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Making a fair TT practice test route
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I'm looking for something to do. I know how ST pitchforks come out about "PR's" set out of competition, but I kind of need some new data to go by at least on some "competition like" efforts on good routes.

I'd like to limit some variables the best possible, but also not sweat others too too much. Let me know what makes for some good things to pay attention to, or that I may miss. With best possible time in mind:

-Scout enough routes so depending on the wind that day, you can try to make it a "wind neutral" ride either with a loop or by only having it as a slight hurting cross wind. Wind in NC is almost always out of the west. Either SW, W, or NW.

-Flattish

-Good pavement

-More generous road width, low-ish traffic volume (safety and also no speed help or hurt)

-Very minimal turns or slowdowns

Here are some I've come up with:

Loop 1: 10mi
https://www.strava.com/routes/26612419

Point 2 Point 1: 10mi
https://www.strava.com/routes/26612495

Point 2 Point 2: 10mi hilly and technical portion, just for fun, not for a PR but just training technical riding/pacing
https://www.strava.com/routes/26253604

Local neighborhood laps:
https://www.strava.com/routes/26253481

I would go to the local arena with a 1-mile per lap loop. Quiet right now and plenty wide, but I really dislike the fast off-camber corner at the bottom of each lap. Swinging wide 10x and praying isn't my idea of fun. And Chapel Hill is just a bit of a haul for me to go do the Strava iTT going on out there right now. I can do the above stuff out of my work parking lot or ride to them from my house.
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Just did one of Friday. Perfect road with lane wide shoulders, but it was very cross windy that day made it a little sketch. A shorter segment was used for TT nationals last year
It starts off with a hill, but I wanted to get as close to 24miles as I could.
Its the Maryland side of Harpers Ferry

Further north is another road I rode on the next day with same wide shoulders. Haven't had a chance to map it on strava yet

https://www.strava.com/routes/26387678

IG - @ryanppax
http://www.geluminati.com
Use code ST5 for $5 off your order
Last edited by: Ryanppax: May 4, 20 7:17
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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I have a loop that is almost 10km that is all right hand turns (aside from one left turn in a quite neighbourhood). There are two traffic lights but on the second one I can go from the bike shoulder onto a paved bike path which I have found adds around 15 second on the loops I have to do that before joining back on the paved shoulder. The second traffic light is almost never "on". Its almost always green unless there is a car at the corner. Then I have to stop and its hard to know impact of that, but auto stop takes care of some of it (but I also get a rest).

8km of the loop has 6 foot wide shoulder, 2km is a quiet country road.

Generally Southwest wind days are ~30 seconds per loop faster than North West wind days just because of which part of the loop I am most exposed on. I have to brake 4 times per loop for the turns, but they are what they are. With 100m of climbing and descending per ~10km, 20 minutes tends to be a moderate effort, 19 minutes I am going hard at Olympic tri pace and 21 minutes its at the easy end given all my variables.

I think basically if you do your TT loop enough times, you get to know your times at certain efforts/power output with a fixed gear set up for a given general wind direction. Once you've done it around 10-15 times, then you know all your variations.
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
I think basically if you do your TT loop enough times, you get to know your times at certain efforts/power output with a fixed gear set up for a given general wind direction. Once you've done it around 10-15 times, then you know all your variations.

I think this is something important I need to do, is to establish a little routine with it. Good point there.

Even if it is just one 10mi lap at lunch once per week, some regularity can give me good feedback.
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:

I think basically if you do your TT loop enough times, you get to know your times at certain efforts/power output with a fixed gear set up for a given general wind direction. Once you've done it around 10-15 times, then you know all your variations.


I think this is something important I need to do, is to establish a little routine with it. Good point there.

Even if it is just one 10mi lap at lunch once per week, some regularity can give me good feedback.

Right now I am ONLY riding on my 10km loop but my max ride is only 70km. I find myself riding with a mindset of a racer, trying to shave off seconds everywhere at any intensity, not by riding harder, but how how carry speed and configure my body (staying aero, coming out of saddle when and how, when to dispense more or less power). And often I will check interim splits at 5 or so checkpoints to see what actions resulted in what outcome.

Eventually I am getting to know what I do results in what times in what conditions. In swimming I am training for the 400IM with 4 strokes and a lot of variation in when to apply what energy with what technique to get the best possible times on each leg, so that mindset is carrying over to this. I have 4 climbs/ascents on this course, so depending on wind direction sometimes its worth hammering them and recovering, sometimes its not.

I am having a fair amount of fun racing myself. yesterday though I was going to do 7x10km and it got so windy my times were sucking, and I got demoralized so on loop 5 and 6 I just did the largest climb extra times (back and forth) so as to not get a comparison time because its also easy to become slave to chasing times which is also unproductive.

For reference, I have not installed my power meter yet and going on perceived exertion. Once I put the power meter back on, it will become more of a brain dead science effort. Right now, its a bit of an art, but its getting statistically into a 'science' range of repeatability for perceived exertion.
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [Ryanppax] [ In reply to ]
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Ryanppax wrote:
Just did one of Friday. Perfect road with lane wide shoulders, but it was very cross windy that day made it a little sketch. A shorter segment was used for TT nationals last year
It starts off with a hill, but I wanted to get as close to 24miles as I could.
Its the Maryland side of Harpers Ferry

Further north is another road I rode on the next day with same wide shoulders. Haven't had a chance to map it on strava yet

https://www.strava.com/routes/26387678

I was about to say, that route looks familiar; and there it is in the description, part of the 2018 Nats

Back when I was in the area, I thought the course they used for the old Tour of Washington County TT was quite decent (though relatively short). One could take that thing almost all the way to Sharpsburg, U-turn on one of the uphills, and ride back toward Boonsboro. ~12 miles round trip, on lowly-traveled roads with wide shoulders.

That part of Maryland has a lot of good riding (and often with wide-shouldered roads)
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [echappist] [ In reply to ]
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echappist wrote:
Ryanppax wrote:
Just did one of Friday. Perfect road with lane wide shoulders, but it was very cross windy that day made it a little sketch. A shorter segment was used for TT nationals last year
It starts off with a hill, but I wanted to get as close to 24miles as I could.
Its the Maryland side of Harpers Ferry

Further north is another road I rode on the next day with same wide shoulders. Haven't had a chance to map it on strava yet

https://www.strava.com/routes/26387678

I was about to say, that route looks familiar; and there it is in the description, part of the 2018 Nats

Back when I was in the area, I thought the course they used for the old Tour of Washington County TT was quite decent (though relatively short). One could take that thing almost all the way to Sharpsburg, U-turn on one of the uphills, and ride back toward Boonsboro. ~12 miles round trip, on lowly-traveled roads with wide shoulders.

That part of Maryland has a lot of good riding (and often with wide-shouldered roads)

It really does! I always love riding into Maryland from Leesburg. You instantly notice the road conditions getting better but also the hills are steeper in Maryland it seems. Rode up Coxie Brown on Saturday and my god that was brutal

IG - @ryanppax
http://www.geluminati.com
Use code ST5 for $5 off your order
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Re: Making a fair TT practice test route [Ryanppax] [ In reply to ]
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Coxie Brown is no joke (I think i went up a similar one on that ridge). Stair step climbs, averaging 10%. The descents arent to be trifled with either.

Even more impressive that you rode from VA.

Back when I was in NoVA, i’d drive to Frederick to do my rides.

Also, you probably know this, but there’s rather interesting climb on MD Rt-77; so interesting, they don’t actually label it on maps. Actually would make for a nice century.
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