Team Time Trial

Triathlon Forum
1

I am signed up to do a team time trial this weekend. The specs are 4 people and 40K. Any strategy help? What order to ride in? Height, Strength, some combination? How long should each person pull?

This should be fun…and ineresting.

Thanks for the help,

JW

2

“This should be fun…and ineresting.”

Sounds like a hoot. Would love to try this sometime. Probably best to go for short pulls and rotate regularly.

3

What worked for us:

  1. SInce I wind up slow, I started with the first pull… and was the designated person to start the group coming out of the u-turn(if you have a u-turn on the course).
  2. We found in training that 30-45 second pulls worked really well.
  3. We never had a rider “Blast Off” when it was his turn at the front. If he was the strongest rider, he would slowly get up to his speed to give the guy(who just got done pullin) a chance to get seated in 4th.
  4. Make sure that the group is drafting correctly. Swing off into the wind.
  5. Since I am more of a kilo rider, I made sure to lead out the group with about 1k to go. If I blew and couldn’t get back in, it won’t matter because three riders could finish if needed.
  6. I always tell myself that “I am feeling awesome”. If I start to drift and think of the pain, its all over for me and I’ll blow.
  7. WORK TOGETHER!!! and most of all HAVE FUN!!!

good luck!!! TTT’s are fun

4

  1. Practice before the event. I did one earlier this year and I bet we lost a minute on rough transitions. We are all roadies who have ridden together over all kinds of terrain on road bikes. We’ve followed each other downhill at 50+ and through snow storms at 6 inchs off each others wheel. We train and ride together year round yet when on the aero bars, all that comfort faded. Took about half the event to get it right. Try to get at least your warm-up on the road together.

  2. Play to your strengths. If one guy is clearly stronger, let him take longer pulls to give others more rest. This will also help to keep the real strong rider from “jumping” the speed when he comes to the front. If one climbs better than the others, let him slip to the front so the others can draft. Even at 15 mph, the draft is evident and the pacing is beneficial.

  3. Don’t be afraid to sit out if you need a rest. Better to rest a couple of turns than fall off altogether.

  4. Talk to one another. If one guy is going too hard, too slow or is erratic, you need to talk about it during the ride to get it fixed. Discuss this before hand so that everyone knows that it could come and they don’t get their feelings hurt. Best to be open and critical during the race. Afterwards, you’ll have plenty of time to smooth things over if something didn’t go well.

5

Does everyone have to finish? For example in the tour 9 guys start and the time is after the 5th guy crosses the finish line. So if you have 4 on the team is your time based on all 4? Probably good to know going into it in case someone has an unexpected bad day. Sounds like some serious fun.

6

TTTs are so much fun, I’ve been able to participate in at least 3. The specs were similar, and at that distance, expect to be in a lot of pain. Seems like we were about 30 sec pulls, the strongest rider behind the rider with the least draft. Be prepared to make a considerable effort to get back on the back at times. Make sure no one blows up in the first half, having that extra 30 seconds to recover makes a huge difference. Oh, when first starting, or after a turnaround, the first person should take a longer pull to get everything up to speed and settled in.

7

Kilo rider! So that’s how you blew past me in the final K at states!

8

I was part of the winning team for the Masters A (30-39) TTT champs a few weekends ago, which included the North-American Masters champion (little guy, hell of a TT’ist), and let me tell you, TTT’s are more about suffering than ITT’s.

If you are strong, you should take longer pulls, not necessarily go faster. The idea of gradually bringing the speed up is a good one.

I have done several of these over the years, and practice is useful, but not essential if you and your team are used to road racing (it’s basically the same as a breakaway).

Be careful on the aerobars while in 2nd place and back. It would probably be safer to ride the hoods rather than the aerobars while in this position.

I personally suffered like a dog, partly from inadequate warmup, and partly from being behind the little strong guy. I HAD to stay in my aerobars in order to get ANY draft at all when he was at the front. As we were the strongest, we took the longest pulls, and the two other guys basically came through once in awhile to give us a little rest.

Don’t stay at the front too long. If you see your speed bleeding off, pull off.

Keep it together on the hills, as this is a great place for someone to go anaerobic and be dropped a short while later.

That being said, the podium was nice :wink:

9

Assuming this is the JDRF TTT (which is run by a friend of mine, and at which I marshalled a corner last year), I would encourage you to ride/drive the course beforehand. There are a series of rollers (4) on the course over which you can lose big time if you are blown or at max when you hit them.

Heed the advice about stronger riders taking longer pulls, not faster.

Thanks for helping out a good cause, and have fun. Too bad you’re not doing the 80k!

10

nice stuff
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