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Subject: Toms Farm vs. Piru ITT (OUCH!!!)

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GotMilked
Posts:13

Posted:2/6/2007 2:04:31 AM

Hello fellow cyclists who're (

) into TT's.

I've started racing just over a year ago in January of 2006, did pretty good for my first-ten Cat-5 criterium (and two stage races) and upgraded to Cat-4, where I'm at right now.

I've just raced my first ever pure time trial at Toms Farm (between Corona and Lake Elsinore) on the 14th of January and my second one just a couple of days ago at Piru (between Fillmore and Magic Mountain). My experience with these two courses is this (and I wish the event organizers had course profiles/maps so I didn't have to learn the hard way): Toms Farm's 9-mile out/back course is like the opposite of Piru; a slower-out that rolls a little, and ends up at a higher-elevation at the turnaround, followed by a much faster-return, where at certain points my 55-12 isn't enough for that extra-burst of elapsed-time reducing speed. The 12.5-mile Piru course on the other hand, starts out very fast (though the 55-12 is sufficient for me on this course) with the turnaround at a lower-elevation, which makes for a much slower return-leg, and which I'd be oftenly engaged in my 55-18 through 21 (maybe 42-15 or 16 at a couple of very short points, though I can't recall, 'cuz I was too busy suffering).

If I was to attack Toms Farm TT again, MY STRATEGY would be to go HARD and grind-up the incline for the first-half, and then try to hammer it in 55-14 to 55-12 in the second-half. My not-so-pleasant experience at Piru tells me that I SHOULDN'T go too-hard in the very-fast first-half, but instead, to ease-up a bit and save some energy/power to go FASTER & HARDER in the slower incline-grind of the second-half; maintaining a higher-cadence in a heavier 55-18 or harder combination.

Would anybody with ITT experience on either one of these two courses or similar courses PLEASE TELL ME of a BETTER STRATEGY?

I'm also asking of an "elder" and/or more-experienced TT-cyclist about the 4X15-minute LT-interval training sessions in Troy Jacobson's "Totally Time Trial" Spinervals video, which is geared towards the cyclists preparing for a "40K" time trial. Would this same training be just as good or "too much" for the 20K time trial racing? Would it be too much to do this, on-top of hard-criterium race-training twice a week (2 hard crits + hard 1 or 2 LT-session on a fluid-trainer per week)?

The Piru TT was a little discouraging for me (but I'm optimistic about my ability), since the top-4 rider in my Cat-4 group all posted phenomenal time that totally rivalled (or bettered!) what the Cat-1's, 2's and 3's have been putting out in the last couple of Piru TT races. Let's just say that I finished Piru's 20K in about 32-minutes, and those on top of the Cat-4 list were a good 3-minutes faster!

cmacleod
Posts:1

Posted:2/28/2007 10:45:34 AM

I'm new to Time Trialing myself and started tt's this year too - and am also riding the 4's which seem incredibly competitive. To be completely fair, I think a lot of the good Time Trialists (a la 1/2/3 - Rogers, Bodine, etc.) are racing rather than doing local TTs so I suspect that tends to skew the results a bit (when you compare 4 times to 1/2/3 times) - just look at Shawn Olrin's times to see what a good elite tt'er can do.

As for Tom's Farms and Piru - I think it comes down to how quickly you can recover. I absolutely hammered the rise on Tom's Farms (you will always lose more time on a climb than you can gain on a descent) and then hung on as I recovered on the flat middle bit. If recovery takes too long then on a short TT like Tom's Farms I reckon you've had it if you go too far in the red.

Piru - I like Arnie Bakers advice - ride the TT as two races. The first is to the turnaround and after the turnaround forget everything you've just done and start over. Thus, for Piru I go flat out, as fast as I can go - saving nothing. Then I turn around, forget what I've just done and suffer home.

GotMilked
Posts:13

Posted:4/10/2007 6:30:18 PM

Thanks for the very useful information Mr. MacLeod! With all the hard intervals and other hard riding I've been doing for the last year and a half, I'd think I should be able to find some quick "recovery intervals" between hard hammering stretches of effort over these courses, and prepare for that "new race" at the turnaround. I've read about one's VO2 max as being mostly genetically predisposed, but that the LT is highly trainable and can develop for years; I just hope I'll continue to find time to kick myself in the rear, at least a little, and push that LT "ceiling" for a couple or so more years. It's all kinda MADDENING to work fulltime to pay all the bills, prepare all the nutritious meals, train, fix the bikes (ALWAYS up until 3am before the race to get the bike tweaked-out!), work on business ventures/computer projects, etc etc and stay at the top of the game (in crits at least)! No family and no friends. That's the way I'm loving it right now!

BTW. I noticed that Shawn Olin, the DeWalt rider who broke the old Fiesta 20K TT record was indeed at the January 14th Toms Farm TT race (Pro 1-2: 1st=Shawn Olin, 2nd=Gary Tingley, 3rd=Mark Shimahara), but I don't believe he used a fixed gear for Toms Farm. I'd imagine if he used a non-fixed gear TT bike (even if just two-gears only), he'd gotten an even better time than his current Fiesta 20K record; though I simply dunno enough about fixed gear power and potential...... some rider did a oretty amazing time at Piru with a fixed-gear..... better than most of those folks riding 18-20 speeds! Hmmm..... fixed-gear(!)

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