How to Ride a Prologue Time Trial?

Triathlon Forum
1

I have a 5.7 mile TT on Friday, prologue to a 3 stage race. Looking for any tips.

TT frames and aerobars are banned (not sure why, it is a TT), however you can use a disk (I have a cover) and aero helmets are okay (I assume aero helmets are mass start legal). The first 2 miles is uphill, it looks like about about 5% grade, then mostly downhill the next 3 miles with a shorter steeper climb toward the finish.

Any advice on a good warmup? I was thinking about 20 - 30 minutes easy and then about five 60-90 second spin ups to a a hard effort. Get to the start house about 10 minutes prior to start.
Assuming this is a 12 - 15 minute effort, it seems like pretty much ride balls to the wall. If not, how wouldl you pace it? Cadence?
I use 50/34 11/23 gearing normally. The disk wheel has a 12/25 on it and I don’t feel like swapping the cassette to an 11/23, but I think I need to because the 50/11 is necessary for the downhill part in a TT since there will be no coasting. Any thoughts on gearing? I also have standard cranks, but I am definitely not going to switch those for this short TT.

2

go all out up that hill

relax on the downhill for 3 miles

then all out again =)
.

3

Break it down in thirds and don’t put your biggest wattage in the first 30-45 seconds.

the first 1-2 minutes wont make your race but they can break it.

build to your max that you can hold for the time and stay there. stay smooth on the hill too.

4

thats a good warmup for a 1-2hr race, for a 15 min I would do more. YOu are going to be going 100% from the get go so maybe longer intervals with longer rest periods.

5

Don’t relax on the downhill. It isn’t that much of a downhill. Go hard, but don’t blow yourself up on the climb. You’ve still got a ways to go. You won’t need anything terribly small gearing-wise to get up the hill. I’d go with the 11-23.

Have fun in VT.

6

how do you ride a prologue???

…BALLS OUT!!!

thats how Ido them, it usually works but I am only like a 56 min 40k guy so I usually dont win anyways.

7

thats a good warmup for a 1-2hr race, for a 15 min I would do more. YOu are going to be going 100% from the get go so maybe longer intervals with longer rest periods.

Agreed. I’d get in at least an hour warm up.
clm

8

Don’t relax on the downhill. It isn’t that much of a downhill. Go hard, but don’t blow yourself up on the climb. You’ve still got a ways to go. You won’t need anything terribly small gearing-wise to get up the hill. **I’d go with the 11-23. **

Have fun in VT.
x2. You’ll want the 11T going downhill and it only takes a few minutes to change a cassette.

9

5.7 miles is an awkward length. Long for a prologue, short for a TT. If you use a power meter I’d only look at for the first couple minutes, to keep from going out too hard and screwing the rest of your ride. After that, just suffer gloriously

A 50x12 combo gets you 36mph at 110 RPM. How fast can you spin efficiently, and how fast do you think you’ll be going downhill? An 11 tooth cog will get you up to 40mph at the same cadence

Also, many aero helmets are not mass start legal, unless you’re talking about compromises like the Chrono

10

5.7 miles is an awkward length. Long for a prologue, short for a TT. If you use a power meter I’d only look at for the first couple minutes, to keep from going out too hard and screwing the rest of your ride. After that, just suffer gloriously

A 50x12 combo gets you 36mph at 110 RPM. How fast can you spin efficiently, and how fast do you think you’ll be going downhill? An 11 tooth cog will get you up to 40mph at the same cadence

Also, many aero helmets are not mass start legal, unless you’re talking about compromises like the Chrono

I have an LG Rocket and it has a CPSC sticker, and from what I can ascertain from the uscf website it is legal. There does not appear to be any distinction between mass start and TT helmets, just ones that are tested to an acceptable protocol (CPSC is one of them) and ones that aren’t.

I am hoping the helmet will be a big advantage since TT riding is not very popular around here, most roadies will not own a geeky helmet like us triathletes.

11

you might be surprised. many uscf folks have full tt rigs that seldom see the light of day. At state Tt here, a road helemt is the anomoly.

12

thats a good warmup for a 1-2hr race, for a 15 min I would do more. YOu are going to be going 100% from the get go so maybe longer intervals with longer rest periods.

Usually I do about 10 minutes for a road race. I figure if you are racing 60 miles, there will be more than enough time to warm up during the race. The second stage is a 75 mile road race, I was thinking 5 minute warm will be enought for that;), especially since I have not done a 75 mile ride in about 3 years.

With 20 - 30 minutes of easy riding and then some spin ups, I should be around 45 minutes.

13

Dosing your effort can make all the difference in the world in a short prologue. You want to cross the line as you blow, not too fresh and worst of all you don’t want to pop with 500m to go.

