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Taking on the National Time Trial: Wins without Victory


I’m still learning my strengths on the bike. Here's what I know so far: I’m more of an engine than a sprinter. As one of my teammates told me recently, once I get up to speed I can just keep going, but I need a little time to get there. That power profile should make me a natural for time trials – something that before this year was pretty out of my comfort zone.

One of my personal goal's this season was to improve my time trialing, with the ultimate test being the U.S. pro national time trial on Thursday June 21st. I initially hoped this blog would be a great victory story of how I had the perfect time trial at nationals and achieved great personal success, but my race didn’t go the way I wanted it to, and that's okay. In retrospect, it was a high expectation to get a good result from my first real effort at a time trial. This year was just my starting point. Looking at my numbers from the race compared to training, I know I didn’t perform to my full capacity. I think a combination of a considerable amount of life stress combined with too much self-pressure hindered my performance. I am still grateful for the experience. I learned a lot about time trialing, I have great ideas on how to improve from here, and I’m motivated to get the results I know I’m capable of.

 

Leading up to the time trial, I made a lot of changes to my set up. I've learned that aero is the most important thing, and with some great mentors guiding me through the process, I started investing a little more effort into setting up my time trial bike the best I could. Here's what I did leading up to the race:

Bike fit. One thing I’ve learned is that position on a TT bike is the most important thing. In February this year, I sprung for a full time trial fit at Cyclologic in Scottsdale. We dialed my position on the hardware, and they coached me on how to ride my bike to make my position more aero. Seriously, before this fit I had NO IDEA that riding in an aero position, and learning to keep your head down, look up with your eyes, and squeeze your shoulders together was a thing. Just starting to ride in that position was an immediate gain. Looking at photos from nationals, when I got tired I didn’t do very well at holding this position. That tells me I need to practice more and maybe revisit the fit to make sure I’m comfortable in the aero position.

Short cranks. I’ve mentioned before that I’m three years past arthroscopic surgery on my left hip. Part of getting fit at cyclologic is getting a full physical and discussing issues with your body. As someone that has bad hips, long cranks close my hip angle and can actually lead to more long term problems as the top of the pedal stroke can actually be a point of impact at the top of the pedal stroke. Cyclologic reccommended I size down to a 165 mm crank with standard chainrings (I was riding 170 with 52-36). I can actually maintain more power through the pedal stroke with the shorter cranks because my hip angle doesn’t get so closed off at the top, and I’m saving my hip from thousands of damaging micro-impacts on the top of the pedal stroke.

Pioneer power. Training for this race has been all about the numbers for me. I’ve been really lucky to ride a dual-sided pioneer on my road bike since January this year, and now I’m ecstatic to say I’ll be riding a dual sided Pioneer on my TT bike too. I didn't have pioneer cranks before I switched to the 165mm length, so I can't compare before and after, but I can see a positive force vector. Notice the top little power nodul

e has a forward pointing arrow on the time trial effort. That is the benefit of the short crank-- power at the top of the pedal stroke which is normally a dead spot. Thanks to Pioneer I can actually see a measurable impact!

BBINFINITE bottom bracket. I have never upgraded a bottom bracket before, but with the pioneer power cranks I needed to replace the one that came on my bike. I talked to the people in my life that are really good at bikes and, overwhelmingly, heard that the BBINFINITE is one of the best. Adam helped me install it and we’re thinking with how smoothly it rolls I’m going to gain at least 15 watts. We documented in the install process to show how easy it was to do on our own.

The install was aided greatly by the Hirobel Carbon Frame Clamp, which held my time trial bike steady without putting the carbon in a compromising position.

The next image shows the BBINFINITE with our home made bottom bracket press (probably 5 dollars worth of material from Home Depot plus Adam's genius).

We used the Hirobel gear wipes to clean out the frame after we knocked the old bottom bracket out, which was super convenient!

The BBINFINITE ready to be pressed into frame (see the time lapse on my instagram for the pressing part!).

Final product before cranks are installed.

Boyd Wheels. Besides fit on the bike, wheels are one of the biggest aero gains. I rode a Boyd 90mm front wheel and Boyd disc in the rear. Boyd and his wife Nicole were really supportive of the time trial, and they surprised me with custom sea shell decals on the front wheel. So awesome!

Safetti skinsuit. Our team skinsuits are awesome. Designed by Safetti in Colombia, they are made out of fabric that lessens air resistance, have a high quality Italian Chamois, and mesh side paneling to breathe a little extra. I’ve been really happy with the quality, versatility, and comfort of these skinsuits! Great for training and racing.

Get comfortable on the bike. I rode my time trial bike once a week at minimum, and did hard efforts on it in the time trial position. I've learned from much better time trialists than myself that riding the bike and getting comfortable going fast in an aero position is a critical factor for success.

 

I'm looking forward to racing my TT rig again at the Missouri state time trial in August, and I'll be ready to hit it hard again for nationals in 2019!


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