I haven’t paid close attention, but it seems like most start a TT in the big ring and maybe around an 18 to 20 tooth rear gear. I like to get a quick start and have tried starting in the big ring and the 23 tooth cassette gear. I lost the chain at the start of my first 2007 TT using this gearing as I back pedaled to position the pedals in the 2 o clock 8 o clock starting position. Since then I changed my approach to start in the small chain ring and wait till I get up to around 25 mph before I shift to the big ring. It can take a several seconds to as long as half a minute for this shift to happen and I have found that I have to really consciously soft pedal to make this shift happen in a handful of seconds. I can tell how long this takes when looking at my Garmin graph afterwards. I have had my shifting hardware adjusted many times (dura ace) and there seems to be no improvement.
Is it normal to have to soft pedal in a TT to shift from small (39) to large (53) ring? I don’t notice this in normal riding situations and it took me several races to figure out I needed to soft pedal to make the shift happen fairly quickly.
What is the best gears to start with for a flat TT?
Thanks for any advice. I wish I would have asked this question this time last year.
55x19, and I’m up to speed and in the 55x11 or 12 by the time I hit the saddle (if it’s flat.)
I catch a lot of my 30 second folks in the first 1/2k or so of a TT, and by your description, If you were my 30 second guy I would probably catch you right about the the time you got in your big ring. It sounds like you need to work on your starts…
If you have a local velodrome, go check out the Kilo riders. I spent some time with a Kilo WR holder, and it did wonders for my start. One of the best things I ever did for my TTing, in fact.
If you have a local velodrome, go check out the Kilo riders. I spent some time with a Kilo WR holder, and it did wonders for my start. One of the best things I ever did for my TTing, in fact. <<
Thanks for the input. I will try using my 53 with maybe a 19 and see if that seems to be faster. We don’t have any velodromes in the area, but I hear there is one in Houstin TX and I may be working there some this spring.
For clarification, it doesn’t take long for me to get to 25mph but then I am stuck there softpedaling until I successfully make the upshift to the big ring. In the last few TTs I did last year I was probably softpedaling for 5 to 10 seconds…stuck at about 24 mph till the successful upshift. In a 40TT this wasn’t a big deal, but in a 5 or 10k TT this delay can get costly.
A bunch of little things. Fixed my foot position in the hold (more horizontal,) straightened my arms out, got all the side-to-side motion out of my start, worked on “pulsing” a big gear up to speed, etc.
"In the last few TTs I did last year I was probably softpedaling for 5 to 10 seconds…stuck at about 24 mph till the successful upshift. In a 40TT this wasn’t a big deal, but in a 5 or 10k TT this delay can get costly. "
Yup. 5-10 seconds of softpedaling is huge - heck, I’ve won 40k TTs by a couple of seconds, so even in those it’s huge…
In a 10k TT that’s a really large freebie to the competition - especially considering that in a (flat) 10k, I’m looking to be up at 30mph by the time I sit down; if you’re soft pedaling for 10 seconds in the first K, you’re going to come back really fast…
I can’t imagine any situation, or any excuse, for starting a flat TT in the small ring. (I’ve never seen any TT course I’d start in the small ring.) The shift between chainrings is a very risky shift. It’s easy to drop your chain. (Lots of folks TT without a small chainring. That carries some downside risks which I’ve experienced first-hand. You can PM me if you want more detail on that.)
You need a gear you can turn over quickly to get up to speed, but not so quickly that you have to make a bunch of rapid shifts 'cuz you’re undergeared. That’s another time when people drop chains. Big ring on the front and something like a 19 or 17 on the back is good. Don’t redline right out of the box. Get out of the blocks quickly, but get in the saddle quickly and settle into your rhythm. Don’t toast yourself in the first mile or km. That’s a rookie mistake. (I’ve made it.)
Always remember. It’s a time trial. It’s supposed to hurt. When I say “settle into your rhythm,” that doesn’t mean to get comfortable. Comfort is only relative in a TT.
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I’m looking forward to getting to the track at the end of the month. They are getting excited here since our track is holding the Masters Nats in September.
Sounds like no one but me starts in the small ring. Must be a reason for this. Will try big ring this year with 17 to 19 rear gear. Thanks for the post.
I have little TT start experience, (will be doing my first 10mile TT in 8 years in Feb) so am mentioning this for information and feedback (flaming?) more than as advice.
I was watching coverage of the XC skiing races on Eurosport and the commentators were talking about how a maximal (or close to it) effort at the start of the event would not impact upon long term endurance as long as it was kept under 10 seconds or so. The event was 20km (as I recall) so definitely a true endurance race).
This does seem similar to the start of a pursuit on the track where the rider is out of the saddle accelerating hard until race speed is achieved, then it is time to settle in and get aero.
Of course these are some of the best endurance athletes in the world so maybe the ten second ‘rule’ would have to be shortened dependent upon recovery ability.
From this I am thinking that a start for a TT should follow the same theory - start in a gear that you can accelerate very hard in for 5 to 10 seconds to get as close to race speed as possible and then maintain or gradually build from there. Your starting gear would be one that is high enough to not be spinning out at the end of the starting effort.
It’s over 5% for the first two miles. Winning racer last year averaged about 16.8mph.
I do agree with you about always starting in the big ring for any course other than a pure hill climb. But not too big a gear: I once saw someone ride right off the course at the start line because he couldn’t turn the pedals over fast enough to maintain a straight line. Heck, I start out of T1 in my 53-19, so I probably start a TT in my 53-17.
I did one race last year where they had a start ramp. I watched one guy who was way over-geared try to wobble his way off the platform and biff badly when he went off the side.
Yes, I’d probably consider a small ring start if I was looking at 2 miles of 5% to kick off a course. I just thought we were talking about flat TTs … not Alpe de Huez.
I did one race last year where they had a start ramp. I watched one guy who was way over-geared try to wobble his way off the platform and biff badly when he went off the side.
Always thought it would be cool to do a TT start from something like this:
I start TT’s in a 53/18 (that’s with an 11-21 cassette). The 18 allows me to get off the line fast. Very quickly start shifting up to race gearing. The start is a trade off between getting on top of the gear almost instantly and being able to accelerate to speed quickly. You want to be in the biggest cog on back that you can accomplish this in. Can’t imagine starting anything but a climbing TT in the small ring.
I can read the tea leaves here…I am the only one anywhere ? that starts out in the small chain ring for a flat TT and so I am hugely against conventional wisdom here. That, plus I concede that I have a delay of 5 to 10 seconds to shift up to the big chain ring while soft pedaling and so am stuck at about 24 mph during that time. However I do seem to get off to a really quick initial start out of the block with this approach. It is unlikely that my start in the small ring is really faster given no one uses it but I hope to test it this spring and will share the results.
Test Plan:
There are about 3 others on the bike race team I am a member of that have short TT times (under 20k TTs) very close to mine and I am going to see if we can experiment with both methods to see what the real difference is. I expect if two or three of us start out simultaneously with me implementing each approach in successive starts…it will become pretty obvious which if faster. Thanks for the feedback.