I think you’d want to hit the first hill very hard, power OVER THE TOP and get up to speed on the downhill portion. At that point you may want to “float” a bit depending on how you feel and how hard that last hill is. There is the potential to lose an enormous amount of time on that final hill if you hit it too hard. Keep that in mind! Also, make sure you have just enough left to power over the top of the first hill. If you start to blow with a couple of hundred yards left you will lose enormous amounts of time as you will be unable to quickly get up to speed.

Think of a prologue in terms of where is it possible to lose large chunks of time and make sure you mitigate that.

Example: There used to be a NRC stage race in Redding, CA called the Vulcan Tour. Here’s the prologue route: http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/redding/116125177756815944

Start at the river, climb to the dam, flat across the dam and then climb again. The tactic was to hammer the climb, FLOAT on the flat dam crossing and then be ready to hammer again on the last climb. Guys who went hard on the dam picked up a few seconds there but lost MANY more on the final climb.

Where do people gain big chunks of time in a TT? Generally on a climb or into a head wind. On a tail wind or downhill there usually isn’t much of a difference. Put your efforts into where you can make that difference.

Take the time to put on the 11x23. You can always not use that gear if you don’t need it. But you can’t use it if you need it but didn’t take the 5 minutes to change it out. 50x11 is plenty big I would think.

I would probably want to warm up a bit more than that. You need to be fully ready to go at the start.

Another prologue story, this one in Mammoth, CA. 6 miles uphill from about 7000’ to 9000’. We’re warming up on the course (which was okay for some reason) and watched a junior take off and pass us as he started his six miles. We caught him, totally blown about half way. We were cruising, not going hard at all. Balls to the wall didn’t work too well for him.

I can’t emphasize this enough. Good prologue riders think about where to put in their efforts.

14

Most of the descent after the first hill is actually fairly gentle. However, just before the last hill there’s a short and steep downhill, followed by a very abrupt transition to the final hill, which starts out with a short steep pitch and then levels out. I’d swap the cassette, you don’t need a 34/25 for the climb and you might want the 11, particularly for the short downhill before the last hill, maybe elsewhere if you’re strong.

Make sure you’re ready for the shift before the final hill, I bent a chain recently when I blew my shift on this pitch. You’ll go from 40+ mph to an out of the saddle burst on the hill in a few seconds.

The first climb is mostly gentle, with one moderately steep pitch about 2/3 of the way up. You’ll need to go hard here to be competitive. The last hill is pretty short, no reason to hold back there, other than not cooking your legs for the next 3 days. This road has some beautiful scenery, I’m sure you’ll have lots of time to take it in during your TT!

I’m sure the rule against TT bikes is just to help ensure an even playing field for everyone and spare the teams the complication of bringing TT bikes for such a short TT. Although this TT has enough climbing to neutralize a good bit of the advantage, on the gradual downhill section after the first hill a TT bike would be a definite help.

Good luck!

15

Dude…that’s like a warmup for an Olympic or Half ironman tri…

20 min easy. then 30 min with 15x40 second at your race effort wattag with 1:20 cruise…10 min easy and stretch and then get in the gate. That’s what I’d be aiming at.

16

By the way, I don’t race any bike racing that short but I do XC ski racing that is that short and I’m basing my input on the warmup being pretty well no different. You need to have spent a solid amount of time at race pace to get right into it out of the start gate.

17

Tri Yoda, what cat are you in?

I’m going from tri to road, for the first time, and it is my first cat 3 race.

Look at last year’s times, winning times for roughly how long it will take, depending on where you are maybe more on the side of 15 minutes than 12.

Last year I bombed on the hill, pushing too hard and couldn’t hammer it on the flats., so I agree, don’t kill yourself on the hill. Go hard but not too hard, then DESTROY it on the flat/rest of the course.

unfortunately i think i am in to get slaughtered.

18

Just out of curiousity, what’s supposed to happen 45 minutes into a warmup that didn’t happen after say 5 minutes?

Also, has anyone seen any data to support hard vs. moderate warmups? (Everything I’ve seen seems to suggest no difference…)

Not to doubt the ritual (if it works it works), but I’m curious…

19

TT frames and aerobars are banned (not sure why, it is a TT), however you can use a disk (I have a cover) and aero helmets are okay (I assume aero helmets are mass start legal).

The reason stage races ban bikes, but not other aero aids like helmets (although wheels are less commonly allowed) is because it’s really hard on teams coming from further away. Travelling with a team of 4 and 4 bikes is pretty easy, make that 8 bikes and it’s enough to put them off entering.

20

I agree.

I am running my FP80 front wheel, skinsuit, and aero helmet.

I just wish they were still doing the mass start hill climb.

Oh well.