Racing Your First Time Trial

It's called the race of truth. The individual time trial is a part of the bike racing discipline that is often overlooked, even by the professionals. This article is part one of a series of three articles that will discuss how to ride a time trial (TT).

Time trialing is a great way to break into the sport and get a taste for what it feels like to hold a sustained effort for as long as you can on a bicycle. If you're a new racer and aren't ready to mix it up with a 20 or more other twitchy riders in a mass start event, then the TT might be for you.

More: Time Trial Cycling 101

If you don't have these items, you need to get them before you can begin racing:

1. A standard road bike with drop bars and road gearing. Have either a 53-tooth big chain ring (the largest chain ring cog on the front) and a rear gear cluster (cassette) that goes from 12 teeth up to 23 or 25 teeth. Compact gearing is also an option, with the big chain ring having 50 teeth.
2. Cycling shoes with cleats and pedals that accept the shoe cleats. This will allow you to lock in like a ski binding.
3. Standard road cycling shorts and jersey that fit tight and are made with a spandex material. Nothing should be flapping in the wind while you ride.
4. Approved road cycling helmet.
5. Heart rate monitor.
6. Indoor stationary trainer.

Optional equipment:

1. Aero bar extensions: These bolt to your bike's handlebars and allow you to get into a lower, more aerodynamic position.
2. Aerodynamic helmet: Shaped like a teardrop, you've seen these if you've ever watched the Tour de France on TV.

More: Riding the Race of Truth: Training for a Time Trial

They call time trials the race of truth because it's just you, the course and the bike. No wheels to follow, no other riders to help pace you and no pack to hide in. You must be willing to push yourself without the incentive of trying to keep up with other riders. This is harder than most people think.

Here's what you need to know for your first TT event.

Training Preparation

When I first started out racing TT's, I figured it was something I might be good at. I noticed on the indoor trainer that I could put the bike in a larger gear ratio and turn a smooth cadence and hold it for an extended time period. I believe this ability came from years of mountain biking, which requires a smooth pedal stroke and a strong aerobic engine—the basic attributes of a good time trialist.

More: 10 Common Time Trial Mistakes

Before you race an actual TT, practice on your bike while out riding. After a good warm-up, find a stretch of road with no stoplights, or a route with minimal stopping. Ride with the chain shifted to the big chain ring and the middle of the rear cog set. If you have a cyclo computer with cadence, try to hold 75 to 80 rpm (revolutions per minute) and ride without stopping for 15 to 20 minutes.

This can also be done on an indoor trainer—you simply do not have wind and gravity to fight you. Ride in your handlebar drops or install aero bar extensions if you have them.

During your practice session, monitor your heart rate. If you don't have a heart rate monitor, pay special attention to how you feel. Your perceived rate of exertion (RPE) for the duration of your effort (on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being all-out) should be at an RPE of around 7 to 8.

More: 3 Elements of Faster Time Trialing

You shouldn't be able to speak in more than one or two word sentences. Your breathing will be labored and you should feel like you want to stop, but with some fortitude you can sustain the effort for 15 to 20 minutes.

When the time is up, shift to an easy gear and cool down. Consider how the effort felt. Was it so hard that you are about to throw up? Or was it an effort that felt hard, but you were able to hold the intensity level? You should aim for the latter.

If you have a heart rate monitor, what was your average HR for the duration? This is an important number to know because this is a sample of your functional threshold heart rate, or basically the heart rate at which you can sustain an upper intensity effort for longer than just a few minutes. You can now use that number to help measure your efforts as you get more into racing TT's (and road races too).

More: Pacing Strategy: Flat Out or Even-Steven?

If you sometimes train with groups, practice your TT by riding at the front and taking long pulls. But don't use your aero bars! Simply go to the front and pull for as long as you can. Watch your heart rate and your cadence. Pull off when you can't maintain the speed. Once you recover go back to the front and repeat.

During an outdoor solo or group ride, you might also want to monitor your speeds during the effort. The magic number is 25 mph. That is the speed you need to be able to average to be a competitive time trialist.

Why? Because an average speed of 25 mph will allow you to ride a 40K TT in less than one hour. A sub-hour 40K is the mark of a strong rider. If you find that you can maintain 25mph for a 15- to 20-minute outdoor solo effort, you're on your way and ready to race. If you can't maintain that speed, you have some work to do.

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The Warmup

The warmup for a TT is very important. When the race begins you go from zero to riding near your threshold. Because of this you must go to the start line with the engine revving, the legs loose and open. You should be sweating from your warmup when you get to the line. And you must be aware of the time! You don't want to miss your start time! It's crucial to time your warmup perfectly with the time you're scheduled to be at the starting gate so that you waiting for 15 minutes. This will ruin your warmup.

