[Mi10]

Thought I will create a separate thread for TT experiences.

Let me Share my most recent one.

Attempted my longest ITT ever with a distance of 34.01 kms last Saturday. So far my TT have only been on short distances 16.4 and 24.5 kms respectively. And interesting both of them were just straight point A to point B. Luckily for me those two ITTs was done during strong tail winds.

This was my first ITT where I had to make a U turn which essentially means one way of ultimate headwind suffering and return of strong tail wind push.

Again my bike is proper, pure road bike and don’t sport an Aero bar / TT bar. So this will be naturally at a disadvantage over a full fledged TT bike setup.

My last ITT happened 6 months back and after a lull of 1.5 months I picked up some serious training putting in both indoor and outdoor efforts. Also was doing strength training and some running here and there. If I have to average my training pattern into a pie ;
Indoor - 40%
Outdoor - 25%
Strength - 20%
Running - 15%

When ITT was announced I was exited and decided to participate without any specific goals. This mainly cos of the fact that I am still a novice when it comes to time trials and more importantly never ever raced this long a distance !

Event day: Sometimes this happens to me especially on D days. Missed alarm and overslept ! Thank fully one of Friend gave me a ring and I got up dazed ! Hurried through the pre race process to reach the spot . Was able to do only half of my warm up routine (which goes on for 30 min) since I needed to start the race between 5:45 am to 6:30 pm .

The Race: Chennai roads are mostly fun as they are flat out. But ECR with its beach on one side and acres of open land on the other side bring in some heavy winds ! This time the wind direction happened to be that the first 18 kms leading upto Mahabalipuram had heavy headwinds ! The strategy was to survive these by getting into aero tuck position and saving some energy so that you can give all out on the return (tail wind)

The strategy seemed to work ok till the wind speed started increasing after the first 12 kms, thereafter it was just pure suffering till I made the u turn. Dropped speeds big time in this space ! And then after the U turn kinda gradually pushed up, some section where there was mild incline had gusts of cross wind hampering speeds but overall it was good to ride back.

Ending the course with timing of 56.04 for 34.01 kms averaging 36.4 kmph. Felt satisfied since the first placed person having a full blown TT setup with disc wheels got an average of 40.6 kmph

Ranking 14 out of 36 participants ! And 2nd when it came to non aero participants !


Some data charts for your reference !

[ebonho]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Thought I will create a separate thread for TT experiences.


Ranking 14 out of 36 participants ! And 2nd when it came to non aero participants !

Some data charts for your reference !

Fantastic performance and congratulations!

You have a very low hear rate if 162+ is your peak zone.

Do you run the time trial on power or HR. It looks like you were concentrating on holding a steady 1 hr HR.

[Mi10]

Originally Posted by ebonho

Fantastic performance and congratulations!

You have a very low hear rate if 162+ is your peak zone.

Thanks Doc,

Kindly ignore the zones, they haven't been set yet. My peak HR is running is 194 and Peak in Cycling is 185 bpm.

Originally Posted by ebonho

Do you run the time trial on power or HR. It looks like you were concentrating on holding a steady 1 hr HR.

I don't have power meter yet, so racing with HR is my indicator. I wanted to push beyond 180, however still learning the art of right pacing, couldn't decide where exactly to go all out !

[narayanang76]

Glad to see this thread, its good to share these experience for everyone's benefits

I had attempted Bangalore BBCH ITT on 2 recent occasions, prior to the lockdown in 2021. First one was on 17th January 2021 and my very first ITT attempt. Second one was almost 2 months later, 21st March 2021. Overall I felt good with the experience, the people lining up with their the race faces, and the bling factor from many of those awesome bike that we get to see on that day!

Both these ITT were conducted on OMR - Old Madras Road ITT course, which is 33.34 KMs, where at half of this distance we need to take a U Turn and come back. I had selected 'Masters' as my category, based on my age.

