it so looking at an average 10% gain in time.

Pedal faster?

Just a thought, like.

Pedal at the same speed but in a higher gear?

The silly answer is ‘ride faster’.

The sensible answer is to look at the way the people faster than you rode; did they just ride faster, or did they stop less, or did they stop more but ride faster inbetween stops?

How did they fuel themselves?
What strategy did they use?
Did they gain time by descending quicker?
Did they gain time by climbing quicker?

I suspect the answer is a boring one; they probably just did everything a bit quicker than you did, so you need to re-think how you race and aim to minimise all time when you are not moving, and go quicker when you are.

If your racing for 11hours i suspect your stopping and resting, don’t. Or at least watch it carefully, it is surprising how much time you loose eating and drinking if your not careful.

Well thing is I know I did stop 20 minute near the end, and I know that unless I get hammered by hails I won’t stop again. As for food stop I didn’t stop at the first nor the last. And I did make sure the 2nd and 3rd stop where as short as possible. But I’ll look into it again. And I4ll try to pedal faster 😉

how fast are you already?

if you are fat and slow then 10% should be an easy gain.

Well I have now idea about the “fast” bit. As per fat I am at the moment between 9 and 11% of body mass in fat.

I am not sure if you are into Strava or not?

If so and you can get the GPX trace off someone who was faster than you, then you could visit raceshape.com and see where they were quicker than you!

As said above it is probably a little everywhere, but it can help to see if ups or downs are the problem (or the food stations)

Hope this helps
Al.