It's a good idea to take your stationary trainer with you to the race. Warming up by riding around will not be enough. With your trainer, you are in complete control of the resistance and effort you put out and you don't have to worry about the traffic and commotion around the roads near the race.

More: Time-Trial Tips From 6 Cycling Experts

For a short TT (anything 20K or less), the warmup is about 30 to 40 minutes. For a TT greater than 20K, the warmup is shorter and should be 15 to 20 minutes in duration.

Focus on pedaling smooth and even circles during the warm up. Start in an easy gear, spinning at a high cadence. After you're loose, shift to the big ring and the 23- or 25-tooth cog in the rear. Slow your cadence and try to spin at 85 to 90 rpm.

I like to do what is called a "pyramid" with the gears. This refers to spending a certain length of time in each gear, shifting to the next hardest gear without recovering.

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An example of this for a long warmup for a short TT would be to start out in 53x25, spin for 2 to 3 minutes, then shift to 53x23 and spin for another 2 to 3 minutes while maintaining the same high cadence.

Shift to 53x21, 53x19 and go on down the line all the way down to the 11- or 12-tooth cog. Get your HR up to within 5 beats of your functional threshold heart rate. Complete the interval and then shift back up the cog set spending another 2 to 3 minutes on each cog until you're back up to your 53x25 gearing. It should take you 40 minutes (10-speed cog x 2 minutes on each cog both ways equals 40 minutes). Remember to hydrate too!

During the final preparations, take the bike out of the trainer, put your helmet on and go to the start line. Hopefully you've timed everything correctly so that you arrive on the line ready to go hard. Start in the big ring and around the 23-tooth cog in the back.

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Once You're Off

Get out of the saddle and put in a good charge off the line. Try to get up to speed quickly, then settle into the saddle and shift to the gear that will allow a cadence of 80 to 90 rpm. Settle into the drops or aero bars if you have them.

For the first few minutes, get everything under control—your breathing, your position and your cadence. Focus on smooth spinning and be as still as possible in the upper body. Let your legs spin and and hold the bars loosely. Find a rhythm. Don't let a slight incline throw you off and don't shift unless you absolutely have to. Ideally, stay in the same gear and power up and over the incline, staying smooth and low. Don't worry about speeding up yet.

More: 4 Reasons Why Cyclists Should Learn to Relax

Be aware of your HR. After about five minutes, you should be 5 to 7 beats below your threshold HR. If you're too low, shift to the next hardest gear and increase your cadence. If you're too high, back off a bit. Control your breathing. It's not time to be at or above your threshold in the first ten minutes. This is why it's very important to know your threshold HR number. You need to measure your effort correctly in order to save just enough for the rest of the race.

Now you'll begin checking your speed.

Speed Up as You Go

Depending on the length of the TT and the course, at the 10-minute mark you should begin thinking about bumping the effort up a notch. If we stay with the warm up premise that this is a short TT around 20K, the race is going to take a beginner time trialist about 30 minutes to complete. If you ride an average of 24 to 25 mph, you're one-third of the way done. Now it's time to kick it up.

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Up to this point, you've been maintaining a HR just below your threshold—let's call that low-suffering stage. Now, we want to go into the medium-suffering stage. By that, I mean increasing effort and getting your HR right at threshold.

This is where you will now spend most of your time for the remainder of the race. Speeding up as you go is called negative splitting. You should measure your effort to leave room for just a little bit more suffering, but without blowing up. That's why it's called threshold.

Some TT courses are loops and some are point-to-point. Most are out-and-back courses with an in-road turn around. The turn around is usually marked with an orange cone in the middle of the road signaling the halfway point. This serves as a nice cue for you to ramp the effort a little more, because after the turn around, you're homebound.

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When you get within the last 1.2 miles (2K), you should be at high suffering, approaching your max HR (more on max HR in Part II). With that said, you can forget about HR at this point—it's now all about going hard as possible (what the pro's call full gas) to the finish line. You should finish with absolutely nothing left.

When it's Over

It takes many TT's to get this right. When I started out, I always felt like I had something left afterwards, which means I didn't go hard enough and did a bad job measuring effort. It takes a lot of focus to be a good time trialist. If your mind wanders even for a minute, your result will be 30 to 40 seconds slower than you could've achieved.

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After you finish, get back on the trainer and do 10 to 15 minutes of light spinning to cool down and bring that HR back to normal. Make sure to drink and maybe have something to eat as soon as your stomach can handle it.

Write down in a journal how you felt during the warm up, during the race and afterwards. Where did you struggle? Where did you excel? Keep good notes. This will help you to build for future performances.

Next: Part II—Getting Faster

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