Looking to sign up for a few local Team Time Trials this year and am curious what some of the better strategies are for this style race. Do the stronger team members naturally take longer/more pulls? or are they even pulls? Who’s max effort do you try and base the team pace on?
A few buddies and I will be doing a few test runs to see if we can even put it together, but I would like to have a few ideas of what works to think about before then.
Thanks in advance
Distance may shape the strategy…longer TTT means stronger riders can/should take longer pulls…shorter distances (at the extreme for example 4 man pursuit on track) means more equal pulls. Practice pulling off smoothly and rotating VERY smoothly.
These will be 14.2 mile time trials, following an individual 7.1 trial. I assume this will fall into the shorter range for TTT and would work best will equal length pulls? What would a fair pull consist of? 30sec, 1min, 2min? Thanks for the advice
FWIW…i’ve only done one (a 40K), but did it with some more experienced guys. The stronger guys took 45-60 seconds, weaker guys (like me) 15-30 seconds. We had a crash with about 8k to go…
All I can say is practice, practice and practice your rotations and signaling. We got our wires crossed about which way to pass, crossed wheels and Boom!
As far as the rotation goes, would it be the same as a group ride? Move left and fall to the back?
ideally there would be no weaker or stronger. that is usually not the case however.
your team needs a good comprehension of a paceline, rotating paceline, and echelon. If it doesn’t have that basic understanding, you will be doomed(see jp’s post)
a ttt needs to be a consistent steady fast effort. If you have 4 individuals with a different understanding of that, you will be doomed. basically, if you have to ask, you are doomed.
basically, if you have to ask, you are doomed. \
Pretty funny, but basically correct. If you can get out and pratice at race pace conditions, then that will help. All your questions have many answers, and some will change… How many riders, distance of race, hilly or flat, how much wind, which direction, speed of riders, who is feeling good on race day, ect., ect…
In a TTT, you have to know all the answers to all these questions, and then be able to adapt to them on race day… Your strongest guy may blow up, be sick or off, you wind direction may change, then you have to peel off the other side, can you drop a rider or two for an offical time, thus sacraficing them before the finish???
Best you can do is to ask your questions, like you are now doing, go out and pratice, and go out and race. I gurantee that in every race you will learn something new you didn’t know, or even think of before hand…Good luck, they are one of the funniest races I have ever done, and the most painful…
The one thing to always remember is that, it is the fastest way to get your team to the finish that really matters, everything else is fluid and changing. It is the one truly team aspect of cycling…
The strategy I approach a TTT with is to not eat too much before the race because it’s uncomfortable to puke a lot.
The really really hard part of a TTT is that you pull until you’re spent, drop back, then have to give an even BIGGER effort to speed up to get back into the paceline.
My rules of thumb are.
-Put your weakest guy behind the biggest guy for a draft.
-Be nice on your pull thru. Nothing worse than pulling thru too hard and leave your teammate trying to get back on.
-Pull lengths vary with strengths of riders. Having a speedo will help as sometimes too long of pull will slow down slightly.
-Brief communication is good to evaluate how guys are doing. I have seen plenty of people that looked ok to my eyes blow up a couple min later. If you are about to blow be sure and tell someone.
-Have fun, they are special events and you will remember every one of them, good or bad.
14.2 would be on the shorter side but actually long enough to take uneven pulls - it depends on your teammates and # of teammates. The amount of time may depend more on the amount of time it takes riders to recover. You can approach the TTT as a series of intervals for each rider where the lead rider is doing a L5 interval for 1 minute, pulls off - “recovers” for 3 minutes (if 4 riders)…etc. Now if the weakest rider can manage only a 30 second pull before “recovery” is needed, you will need to adjust for that. Your team will just need to experiment with that.
Direction to pull off will depend on course and road conditions–closed course, open course…etc… Wind direction will play a factor…try to look up echelon or pace line riding techniques. Work on maintaining smooth pace…work on not gapping any riders. pull off smoothly decelerate slightly to drift back re-acccelerate slightly to draft…, front rider does not accelerate when a rider pulls off but maintains a smooth tempo.
and that is an example of an incorrectly ridden ttt
.
This is good stuff. Although, I think the statement “If you have to ask you’re doomed” is a bit drastic. The first TTT in the series isn’ until May. I would have never thought you would pull off in any other direction then the left side.(Learning already) These are the exact answers I was looking for. Most seem like common sense after reading them, but I wouldn’t thought of half of them if they weren’t mentioned.
Really appreciate the help…
it is good you are asking questions. if “doomed” was a bit drastic maybe fucked would be better. Ride with your teammates now,learn the teams paceline skills, learn your skills and truly get them dialed in. remember that it isn’t one guys strength that will win a ttt but it is one guys weakness that can lose it.
Weakness can be his form on the day or his inability to ride steady and smoothly quickly. Learn about proper pacelines and when I say a ‘proper’ paceline I mean the kind where it is smooth, steady, fast and cohesive, not loose and nasty like the bits on a 80 year old hooker. You shouldn’t have to yell commands or requests to any of your teammates, nor should you be sprinting to get back on the line. If you are sprinitng to get back on the line your team has done something incorrect or you should have skipped a couple of pulls and you’ll get dropped faster than shit through a goose.
I can’t emphasize enough that it is 4 guys operating as one. Not 4 knuckleheads trying to drop each other.
oh yeah…good luck.
“Fucked” Now you’re speaking my language!
This is all great info that I can bring to the group.
Thanks for everything and I’ll let ya know how it works out.
As far as the rotation goes, would it be the same as a group ride? Move left and fall to the back?
That’s not really the right way to rotate in a group. Single line and echelons should be falling back on the windward side and going to the front on the leeward side. This means it changes depending on the direction you’re going relative to the wind.
OK, since you seem pretty new to this I’ll give you the quick version: the stronger guys pull longer, not harder-the weaker guys shorter, and you basically go as fast as the slowest guy can can manage. If you can’t pull for more that 10-15 seconds, skip a turn–it makes things worse. Pull off INTO the wind side. Don’t start off too hard. Don’t worry about an order or rotation–it’ll get balled up in the first 5 minutes anyway.
The length of turns really comes down to ‘it depends’, but having done quite a few of these, and looking at a lot of power files, I’d say that longer versus shorter is really the way to go, 20"-45" w/4 guys.