Here is a thread that popped up awhile back. A lot of the answers were not for two man, but that was the original topic, and a lot of the responses are on topic...Maybe something to be gleaned from this one, and maybe jumpstart the discussion again....

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...rch_string=;#1025291

Never heard of a 2 man TT. Is it like a relay?

Or are you talking:

Perfect! Thanks

Communication must be intuitive. Telepathic.The two-up is among the most difficult and demanding disciplines in cycling.

Remember the Trofeo Angelo Baracchi? Lemond and Hinault parred together as a two man team. Incredible. All the top stars parred together. Anderson and Yates. It was an amazing event.

In general, according to Eddie Borysciewicz, author of Bicycle Road Racing, the consummate guide to bicycle racing, a two up effort should ba about 30 seconds each- 30 second pulls. The effort is flat out. Each man buries himself. The exchanges from worker to relief must be instantaneous. Failing to gain the wheel of the man on the front is the ultimate calamity- no rider is resting here. The team has disintigrated at this point. That is to be avoided at all costs.

The weaker rider sets tempo, especially into the wind and on the climbs. Always let the weaker rider make the effort on an incline. The stronger rider shall make the weaker rider better by offering shelter. In the penultimate moments the stronger rider may need to assume leadership and take missed pulls, but this can only be sustained for a matter of minutes- maybe five minutes of effort, taking about three turns from the weaker rider.

Beware of wind direction. In a powerful crosswind a linie formation benefits no one. Practice an echelon or demi-echelon in a powerful crosswind.

In preparation you must practice one thing: The exchanges. This is the greatest opportunity for loss. A well-drilled team changes lead seamlessly and instantaneously. The lead rider is on the back and in the slipstream recovering with uncanny speed.

Be certain the lead rider never accelerates to open a gap inadvertantly. Egos must be kept in check here. As soon as a gap opens, the event is over- it has become an individual effort.

The two-up is an incredible event. Rare and difficult. An amazing effort. Best of luck in this- it is a very exciting opportunity...

http://www.veloarchive.com/....php?raceID=baracchi

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

 
"Be certain the lead rider never accelerates to open a gap inadvertantly."

absolutely an opportunity to gain or lose time

i can't stand it when that happens on a group ride unless it is an intentional attack or course

Pinole TT by chance?

absolutely. Gapping a rider off is an act of open aggression.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Good stuff - thanks

yeah or a lot of the time someone who just does not understand how to pull through correctly

True.

That's what I always claim.... :O

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

There's always a lot of discussion about 2 man TT's...how long to pull through, etc...

Here's the reality: it doesn't really matter. The reason there's no consensus is that there IS no good way to do a 2 man TT. That's why if you look at the average speeds of a 2 man TT, they're nearly identical to the speeds that the same single riders can do. With that said, it definitely feels easier with longer turns at the front, closer to a minute. 30 second turns at the beginning is a recipe for blowing up, IMHO.

[reply]
With that said, it definitely feels easier with longer turns at the front, closer to a minute. 30 second turns at the beginning is a recipe for blowing up, IMHO.[/reply]
I'd agree wholeheartedly with that. Was in a 4-man where we lost our 4th a few miles in. With 3 of us, the tough part wasn't being on the front, it was drifting back and having to accelerate and go anaerobic to get back in line at a high speed. With 30 second pulls in a 2-up, you will have only 20-25 seconds to recover. I'd personally go for 60-120 second pulls.

1) start moderate for 5 minutes, then go as fast as you can, one of you will start to drop back, at that point, divide up the length of pulls to 30/70%, keep the speed the same between the pulls however

2) keep the pulls short, but not too short - maybe 15 seconds

"it definitely feels easier with longer turns at the front, closer to a minute"

Keep the pulls shorter and harder, it should feel like an individual 40k TT

If you have pulls that are too long, you will end up slower

Case in point ... ever have someone pass you in a race, only to overtake them quickly and then play leap frog until the finish? Same thought, pretend you are racing your partner and you will go as fast as possible. Still draft, and make the transitions smooth, but spend only 15'ish seconds in the draft before taking the lead. 30 seconds is OK, but the recovery in the draft is mentally deceiving, it makes it harder to take over the lead when you are drafting. You can't really get much of a break in 30 seconds anyway, so better to keep the speed fast and not recover more than 15 seconds.

This all depends on the terrain and head winds of course.

I agree with Gary, I would use shorter 15-20 second pulls. I've done as few of these and 30 secs is a long time when you are on the front doing 30mph. I never fix the pull period but normally peel off just as it's getting painful mainly so that the rider who has just finished his turn does not get gapped whilst he is recovering. Don't be afraid to change the pulling periods as the stronger rider emerges or someone needs a little longer to recover.

Communication is everything.

