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Date Posted: 20:42:09 10/10/03 Fri
Author: Allan Armstrong
Subject: Re: Building a TT bike advice sought
In reply to: Gary 's message, "Re: Building a TT bike advice sought" on 10:28:34 09/23/03 Tue

Hi David,

TTing can be quite expensive as it is possible to spend quite a bit of $ to gain just a few minutes. However, a few items are a good deal and the rest are simply expensive, so you don't have to go bankrupt to succeed. The most important thing is to be properly set up on the bike with a flat back and a small frontal area. Take a look at http://www.pkracing.com/riders.htm for an example of a good setup.

You can get this good setup without spending a lot of money. Before I got my dedicated TT bike I used Profile AirStryke2000 bars clipped on to my normal road bike, and did fairly well at TTs. It's not the equipment you buy or the $ you spend but how you use it.

Wheels are also important, especially the front wheel as it penetrates undisturbed air. Look for a deep dish and few spokes. I'm not familiar with the Mavic Cosmic Equipes, but if they are like the Cosmic Carbone, these will be excellent and faster than the wonderful Mavic Ksyriums you have.

The best wheel setup is a disk in the rear and something like a HED tri-spoke or a Zipp 404 in the front, but Mavic Cosmic, Shimanos, or Spinergy RevXs are probably all good choices.

The obvious cheapies are a skinsuit, aero helmet, shoe covers http://www.velowear.com/, shaving your legs, face, and arms http://www.gilette.com/products/grooming_men.asp. Special TT frames and forks probably do little other than lighten your pocketbook. I ride a Cervelo P3 as a dedicated TT bike but have done nearly as well with clip ons and good wheels on my normal road bike.

Next step, and this is the tough one... is learning the mental and pain discipline of TTing. This took me years of doing weekly TTs. I did 21 TTs in 1987 and 14 in 1988 and improved by 3 mph during that period.

Riders who do well in TTs are not neccessarily those who dominate road racing and crits... and vice-versa. TTs require great muscular endurance and excellent power to frontal area. Road races, by contrast require anaerobic bursts of speed, good sprinting, and (if it's hilly) good power to weight. If you climb well but are big, and do well in headwinds, you'll excel at TTs. The right training seems for me seems to be a preparation period of tons of base miles and climbing followed by a period of intervals to peak. I do 300-foot elevation hill intervals in a group to start, but switched to flatland long burn intervals for the last month before districts.

Many people now believe that a power meter http://www.srm.de is essential to good TTing and training. I haven't yet formed an opinion on this but have spent the $. Ask me again in 6 months.

Try multiple racing disciplines, as your natural strength may not be obvious. I've spent years trying to be a superstar climber and dominate road races. Didn't happen, and I'll probably never win Mt. Evans (or even Mt. Tam) but I have at least discovered that TTing better suits my strengths.

Allan

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