there was a local weekday TT that i used to do which was 6.5 miles and about 470' climbing. My best on it was ~26.5mph if memory serves. my best 10mi TT at same power levels on a nascar track is 30.2mph

Whoa that's quick!

It wasn't Charlotte was it? That's the race in question.

I'm less concerned about my pacing group and more concerned about setting realistic goals for myself.

I guess I'll have a benchmark later tonight. The power output and pacing will be more important than the speed I guess.

Forecast is mild, quite low wind. So pretty fast conditions I guess.

yes, 2x in charlotte

its not 100% flat and you have to watch out for dingbats floating too far off the shortest line, ie pass on outside but they are 10' outside the best line. lots of passing and i assume draft affect, even when you completely avoid the slingshot(not trusting some of these folks)

I don't know if you were doing it back in the "Day"?
But the track (surface) itself used to be much faster than now.
And yes..the homestretch is uphill...backstretch is downhill...and 80-90% of the time you have a tailwind on the backstretch and head wind on the homestretch.
Back in 2007..Three of us on the same night in July were close to sub 19.
The series itself has gone downhill..expensive...and fast guys don't come anymore..but it was a real blast back in the "Day"!

nope, both in last 5 years

Steep hills and strong headwinds can have a huge effect on time and thus average speed.
It depends on lots of factors such as power to weight, wind strength, pacing, and the specifics of the route (gradients, wind directions, etc). But I've done hard training days where I've spent 3hrs climbing hills and averaged a speed only about 60% of that which I would see for a flat 3hr ride of similar average intensity. Say <20km/h versus 32km/h.
Even relatively small elevation changes or windspeeds would alter my average speed by 1mph or more.

Remember, under normal circumstances a downhill or downwind leg will not compensate for the uphill or headwind!

The hill/wind TT was officially 23.7mph. This one was 25.2. So right at 1.5mph.

2nd in class, 9th overall of 109.

I feel there's a lot of potential in the "engine" and setup in that I cannot put out even close to my road bike power yet in this setup.

Power extraction in this position is abysmal. Or, my meter isn't reading properly pedaling in that position or something.

I can't decide if it's totally a training in position thing, or a setup thing. I mean, I'm down 50w from what I do that amount of time on the road bike position. On the road bike I can comfortably put out 260's and uncomfortably hold 280's for that amount of time. I only held 225w in this position last night.

50w would probably get me under 23min, and for my class I'd love that. Especially not being on a TT bike yet.

Not sure ST's opinion on this, but I really hope the folks in the USAC divisions weren't the ones on a P5X that I saw. Maybe they were in the recreation division, many folks were. I saw a few other "not even close" to UCI style of TT bike. I mean, I'm totally cool with something close like a triathlon specific normal P5, P3, P2, Slice, etc...... But a few of them, ehhh. It's not an official USAC race, but if it is a USAC class of racing you sign up for I'd hope you wouldn't allow the "hyperbike" triathlon styled frames.

Not saying folks were in the USAC div with that, but just hoping not.

I did this guy on the bike in a relay:

https://www.strava.com/activities/1054224235/analysis/3882/4735


The straight SW-NE road was straight into the wind on the out, and therefore straight with the wind coming back. It is also pancake flat.


Going out I did 22.1mph on 267W (that was hard work), and coming back 27mph on 219W (letting up when I hit 50km/h cuz I'm chicken). So that's quite the difference.

(Unless of course I'm misunderstanding you and you're wondering if the headwind penalty is worse than the tailwind bonus, compared to what you would do without wind?)

---

Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

Not during the same ride, but a windy/hilly ride versus one that is not.

Either way, pretty much got my answer.

I can't decide what to do. I need to bridge the power gap, but am hesitant to try out much more fitment related stuff until I decide if I'll buy a bike.

To be honest, I'll do the series this year, but if Charlotte makes permanent the "road course" Nascar thing.....I might not. TT is TT to an extent, but I specifically signed up thinking it was a classic 10-mile TT where I could routinely compare to beat myself.

Now it won't be.