I wish that TT's were more popular in the US! I would think Skipper could put out more effort, especially based on his time at IMFL at the end of last year, but his fitness isn't probably at it's peak now.

I do have a local 9.7 mile TT that is done most Wednesday evenings in the spring and summer. My best effort was around 107% of current FTP and resulted in a time of a bit over 20 minutes. My bike is different and my position is a bit better than when I did my best effort four years ago - thinking of giving it another go this spring. I'd hope to be around the same effort and try to get under 20 minutes.

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My fastest 10 was when I was 16, on a steel road bike with Scott clip ons in 1992, I did a 21:08.

Although my most memorable, on a sporting course (Gorse Lane in Grantham), was a '2 up' with a lad 2 years older than me, Rod. Rod was racing the Buckleys at the time and I was 14 years old. I managed to get my nose through once at about the 2 mile mark, and then again just after the turn, we did a long 21 on what is a tough course. No aero bars just steel road bikes (both built by Don Brooks) and we both rode Cinelli aero helments. Rod went on to be fairly pivotal with Team Sky and GB, and is now at Bahrain. Still remember the lung burn now.

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Rod Ellingworth ?

I remember having had lungs burning atrocity after an all out effort.
I was 17, and followed a spanish young pro during a 20mn climb. He was not a his max (of course), but I was, and was the only from my group able to follow. Was so proud :-) but good how it burns the lungs.

Curiously, when training with pro and elite recently (I'm not elite, just old and slow), going all out in their wheels, in very intense track efforts, my lungs no longer burn (my legs, yes). Don't know why. Legs are now my limit, not lungs ?

The classic uk staple 10 and 25TT

April to Sept you could probably do 2 or 3 races a week easily both club and open events.

Problem with the 10 is that the training load is a bit on the small side and if you take them too seriously too often you can detrain for the longer events very easily.

Riding out to the event say an hr and then riding home is a good way to keep the load up.

Joe Skipper is a fantastic all round athlete. A bit unfair tho to compare him to Dowsett, not just a pro cyclist but a top pro TTer. :)

I seem to recall reading a while ago that Joe Skipper did a 100mileTT in 3:3x and then ran 10 miles off the bike at sub-6 minute miles. Not bad!!

Yes, quite unfair :-)
this is why I say fun benchmark, because the differences can be really explained by their specialization.

One finished 6th in Kona
The other finished 5th in World TT
So I consider them both as top performer in their specialties.

They have same weight and heigh, but :
FTP difference come from specialization (Joe need to swim and run also)
% above FTP for a 20mn effort probably come from different VLaMax and maybe fiber types ?
CdA difference also come from different constraints...

I may talk to our local club/group ride leaders and inquire about how they handle their liabilities for those (waivers, legal crap).

I think there's enough folks in town here we could easily do a Strava segment dictated weeknight TT. Keep it the same time and location start as the group ride. Ride to the arena for laps, or to the out-back road used by the group ride that's pretty good. Then ride back and still meetup with the group ride after for drinks/talk.

I'd love that. Fun, low pressure. Maybe keep some informal PR lists or do "time bidding" for points.

I'm really sour to some other stuff out of town right now.

Is it the Charlie Backer one in Concord? Is it still alive. I tried to appear there on Wednesday, but nobody showed up. I'm not sure how they communicate schedule.

For non-French speakers, SCx = CdA.

More humid training environment?

To nobody in particular: Why are British TTs measured in miles?

British TTs were/are measured in miles because that was the standard before kilos were the standard distance measurement in English speaking countries. US cycling federation TTs used to be 25 miles instead of 40k up until about 1980. The 10mile and 25 miles were like the gold standard and still are used today, but not as much as in the past. Until they invented all the aeroness stuff. You could pretty much compare times thru the decades. Reynolds 531 tubing and Columbus pipes were developed a long long time ago and tubular tires were here before clinchers. So there was a little advantage for the newer bikes over the 1920s and 30s bikes, but not like between a standard round tube road bike and the slick bikes we have now. Lots of old TTs were done on fixed gear bikes up thru the 1970s and some folks still ride flat TTs on the fixed wheel. I know for me every 25 mile and 40k TT I ever suited up for I intended to go under an hour. Not too sure that will ever happen again. But wait till next time, for sure I can do it.