Here are my attempts, and stats as per BBCH team:

17th January 2021 (33.34 KMs):
Time: 1:01:32.67
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/4633110837

21st March 2021 (33.34 KMs)
Time: 1:01:22.44
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/4981877384
Had heavy headwinds on the return leg of this day and even though I was aspiring for a less than 1 hour time stamp, I was pretty ok to see this at least consistent with my earlier attempt.

I ride my road bike, Trek Madone 2.1 Aluminum with my Heini bib shorts, Jersey and road bike shoes. I don't have aero bars so I feel I need to practice that to get some more ITT benefits. Another aspect is I tend to lose some time during the start to get into a rhythm, and also during the U Turn point. U turn point was pretty tricky as on the highway lots of vehicle traffic means that you mostly lose few precious seconds during the turn.

I have a power meter, and have been training with it for last one year or so, in addition to Garmin HRM chest strap to monitor heartrate.

Cheers
narayanang76

[kat]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Attempted my longest ITT ever with a distance of 34.01 kms last Saturday. So far my TT have only been on short distances 16.4 and 24.5 kms respectively.

Congrats Mi10. That is a very good average considering there were headwinds one way. Think your next upgrade will be a set of power meter pedals in order to better pace your TT the next time around.

Also, I remember your Look frame to be white with tricolour in one of your initial photos. Have you re-painted the frame? Still looks gorgeous .

[Mi10]

Originally Posted by kat

Congrats Mi10. That is a very good average considering there were headwinds one way. Think your next upgrade will be a set of power meter pedals in order to better pace your TT the next time around.
.

Thanks Kat! Yes Power meter is my next destination - Planning to get one in next 3 months or so.

Originally Posted by kat

Also, I remember your Look frame to be white with tricolour in one of your initial photos. Have you re-painted the frame? Still looks gorgeous .

Oh yeah! Forgot to update the White bike developed a crack near seat stay and was replaced under warranty. Unfortunately, they only had Gloss Black and Red in stock. Picked Black since Red was too flashy !

[narayanang76]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Oh yeah! Forgot to update the White bike developed a crack near seat stay and was replaced under warranty. Unfortunately, they only had Gloss Black and Red in stock. Picked Black since Red was too flashy !

Oh that's bad, but lucky that it got replaced under warranty and more so as bike availability is limited these days. Any idea how its cracked in the first place? Is it because of overtightening?

[Mi10]

Originally Posted by narayanang76

Oh that's bad, but lucky that it got replaced under warranty and more so as bike availability is limited these days. Any idea how its cracked in the first place? Is it because of overtightening?

Actually it is a extremely strange case, the bike developed a minor crack in seat stay (not seat post) and i don't have a clue about how it came though! In fact there was no nut or lug in the near vicinity to think about overtightening. I just noticed it one fine day when cleaning the bike. The Bike itself was pretty new with just 230 kms done, but i was left with no other choice.

[TSIVTEC]

I too attempted the 2nd edition of ISO TT today which was organized by Naveen John. A 33.5km course on OMR road with tailwinds on the way out and strong headwinds on the way back. Glad I could manage 3rd place even with intermittent leg pain. The headwinds were so strong that post u-turn everyone's avg dropped by a good 7-8kmh.



I did attempt the 1st edition of ISO TT on the MTB last year and came 3rd in that too!!

[kat]

Mi10, Hijacking your thread to share details about the first ITT competition held in Madurai on 19th Sep, 2021.

For long, some of my regular riding partners were contemplating about conducting time trials in Madurai. Being a small town in which general awareness on TTs/racing is low, we thought of introducing the concept, particularly to youngsters who might really benefit from it. So, flouted the idea, created a google form and sent it out in a couple of local cycling whatsapp groups. To our surprise, we got 20+ registrations within a week and we decided to go ahead and conduct the TT.

Route - We created a strava segment for about 15 kms in one of the 4 lane highways which was relatively traffic-free (Madurai - Rameshwaram highway). It was a one-way ride generally losing elevation apart from 3 long flyovers.

Categories - We limited to just 2 categories to avoid confusion and since there was not too much registrations in a particular category - Road/TT bike and non-Road/non-TT bike.

