Getting back into TT training

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Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Hello all.

I used to compete in 10 mile TTs when I was a kid. Did a 25:02 when I was 14, but injured my hamstring shortly after and never improved on that.

I'm a couple of months back into cycling, at the geriatric age of nearly 38. I'm a good bit heavier, a lot stronger, but obviously slower. I'm up to 30-32kph on flattish rides over 25-60km.

We're moving to Sweden in 4.5 weeks. We've got wonderful, generally flat and perfectly paved roads there. I'd love to be able to beat my nearly 24 year old PB.

I'm feeling quite pleased with myself and eBay for having picked up this bike for £156 too :D

Image

How would you progress back into TTs? My most common distance to train on is 30-40km at the moment, so I don't need to drop it down too much.

I do have about 5-7kg of flub to shift too. I'll still be just over 100kg though. I am 6ft 8".

Oooh, it is good to be back cycling. Only 8 weeks at it, but over 1400km covered and I feel good :D
Grandad
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Joined: 22 Nov 2007, 12:22am
Location: Kent

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Grandad »

Try this specialised TT forum for advice
http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/
Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Grandad wrote: 25 Jun 2022, 6:27pm Try this specialised TT forum for advice
http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/
Much obliged! :D
Jamesh
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Joined: 2 Jan 2017, 5:56pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jamesh »

Is TT a thing in Sweden?

Gravel riding, perhaps TT ???

I'd look at longer distances younger generation will be better over shorter distance where as us oldies can go better over longer distances like 25 - 100 miles.
mattsccm
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Joined: 28 Nov 2009, 9:44pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by mattsccm »

I came back after a 34 year gap at the age of 52. First few times were slow. I wasn't as fast as you as a kid. Just club riding helped. I suspcribe to the idea that getting hammered on chain gang rides help. Of course I had the help of a better position as I soon bought an elderly Cervelo P2 with a deep front wheel and the oldest HED disc wheel in the world. Still running a 7 speed freewheel! That aero position helped tons. First 10 of the season was nearly two minutes faster than my last, always the fastest of the previous year. Compared with 1980 training has channged somewhat but I still do the same thing. Commute, some evening rides and 22 TT's in the summer and Sunday club runs. I did try Zwift last year after a + test but got bored. I have decided that I peaked in 2019 though :(
Stuff fancy training, just get thrashed regulary by better riders.
Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Not so much TT riding in Sweden I don't think, even though the conditions are just perfect. Maybe I'll have to introduce it to the cycle club :D

I'm not worried about competing against anyone except for myself. 25:02 to beat. I think I've got about 28min 30 in me at the moment on the road bike (which is really a gravel bike on slicks, also with mudguards). I don't think I've got a million miles to go to get into the 25s.
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Cugel
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Joined: 13 Nov 2017, 11:14am

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Cugel »

mattsccm wrote: 26 Jun 2022, 5:56pm I came back after a 34 year gap at the age of 52. First few times were slow. I wasn't as fast as you as a kid. Just club riding helped. I suspcribe to the idea that getting hammered on chain gang rides help. Of course I had the help of a better position as I soon bought an elderly Cervelo P2 with a deep front wheel and the oldest HED disc wheel in the world. Still running a 7 speed freewheel! That aero position helped tons. First 10 of the season was nearly two minutes faster than my last, always the fastest of the previous year. Compared with 1980 training has channged somewhat but I still do the same thing. Commute, some evening rides and 22 TT's in the summer and Sunday club runs. I did try Zwift last year after a + test but got bored. I have decided that I peaked in 2019 though :(
Stuff fancy training, just get thrashed regulary by better riders.
Getting thrashed by others in a chain gang - or on any other ride where your companions ride in eyeballs-out mode - is certainly a good way to rapidly increase your fitness, speed, resilience and willpower. You tend to try harder if the objective is to stick-on to another's back wheel rather than when sat on a trainer, or out by yourself, with nothing to stick your willpower anchor into except itself. It's so easy to just sit up as there's no one to notice but you.

Mind, the truly obsessive-compulsive folk can do well on the trainer. They're their own worst critics, them. And some tell me that virtual racing on the interwebbery with others can work a bit like a chain gang. Myself, I not only get bored on a trainer but too hot to handle (or keep going). I tried a huge fan once but it wasn't the same as the driving rain and yanky gusts of the winter chain gang. :-)

In the past, when road racing and doing some TTs as training for that, I tried various training programmes, especially through January & February when the weather was awful. As you intimate, such programmes are much harder to stick to than is the wheel of the fast lad you latch on to in the chain gang!

I was at my best for road racing after I spent the winter going out on the twice weekly chain gang, no matter what the weather. It does improve many aspects required to get better at racing and TTs, in addition to the pure physical fitness. Racing, including TTs, is as much a mental thing as a physical thing. And chain gangs don't half improve your bike handling skills, which trainers (and even going out alone) don't.

Cugel, currently having to hang on to the back wheel of the ladywife on her e-bike.
Last edited by Cugel on 27 Jun 2022, 6:23pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
mattsccm
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Joined: 28 Nov 2009, 9:44pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by mattsccm »

ebike partners are good training aids uphill where tthey can maintain 15mph and you can't. On the flat they are a good 10mph too slow :lol:
With the right bunch of riders even our club gravel rides can be good training, epecially the sprint for the 30 sign on the way to the pub.
Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions folks.