One other thing about British TTs is that they used to not count how many cars per min rolled past a rider. I know when I used to hear the big truck coming in US time trials and got the speed up a couple mph to hang in the draft a bit longer. An "old" English rider (was younger than I am now) that raced in his prime in the 1950s and 60s mentioned that some courses were noted as being faster than others with the traffic involved. In another history note bike racing was outlawed in the UK so pack racing was not a big thing for a long time. That is how the TT societies/clubs formed and why there were so many fast TT riders from there. They were good at a sport they practiced all the time.

Yes - it's the Charlie Baker one in Concord. I think they usually start up in April or May - somewhat weather dependent. They have a Google group that they send emails out to. Katherine Snell is the contact: kjsnell@comcast.ne

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In a similar vein - Teresa Adam won the NZ Elite Nationals TT
http://www.roadcycling.co.nz/...-and-harris-impress/
Then got third in the road race

Bit of a hit out 3 weeks from IM

Is that in the USA ?
(Sorry not sure).
For TTs in the UK the insurance / permissions etc are sorted by combination of the rules/regs from the CTT organisation (Cycling Time Trials) which is a seperate org to British Cycling.
Permitted TT Courses are all 'registered' with the CTT (and have to meet certain criteria e.g. min road speed limits, nature of junctions etc).
Also the police have to be informed a number of weeks in advance (CTT have proformas for organisers to use).
The TTs themselves have to follow some other CTT requirements eg warning signage on the roads being used etc.
Each racer has to be a member of a club that is CTT affiliated (costs the club either £30 or £80 for the year depending on whether the club's kit carries sponsorship).

The one downside I've seen to the CTT rules really where our tri club was trying to sort some proper TT routes was that the course requirements can sometimes tend to rule out use of quieter roads as having sections past houses with a 30mph speed limit can mean the route us non eligible (has to be 40mph and above speed limit for virtually all the route, from memory) as of course people like Dowsett will be 'speeding' in a 30 zone (whereas I wont be unless it's a 10% downhill !)

It can drive the routes onto 'fast' main roads. And the fastest routes are dual carriageways. Something personally I dont like to be in with trucks passing at 70mph.

Non-sanctioned events = breaking various road traffic act law here in the UK.
Of course that comes down to not being caught, but of course the shizzle all hits the high speed turbine blades when there's an accident.

And if course after an accident that the police have to attend, Strava is the indelible proof of guilt of being there.

I wish that TT's were more popular in the US! I would think Skipper could put out more effort, especially based on his time at IMFL at the end of last year, but his fitness isn't probably at it's peak now.


When I was racing seriously in Triathlon we had a weekly 10 mile ITT put on by a local cycling club in Vancouver. I tried to do it almost weekly through the main part of the season. There was a moderately large turnout every week. Mostly roadies, a few MTBers and a number of the top triathletes in Vancouver at the time.

From a pure physiological perspective, an all out 20+ minute effort on the bike - pushes ALL the key training buttons! This was back in the 1990's, before Power Meters, so time was the benchmark for progress. It was always nice to see the times dropping as the season progressed.

Just over a week out from my annual go at IRONMAN Canada in Late August, I would really go for it and, I knew when I laid down my best time, of the season, I was ready for a fast bike ride at IMC - their was a strong correlation here!

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Best fitness I ever had was doing a 10-mile TT every other Wednesday for 3-4 months. It was aptly named Putah Creek Smackdown, was low-key, no awards, yet a ridiculous amount of talent would show up and go full gas. After getting a few weeks a handful of us like nslckevin would do a second to get our money's worth. First run was about going fast, second was all about tolerance for suffering.

