SBR Utopia ~~~~ Permanently OPEN!! (Page 7)

Well, good thing there's lots of support boats!     I've gotten 4-5 ocean swims in, intentionally went out in the afternoon after it got windy and choppy to remember that feeling of turning your head to breathe and finding water, or lifting your arm to stroke and never having it leave the water.   Hopefully a calm day, or at least not too bad.  Temps 59.5 right now, but there is a 5+ degree swing throughout the day, must be related to the ebb and flood tides

I think I could write a 10 page guide on team time trialing because it *can be* very complicated to get maximum results.

But in general, I'd say my top guidelines would be.

1.  Focus on keeping the rotation smooth.  A team can waste a lot of energy making surges as they rotate.  When it's you're turn at the front, ease into your effort and pull off the front before you redline.  You'll be surprised how much effort it takes to latch back on to the back of the line when you're cooked.  Again...this also goes back to the point about easing into your effort when at the front so the guy who just came off the front can latch back on easier.

2.  Communicate, communicate, communicate.  Most of it will need to be non verbal.  If you're struggling, it's better to let your team know rather than try to push through it and you end up getting dropped.  

3.  Be realistic about who needs to do the most work.  Chances are you will not be on a team where everyone is equal.  The best teams know each other well, and spread their efforts out accordingly rather than trying to force everyone into an equal share.

4.  Create your riding order accordingly.  Aerodynamics is everything, and some people produce a bigger draft than others.  Put the weaker riders behind the guys with the biggest/best draft.  Chances are that somewhere along the line, someone is going to miss a turn and the order will get shuffled.  Try to make sure that you reorganize so that the ideal order gets reset.  I made this mistake once...I missed a turn, and then ended up behind the smallest rider on our team.  I got cooked trying to stay in his non existent draft (I was already the weakest link on the team), and before I knew it I was dropped like a sack of potatoes.

I'd go with one option you like more now, and get the other later.  Seriously...you can have this debate in your head all you want, but you know in the long run, you'll end up having both.  

For you...I'd probably go race wheels since you're focusing on bike racing.  Get the PM next year as it's very likely that prices will drop or improvements will be made to existing units.

I finally managed to sneak in a 35 min run after work today.  It doesn't get dark until 10pm here so I've got tons of daylight to work with and I managed to avoid getting lost, although I see that I did deviate slightly from my planned route...

Thanks, Jason!  Great info! 

Honestly, this TTT is just about getting my feet wet and getting exposed to the bike racing world a little bit.  I don't expect we're going to be a particularly strong team given that I've never met two of the girls, and the four of us will only have ridden together once before the race.

What kind of non-verbal communication works best?  The person at the front obviously will not be able to see what the person at the back is doing, so I'm guessing it's the person up front who's doing the communicating??

I assume the strongest rider is the one who will be doing the most work -- is that right?  I really like your comment about easing into the effort when you're at the front....I'd really hate to be the jerk who drops riders just because I throw down some big power initially.

Unfortunately for everyone else, I'm pretty tiny and provide a pathetic draft....most people I ride with hate when I'm up front because even though I'm tiny and provide a crap draft, I'm fairly strong and push the pace hard.  This is definitely something I'll have to keep in mind for a TEAM time trial.  The friend who invited me to join the team said that she and I will be the strongest riders of the four by a fair margin....and I'm a bit stronger than she is, so I'm going to be really careful about not dropping the team!

One last question -- I assume it's the norm that people will bring their trainers and be warming up prior to racing, yeah?

You can communicate verbally while rotating, but it's usually best to agree on a couple of key words rather than trying to speak full sentences.  When you're hammering on your aero bars and aero helmets on, it's hard to hear...but if you know the key words it's easier to understand.  Things like...

Shorter pulls
Rotate clockwise (if you decide to change the direction you're rotating due to wind or traffic conditions)
Ease up
And maybe the most important call is whatever you decide to yell out when someone gets dropped.

