Shave 5 minutes off 20Km bike within a season - possible?

According  to my quick math that's about a 4 MPH increase---which is a lot for one season.

Not saying it can't be done, though. 

Good luck.

I was able to shave that much time off of my bike times in a year but I also upgraded from a road bike to Tri bike, purchased aero wheels and aero helmet.  You can gain speed with just equipment.  If you already have those things then gaining that much speed in a year may be difficult.  Your current 20k avg. speed is 20.4 mph and in order for you to get down to 32 minutes you have to avg. 23.3 mph.  I feel the only way to ride faster and sustain is to do intervals.  Long moderate pace rides will not get your body used to riding fast.  Just my opinion.

What kind of setup are you on? Can you describe the bike and position at all? Could be some noticeable gains here. And you'll also want to be able to make power from the position, so getting on that early will help. Those things develop together.

Then you'll have to work at it in the engine department. What does your riding look like? What constitutes "long"? What do efforts look like?

This is a very ambitious goal under any circumstances. You might not get there, but the gains you get in trying will be noticeable.

Regarding the 'hardware' question - I'm riding carbon road bikes (Focus Cayo frame, Ultegra components, FSA carbon crank, clip-on aerobars) and aero wheels (zipp 404). I do not plan to upgrade any hardware. Tri bikes are planned for the end of next season (still need to improve flexibility, even no, the clip-on bars are difficult for me for longer distances).

As for long rides - they are 3-4 hours, mostly including 3-4K feet of climbing.

It's true that I'm not a beginner and so the margin for improvement is limited.

BTW - I recommend reading this study, it compares improvement in 20Km TT using HRM vs. Power meter based training programs. Average gain was 3.5 minutes following 5 weeks of interval training. Participants were 'recreational cyclists'.

http://www.jssm.org/vol10/n3/12/v10n3-12text.php

You're not a recreational cyclist - they don't do 60 mile rides every weekend.  And what you are talking about is trying to improve your power output by 30%+.  That is a tough order.  I'd recommend thinking about doing a Jorge-type plan over the winter.   You'll certainly improve (the amount will be very individual).

Like others have said, if you're already pushing 20mph, an extra 5 minutes in one year is a big ask.  You could make a good go of it if you focused really hard on just biking, but what would that do to your swim/run?  It may end up being a zero sum game in the end.

But don't let us stop you from trying.  Goals are a good thing to have and specific goals are even better.  Perhaps 5 minutes may be too much, but 3 minutes . . . that'd be a good goal.

-Mark

I just finished my third year and spent a lot of time this year training for my first HIM.  I did a sprint two weeks later after the HIM and thought I would provide some comparisons.  This was my first year with a Tri bike and I also spent about 400 more hours in the saddle this year compared to last year.

My bike time in 2011 on the same course (10 mile bike) was 32:18.  I finished this year 29:37.  The course has some tough hills.

Not five minutes but a big improvement.  I am sure I would have seen some improvements with the road bike if I had put in the same amount of time in the saddle.  I don't know if I would have enjoyed the bike time on my road bike as I did on my Tri bike.  I saw a 2-3 MPH increase over my bike training routes.  Love my bike and spending time out on the roads.

I guess I didn't answer your question but thought I would give you some feedback on my experience.

One thing that will make it harder (sorry to pile on with the reasons it'll be tough) is that power has to increase disproportionately as you speed up, 2/2 resistance doing the same with speed (squared, if I recall my looooong ago physics).

As you're no slouch on the bike, this comes into play sooner for you pushing the speeds up higher.

All that said, I'd echo the "go for it."  Doing some intervals should both shave some time off the bike leg for you, and I found that I could run better off the bike when I trained doing bricks after intervals specifically.  Hard as heck, but great training!  YMMV

N00b question - a "Jorge" type plan?  Links?

In the same boat, but trying to get from about 19.5mph to maybe 21.5 mph on a stock road bike.

Frankly, I'd rather upgrade my legs and my fitness than my bike.

Nothing is impossible.  But if you're not going to make any significant aero improvements, and you expect to shave off 5 minutes simply by improving the engine...you're going to need to ride your butt off.  Probably triple what you're currently riding...maybe more.

IMHO this should be doable as I did this myself over a span 2.5 years by doing Coach Jorge's/BT cycling plan a total of 3 times, using the program before each race as part of of the overall training plan.  I used my KK trainer and virtual power.  There's no lying when using power and you know exactly what you need to be doing all the time, where as RPE can be off & HR has too much of a lag when doing the intervals. 

Now, can it be done by next year? That part is up to you with the training. But getting 10-15% power increases has been my experience with using the program.

I would think with all the biking you've done your threshold is close to your VO2 max.  I like the ceiling & roof analogy KathyG often posts: "your threshold is your ceiling and your VO2 max is the roof. If they are to close together you need to raise the roof before you can raise the ceiling".  This is exactly what the three phases of the cycling plan does.

I don't think that the speeds you are talking about are pie-in-the-sky kind of goals, but if your times are still quite a way from that now after 3 years of racing, then it's reasonable to say that something will have to change to get there.

Sometimes people get used to going the same, moderately hard, pace all the time and they really never learned how hard they can really go.  With those people, introducing speed work, but especially fast group rides or bike racing, can sometimes lead to dramatic speed improvements. 

I'd say, pursue your goal.  what's the worse that can happen?  You don't quite get as fast as you were hoping in a year?  OK, you wouldn't have if you didn't have the goal either. If your goal is to get to 32min in your 20k, then don't ask the board whether you can... state the goal and ask people their advice on how to achieve it.  Do it!  You know you want to.

This is basically what I was going to post next. Enough speculation on whether it's possible. What kind of plans do you have to get there? Go over that and you get what you get. You'll still be faster than you are now and maybe you'll have a better run split because of it to make up more of that difference. Who knows.