Prizes - We pooled in some money from our riding group and decided to shell out 3 prizes (cash prize) in each category.

https://www.strava.com/segments/29894842

On the day of event, about 16 riders turned out - 7 on road bikes and 9 on non-road bikes. Most of them were youngsters and were quite enthusiastic to participate. We briefed on the rules, instructed on safety measures to be followed on the road and flagged off the riders one by one within a time gap of 30 seconds. The strava segment times on event day were considered for the final positions.

The road bike category was quite close with a lot of riders missing out the podium by seconds. The non-road bike category was dominated by some really powerful riders riding on hybrids (it was obviously a disadvantage for MTB riders, but hopefully with more MTB registrations, we should be able to have a separate category for them). At the end of the segment, we hosted a small ceremony awarding cash prizes to the winners and also briefed on pacing strategies, use of HR/power meters during pacing as well as training. We received positive feedback on the event as well and hoping to conduct more such events in the near future. And to our surprise, one of my riding partners outside the organizing group, being a cycles wholesale businessman, was kind enough to reward the riders on the podium with a 500 ml Zefal water bottle each .

Sadly, I couldn't participate in it being an organizer, but then, I plan to ride that segment on another day and set my PR (current PR is about 34.4 kmph average done some months back during a regular 50k ride).

[Mi10]

Last min decision to participate in ITT (34 kms) Mentally was ok, but physically was running fatigued set of legs ! Took the Merida out to see how it fared up.

Not great speeds but considering couple of constraints from my personal side I think it is a good effort.

Was able to cross the line in 57:16 at an average speed of 35.6 kmph for the stretch. My second best timing in the segment but definitely my best effort so far ! There were ample headwinds when we started out but just after the U turn, there was unusual crosswinds that robbed speed big time 😐

Some pics to do the talking:

[Mi10]

Stuff of Dreams!

Lockdown cyclist 15 months back to Podium finisher in local Team Time Trial event !
WCCG TTT - Team Time Trial 2021, an event where you tag with another rider to complete the course ! With someone as experienced as as Venkatesh (co rider, SR and Triathelte) meant i need to play out of my skin to keep up with his speeds.

Challenges i faced:
First of all I had only 5 rides with this TT setup and there are areas that needs to be fixed with respect to position and overall fit ! Definitely uncomfortable to hold for more than 20-25 min

Secondly my partner for this race was kinda filled in since my usual training partner was injured . And this guy is a different beast altogether both in experience and in power - not to forget his super slick Trek Speed Concept TT bike !

Thirdly we only had one 2 hr ride together in preparation for this event and did some 6 min hard pulls which left me panting for breath ! Infact my confidence dropped because I wasn’t even sure of trailing him for 10 kms …forget the course distance of 25 !!

Last but not the least , unusually forgot my HR band on the event day! Since I don’t have a power meter I have no means to judge how hard the efforts are and woould need to completely rely on my feel during the race!!


It was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to bring my A game out to tag along fully and cross the line @ an avg speed of 41.1 kmph ! Enabling us to bag the 1st place podium in mixed category!

Even overall category as a team we finished 4th out of a total of 32 teams !

Heartiest thanks to my partner for taking some good chunk of the distance 🔥

Some pics ;

[ebonho]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Stuff of Dreams!

It was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to bring my A game out to tag along fully and cross the line @ an avg speed of 41.1 kmph ! Enabling us to bag the 1st place podium in mixed category!

Even overall category as a team we finished 4th out of a total of 32 teams !

Congratulations Praveen. Superb performance.

Cheers, Doc

[narayanang76]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Stuff of Dreams!

Lockdown cyclist 15 months back to Podium finisher in local Team Time Trial event !

That's some awesome speed, congratulations on the achievement!

[amol4184]

Originally Posted by Mi10

Stuff of Dreams!

It was nothing short of a miracle that I was able to bring my A game out to tag along fully and cross the line @ an avg speed of 41.1 kmph !

Fantastic! 41~ kmph? That's stuff of (rather hard) dream for me too
Congratulations.