Picked up the bike today and went out for 35km. Whilst the bike performed very well, I just didn't get on with it at all. The position is not comfortable at all and it's not enjoyable.

Ah well, it had to be tried!
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TrevA
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Location: Nottingham

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by TrevA »

Jon in Sweden wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 8:25pm Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions folks.

Picked up the bike today and went out for 35km. Whilst the bike performed very well, I just didn't get on with it at all. The position is not comfortable at all and it's not enjoyable.

Ah well, it had to be tried!
It’s not supposed to be comfortable! Today, TTing is all about being Aero, which is about holding your body in an unnatural position for as long as possible. I miss the old days, when you could just turn up and ride a TT on your road bike.

You actually just need to get used to riding in that position, which is more forward and over the bottom bracket than you would be on a road bike. It always use to kill my hamstrings when I rode a TT with tribars on. A proper TT bike puts you in an even more extreme position, but your body will eventually adapt.
Sherwood CC and Notts CTC.
A cart horse trapped in the body of a man.
http://www.jogler2009.blogspot.com
Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

TrevA wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 8:40pm
Jon in Sweden wrote: 2 Jul 2022, 8:25pm Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions folks.

Picked up the bike today and went out for 35km. Whilst the bike performed very well, I just didn't get on with it at all. The position is not comfortable at all and it's not enjoyable.

Ah well, it had to be tried!
It’s not supposed to be comfortable! Today, TTing is all about being Aero, which is about holding your body in an unnatural position for as long as possible. I miss the old days, when you could just turn up and ride a TT on your road bike.
I know, I know! :lol:

But it really was very uncomfortable. I guess it doesn't help that we scarcely have a smooth road around us in Devon. It'd be much more at home in Sweden.

I'm not worried. I didn't pay much for the bike, and much like cars, I enjoy test driving different bikes. Some I like, others I don't. It's finding the ones you love that's the fun :D
Dingdong
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Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Dingdong »

With a proper high intensity) interval based program, in reckon you could easily crack your PB, which to be honest isn't that fast! When I was a nipper (20) I could regularly knock out high 22s, by when I started training properly with a coach and moved to a more high intensity/short interval based way of going about it I slowly whittled that away to a 20'24, which I've never been able to get very close to since. A lot of TT riders don't peak till their mid/late thirties so there's still hope for you yet!

As above a good/cheap second hand disc wheel will be the biggest improvement.
Jon in Sweden
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Joined: 22 May 2022, 12:53pm

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Jon in Sweden »

Dingdong wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:41am With a proper high intensity) interval based program, in reckon you could easily crack your PB, which to be honest isn't that fast! When I was a nipper (20) I could regularly knock out high 22s, by when I started training properly with a coach and moved to a more high intensity/short interval based way of going about it I slowly whittled that away to a 20'24, which I've never been able to get very close to since. A lot of TT riders don't peak till their mid/late thirties so there's still hope for you yet!

As above a good/cheap second hand disc wheel will be the biggest improvement.
I know it wasn't super quick, but I was only 14 when I set it :D

20:24 is outstanding!

I don't know if it's a saddle issue, but I was majorly uncomfortable in the undercarriage as soon as I went onto the aero bars. I also felt that it wasn't a position of power for me, but I know it's something you have to learn.
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Cugel
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Joined: 13 Nov 2017, 11:14am

Re: Getting back into TT training

Post by Cugel »

Jon in Sweden wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 7:38am
Dingdong wrote: 3 Jul 2022, 5:41am With a proper high intensity) interval based program, in reckon you could easily crack your PB, which to be honest isn't that fast! When I was a nipper (20) I could regularly knock out high 22s, by when I started training properly with a coach and moved to a more high intensity/short interval based way of going about it I slowly whittled that away to a 20'24, which I've never been able to get very close to since. A lot of TT riders don't peak till their mid/late thirties so there's still hope for you yet!

As above a good/cheap second hand disc wheel will be the biggest improvement.
I know it wasn't super quick, but I was only 14 when I set it :D

20:24 is outstanding!

I don't know if it's a saddle issue, but I was majorly uncomfortable in the undercarriage as soon as I went onto the aero bars. I also felt that it wasn't a position of power for me, but I know it's something you have to learn.
Here's the thing that many modern TTers won't acknowledge: a "good time" is an individual thing that shouldn't reference the times of others, as it's not a race except against yourself. Nor is it meant to be a technology-evolution race, so going faster because you bought some special TT-tech means nothing in terms of your own physical and mental abilities honed by your own efforts to go faster on a bike.

Personally I only ever TT'd on a road racing bike, as the objective wasn't to beat someone else's time but to practice at going faster by myself, for the purposes of road racing - breaking away and getting back on after being dropped. Road racing is about beating others over the line. TTing is not (or shouldn't be, according to the definition of a TT, at least).

So, why not just TT on a bike on which you feel comfortable, to see if you can improve your personal time on your personal bike? You don't need to go faster than others. And you don't need to go faster by spending vast amounts on aero-tech or being uncomfortable, since that will make you less fit, if anything, as you come to rely on such things for a "good" time instead off on increasing your own physical abilities.

Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
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