Is there some kind of graph or tabel that shows rider type with a somewhat correlating VLamax?

I've read that elite IM athletes and TT'ers should be around 0.3 and sprinters are more like 0.9 or more but still I find it something difficult to correlate with. Via a formula that estimates VLamax (10% accuracy) I got 0.6 based on FTP and VO2max from last lab test and I feel like I'm a bit of a puncheur type (at 65-66kg 1m70), coming from being a bit of a sprinter type since I used to do combat sports for half of my life.

More on the topic of TT's, I did my first one August 2018 and it was only 13.5km (3 laps around a crit circuit) and managed 19'24"83 in good weather conditions (bit windy but still ok). Last year I did the same one but this time it rained quite a bit so slower rolling and also a bit windy, but still managed 18'40"55. I think they're a nice way to test yourself, especially since this one was almost 20' in duration.

Mid of April I have a 42km TT coming up with a field of almost 250 riders so hopefully I can at least get into the top 100.

Yes we are lucky to have a superb TT scene in the UK. In season within 20-30 miles I can race club 10s and 25s 2-3 evenings a week and CTT events both days at the weekend all distances up to 12 hours.

I raced the 12 hour last season where Joe Skipper took the National record (although later DQ’d for technical infringement) with 325 miles at 294w. I was 60 miles and 105w ish back, but s fun day....

I’ll probablt TT full time once the triathlon urges are done...

Cause we measure distance on the road in Miles in the UK.

Road signs and speed are all measured in miles.

That's to facilitate pedestrian safety, most 30 limits will be in built up areas with pavements and possibly pedestrians/children etc on or near the course.

This clearly would be a serious issue, even when only doing 40km/h hitting a pedestrian on child could be fatal for both parties.

Better to race on quieter al be it faster roads.

Right up there with the best ways to improve your cycling top end speed. Ten miles flat out, nothing held back. With a number on your back and minute man/women in front and behind you will not train on your own as hard. One every other week from April is perfect triathlon bike leg prep. We are lucky in the UK because most cycling clubs do regular TT’s.

Here in Southern Ontario we are also lucky to have two regular 15 k TTs, one runs every week during the Summer the other one I think it's about four events. Beats doing a FTP test on your own. Some local 70.3 and other domestic cycling pros have established a few benchmarks at these events. It is good to see your time getting better throughout the season, or worse when overtraining. I still dream of breaking 20 min one day, but will need a few (or a lot) more watts.

Yes, CdA, sorry sometimes I bring french acronyms in the text :-) like PMA, QR, SCx...

Talking CdA, another fun benchmark :

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9ADHoHBci3/

Dan Bigham, a fan of TT, IP, TP, and aero geek, co-founder of the Huub Wattbike track team, collecting medals in UK national track championship and track World Cup, just made an hour test / FTP test on the track, going 52.631 km with 357w average (probably in a "cold" velodrome, 20°C instead of the usual UCI "race temperature" of 26 or 27°C).

From my calculations, this mean CdA around 0,167
And if my notes are right, he wrote somewhere in 2018 his CdA measured in wind tunnel was .... 0,168, and he was still working to improve it.

So, probably, his CdA is around this value :-)

For 6 feet, 75kg, not a bad CdA : https://teamengland.org/...hletes/daniel-bigham

I talked to him and it was indeed 21 deg C when he did that hour record training run, compared to 30 deg C they're expecting in Bolivia when they do their attempt there on April 22nd.

Based on the lower HR he had in the Strava file during the attempt, I asked him if this was a simulation with the power he expected to be able to put out at altitude to which he said that based on their recent testing he would have an 8% drop off in hour power because of the altitude (Jonny Wale only had a 2-3% drop-off, John Archibald around 7% and the others over 10%) but he expects to be 10-12% lower in total because of the heat.

~10% drop-off in total would put his hour power at around 390W.