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Ok, here is a question for you Timed Event specialists. I've been racing mass start races mostly my whole racing 'career'. I just recently started entering more TTs and hillclimbs. I've finally trained my weight down to where I can now climb OK. I also got pretty soundly spanked last fall in a TT, my first TT in a long while. Time to work on those, too.
So, it seems to me that when you are racing against the clock, you should try to use your most intense efforts when they will save the most time. Been trying to figure it all out during my long hours in the saddle, and I've come up with some ideas (with some input from elsewhere, sure..)
A riding partner of mine is friends with some of the RAM guys of old. He says Pete Pensaries (sp?) told him how he used to make the best times across the US...Pete told him you 'gain' the most time right over the top of the climbs...Pete says if you really keep hammering as you crest a hill and on down the other side, you make big time savings because you increase your speed very quickly and can carry a higher bike speed for a longer distance...Probably not explaining that the best way..but..
So, applying that idea (sort of..) to a time trial/hill climb, wouldn't it be true that when you do go "red-zone" during the event, you should save it for the places where you'll increase your speed by the largest amount?
Using fictional numbers... Like this..say on a 9% section of the climb you can just sustain say 14mph without exceeding your redline..You can bump that up to about 16 or so for maybe 2 minutes, but then you gotta recover, clear out your legs, so back to 14mph you go.. But on this theorhetic hillclimb course, there are a few "flat spots" down to say 6% grade..If you saved your "over the redline" efforts for those spots and hammered there, wouldn't you make better time? You could kick it up from 14mph to maybe 20..Of course, when the hill got steep again or you load up your legs, you'd have to notch back, just like if you hammered on a 12% pitch to keep your speed at 14 mph, but would you not be further ahead? (by saving your max effort for a section where your resultant speed increase would be much greater?)
Now, most riders I know and ride with seem to save their biggest efforts for the steepest climbs, right? It is just natural, especially for us who race against other people, more than we race against the clocks...We all try to put the hurt on other riders by hammering up a wall. We usually sit up breifly at the top of a climb, too, right? And we seem to like to recover some when the gradient gets gentler...Am I wrong in thinking that all those behaviors are counter-productive in a race against the clock? Should I work on developing new habits? Hammer the hardest when the riding is easiest for better times? Get into the big chain ring for the apron of the climb, like? Haul a** through the dips, and recover on the steepest pitches.. What say you all?
Don Hanson
So, it seems to me that when you are racing against the clock, you should try to use your most intense efforts when they will save the most time. Been trying to figure it all out during my long hours in the saddle, and I've come up with some ideas (with some input from elsewhere, sure..)
A riding partner of mine is friends with some of the RAM guys of old. He says Pete Pensaries (sp?) told him how he used to make the best times across the US...Pete told him you 'gain' the most time right over the top of the climbs...Pete says if you really keep hammering as you crest a hill and on down the other side, you make big time savings because you increase your speed very quickly and can carry a higher bike speed for a longer distance...Probably not explaining that the best way..but..
So, applying that idea (sort of..) to a time trial/hill climb, wouldn't it be true that when you do go "red-zone" during the event, you should save it for the places where you'll increase your speed by the largest amount?
Using fictional numbers... Like this..say on a 9% section of the climb you can just sustain say 14mph without exceeding your redline..You can bump that up to about 16 or so for maybe 2 minutes, but then you gotta recover, clear out your legs, so back to 14mph you go.. But on this theorhetic hillclimb course, there are a few "flat spots" down to say 6% grade..If you saved your "over the redline" efforts for those spots and hammered there, wouldn't you make better time? You could kick it up from 14mph to maybe 20..Of course, when the hill got steep again or you load up your legs, you'd have to notch back, just like if you hammered on a 12% pitch to keep your speed at 14 mph, but would you not be further ahead? (by saving your max effort for a section where your resultant speed increase would be much greater?)
Now, most riders I know and ride with seem to save their biggest efforts for the steepest climbs, right? It is just natural, especially for us who race against other people, more than we race against the clocks...We all try to put the hurt on other riders by hammering up a wall. We usually sit up breifly at the top of a climb, too, right? And we seem to like to recover some when the gradient gets gentler...Am I wrong in thinking that all those behaviors are counter-productive in a race against the clock? Should I work on developing new habits? Hammer the hardest when the riding is easiest for better times? Get into the big chain ring for the apron of the climb, like? Haul a** through the dips, and recover on the steepest pitches.. What say you all?
Don Hanson