That is funny, cuz in TTs, I lose time going uphill, but not so much on the flats and downhills.
Did a TT 2 years ago where the first 7 miles were very rolly, such that the fellow that started 1 minute behind me got to within 10m of catching me at the 7 mile mark. By the end of the 40k, he was 1:30 back overall/ so he lost 2:30 on the 17mi of flats to me. We both paced the TT evenly, ie no spikes for hills in output. We talked a bunch about it afterwards. Yes, I weighed more and had lower power than he
The winners build their lead by going faster overall, which will include downhills.
I’ve beat people to T2 where they pulled away on an uphill and I passed them back on the downhill before.
Now a mass start/draft legal bike race, that is a bit different. Hard to get away on a downhill =)
In addition, most courses are somewhat hilly. Not sure what everything aero will do for you lugging up a hill at 10 mph. At least in the races I’ve been in, the winners seem to build their leads going up hill, and shifting correctly, not just from being more aero going downhill.
I have heard that every time you stop peddling on a flat TT course you will slow down…Yet every time I am racing I see people standing, stretching, & picking at their junk.
A proper TT is about out-suffering yourself.
The first thing I tell my juniors (I often try to get my High School Swimmers, Track, & XC kids to compete in tri’s during the summer) when they enter triathlon is to “get in the aero bars and do not stop peddling.” We can fix everything else later…They never stop swimming during a swim and they never stop running during a run, but for some reason triathletes, young or old, think it is ok to rest on the bike. The 2nd thing I teach them is to race their transitions.
I guess if you look at how much time this saves in a triathlon, the chart above is just chump change. A good bike fit is a MUST.
I still believe that every improvement helps less on a time saved basis, I just can’t account for what I’m missing in the numbers from AC. The physics works aero resistance is not linear and doesn’t go down as speed increases.
the faster you are going, the bigger boost you get in speed for same drag reduction compared to someone travelling slower, you just get it for a shorter period of time over a fixed distance, hence less total time savings.
If you went to say do an hour event on the track, the faster person would actually fair better with greater improvement in distance travelled
Did you use the “generic 4000m” course? Being a big/fat ACC fan myself, I had to check the calcs as they didn’t seem intuitive …
and that generic course isn’t really that generic! +3% slope for 2000m, then -3% for 2000m …
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding!
that seems pretty generic to me. that would give you a good simulation of most real world TT courses, which are never completely flat.
I mthink he used the 400m pursuit course which is flat. That said i think you get better real world modelling using the course you describe, at least where I live. Not a flat stretch of road for hundreds of miles. Whenever people say “assuming a flat course” I think we may as well assume 600 watts or angels with beer at feed zones.
I mthink he used the 400m pursuit course which is flat. That said i think you get better real world modelling using the course you describe, at least where I live. Not a flat stretch of road for hundreds of miles. Whenever people say “assuming a flat course” I think we may as well assume 600 watts or angels with beer at feed zones.
no i used the generic TT course
this leads us to another interesting question - how different does it become comparing ‘rolling hills’ to ‘totally flat!’
For this, not a lot, it certainly wont change the order or magnitude of the savings. Not to open a can of worms but if you plug in the weighs of the parts and the profile of a course it could change things a bit. The example I’d like to see is the FSA (aluminum) aero crank. That crank and chainrings is a boat anchor. I think the crank I have is close to a pound lighter. I really doubt that the aero savings make up for it, particularly on most of the courses I race on.