For non verbal communication, it's again while you are rotating.  Maybe come up with 2 or 3 signals that shows how you are feeling about the pace.  Maybe a thumbs up/down, or rotating your finger forward asking if you want to pick up the pace, or putting your palm down indicating you think you need to slow the pace down.

In general, the strongest riders do most of the time up front with longer pulls.  One thing you also need to discuss with your team is the finishing strategy.  I assume your time is from the 3rd rider across.  So you need to figure out if you guys all plan to finish together, or if you are willing to sacrifice the weakest rider at a certain point.  Approximately when will that be, and if that person is going to take a "death pull," they need to communicate that somehow.

As harsh as it sounds, I've seen 4 man teams where they drop the weakest rider within the first mile.  If the team is competitive, and the 4th rider is only holding them back, that's the decision that needs to be made.  Probably not the case for your team, but something that may need to be discussed to make sure expectations are set.

Happy to have gotten in a 100 mile run month.   Running is going well and I feel like i am hitting some consistency at levels where I used to start getting injured.  Between SOS and a planned November trail marathon looking forward to upping those numbers a bit

Looks like a busy weekend of racing - good luck to everybody.

Question for the PM users - I have a Garmin 510 with NP Lap as one of the data fields.  If I am cruising along at 150W and then hit the lap button and start doing an interval at 240W or whatever, it will take like 30 seconds before the NP Lap builds up to that number.  Should this not be instantaneous?

Curious why it seems to lag a bit.

I think NP uses a running calculation of the previous 30s - something like that.

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/blog/article/normalized-power,-intensity-factor-training-stress

That explains it.  Thanks.

Yeah that's it. Needs 30s of data before it can do something. Just like the overall ride NP at the start. What are you using NP lap to do?

So true on the first part!

I lean towards the PM a bit to keep the fitness up as much as possible, but I don't group ride hardly at all and was one of the stronger riders back when I did do some.

I use it to see my average wattage during a specific interval.  I use 3s and 30s average to pace the interval but like to see the NP lap to see how I am doing overall within the interval.  Should I be using something else?

on the 800 I just have it show the lap average (pace by 3 sec average). That not an option for you?

I just use average for intervals. NP is intended more for the overall ride. It can work a bit with intervals, but they should be big. Like 20' or more. I've got an 810 now, but I think the previous 800 (and maybe the software too) would try grabbing some data from outside the interval as it was a bit confused on what to do. Less of an issue with bigger intervals, but could be rather pronounced on shorter ones.

I've read that before as well.  Anything under about 20' and the NP data can be misleading.  I'm not sure why really or if it's actually true...

I am sure it is.  I will like into that.

To jump into this conversation, I tend to have one screen that just shows power numbers.  Current Power (based on 3sec), lap power (based on 5km when outside), lap NP (same 5km), and 1min power so I can see what's happening when climbing and if I'm staying where I want/need to.  I like having both lap power and lap NP power on the screen together so I can see what I'm averaging vs what the NP calculation tells me I'm averaging.

I'm sick...been fighting it all week, but last night it kind of knocked me on my a$$ and I was in bed just after 9pm.  Swam only 1/2 of my lunch workout today, and feeling kind of run down and lethargic.  Apart from taking Vitamin C, any recommendations for something to help on race day?

I use 3 sec avg, lap avg, and lap NP on my main screen.  I use the lap NP because some of the intervals I do are road racing simulations.  Where I might ride a short loop with climbing and descending...where I know that there will be higher power on the climbs, and coasting or soft pedaling on the descents.  In those cases, AP gets skewed, so NP can give me a better idea of how I am doing for the lap.  It's not a perfect number, but just a metric I can better comprehend in certain circumstances.  For triathletes, you probably don't need to worry so much about lap NP as most of your intervals are going to be steady at a given power.

We ride hills as well ya know...

I'm going to applaud X-Lab after my ride today.  I've been using one of their Delta 300 single bottle carriers for behind the saddle.  It has a Gorilla XT cage.  Well, I was following some random guy who couldn't be bothered to point out a massive pothole.  I hit it, luckily didn't flat, but it launched my P4 bottle.  The behind the seat bottle didn't even budge.