15-20s pulls? Thats silly. Heres a good workout to show why thats silly. Get on the trainer, go 15s on 15s off for 45 mins. Now do the same work out, 2 min on, 2 min off. Then tell me which one you were able to hold a more constant effort on.
Like someone else said, 2 man times are hardly any different from solo efforts and should be ridden accordingly. Each rider should pull as in their solo TT tempo and swing off at that point where they would soft pedal in a normal solo TT effort. And no one is naive enough to believe that people dont soft pedal /lose focus etc in TTs :)

IME (which is numerous) fixed time/length rotations dont work bc even well matched riders will start to drift in ability at VO2+ max levels and at that point its easy to get mad at your partner for pulling thru too hard/too slow etc. And cussing definately doenst make u go faster.

Really ? There is a difference in time between single and 2 man TT's. Over 40km 2 up normally is 1-2 minutes faster if done correctly. If you're not seeing an improvement than you are not going hard enough. I can't speak for anyone else's experience although Gary T is saying 20-30 secs ish and he knows what he's talking about. I've placed in enough TTT's to know what works from perspective for me as well.

There is a caveat to all of this though; it depends on the course typography, distance, and the pairing. If you are doing 60 second pulls over a 10 mile course than you are missing the point. It's not just about a steady effort alone -its about suitable recovery and this has to be tailored on the day.

Gotta agree with you there. When I did 2up TTs with another rider of equal strength, we were about 1:30 to 2 minutes faster (without aerobars, I often used my road bike as it was one of the first events of the season) than we would have been individually (with aerobars) over the same course. Here is how we did it:

20-30s pulls.
communicate
never surge.
ride side by side up any significant hills so we could talk to each other and see if we needed to adjust.
lead rider pays attention to the wind direction and adjusts which side he drops off the front, as appropriate.

Also, a TTT is not a steady effort event. It is sprint, recover, repeat 60 times.

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"Get on the trainer, go 15s on 15s off for 45 mins. Now do the same work out, 2 min on, 2 min off. Then tell me which one you were able to hold a more constant effort on. "

You may get a draft, but you do not get 2 min off.

If you hold a constant pace, and go 30% harder when taking a pull, you will go faster as a team. To do this right, short pulls work best.

Even in a 4-man TTT last year, we did 15 sec pulls, and for the state championships this year, 2-man TT, we will do 15 sec pulls at 30 MPH.

One thing that has been overlooked is what to do if the team members are not fairly equal in strength. The stronger rider should take LONGER pulls not harder pulls. If the strong rider takes hard pulls that person will quickly break the weaker rider and then you'll REALLY GO SLOW.

Communicate. If your partner is going too hard you need to tell them. Better to back off a bit now than to deal with a blown rider later.

Think about the terrain coming up and your comparative strengths. If there is a big hill coming up and you are stronger take much longer pulls so that the weaker team mate isn't blown for the hill when it really gets hard. Conversely, if you are the weaker rider admit it and don't just suck it up until you blow and lose enormous amounts of time.

For the love of God get a good warm up. I did a 100km 4 man TTT once where one of my team mates didn't get a good warm up. He only took a few pulls for the first 50km until he got warmed up. That was not fun.

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Kevin

http://kevinmetcalfe.dreamhosters.com
My Strava

"One thing that has been overlooked is what to do if the team members are not fairly equal in strength. "

See my post above. A few posts up.

Quote: "15-20s pulls? Thats silly. Heres a good workout to show why thats silly. Get on the trainer, go 15s on 15s off for 45 mins. Now do the same work out, 2 min on, 2 min off. Then tell me which one you were able to hold a more constant effort on.


str8dum,

I think the point missed here was that the whole point here to to achieve the minimum time over the distance. This requires the maximum output over that distance.

Although your 2 min on, 2 min off pulls may allow YOU to achieve a more constant effort, were you to ride at your maximum sustainable effort over that same distance, you would be faster than in an on again, off again effort over that same distance. This also requires learning how to perform at a steady state maximum effort over that distance.

The 2 man TT strategy is not so much to recover in the sense you are familiar with recovering in the 2 min on, 2 min off senario, but to generate the fastest speed over this distance.

These short (15-20 sec) recovery periods are absent in an ITT. This is the difference in the 2 man TT. This is also the reason why when done correctly, 2 man TT times are generally significantly faster over the same distance than individual TT times.

Hope this helps to explain.

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Ben Cline


Better to aspire to Greatness and fail, than to not challenge one's self at all, and succeed.

OK. Say you do a ITT at 100% threshold. Now you do your 2-man TT at 130% for the 15s on period and 90% for the off period (30% reduction from the draft). Technically this will be a bit of a normalized power buster but if you go with it, NP is around 110% of threshold. i.e., you can't do it for an hour. You need to get down around 115-120% of threshold for the NP to be 100%. Those 115-120% pulls can be done for much longer time (1-3 minutes) so you can benefit more from behind one behind the other rather than a less efficient side-by-side.