5 Ways To Be Faster On A TT Bike!

The execution is the key. You know, you can do all the planning and preparation you like, and that's what I want you to do. I want you to do all that. But if you don't go out there and do it on race day, that's what performing is. You do all this work and you spend all this money on getting to the race. And if you're traveling on flights and accommodation and food and paying for a coach and equipment and you just want to actually perform on race day, and having all those things of preparation and planning will give you the opportunity to execute. If you understand everything about what we've talked about in the previous 45 minutes, that is going to get you to actually get the outcome you want.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Gerard Donnelly. Stage 17 of the tour de France. The stage was set between two monsters of the sport, Jonas Vinegard and today Pogacha, who was going to give the title trial performance of their life and put themselves in a winning position to win the Tour de France. And what happened on that day shocked everyone. I don't know any single person that predicted that kind of result. Where Villard put, I can't remember what the total time was to a minute and a half or two minutes into Tato Pocachar and set himself up to win the Tour de France. It was an incredible performance. It blew everyone away, just because those two are so much better than everyone else. How did he beat him by that much? It was such a shocking performance and we were going to talk about the art of time trialing, how to be faster on a TT bike today, and how Jonas Vinegar did it. But first, we have a very exciting announcement to make. We are super excited to announce that this episode is proudly sponsored by Giant. If you've been a listener for a while, you know that we are proudly partnered with Giant in our tribal coaching business. We've been with them for a long time, but now they are official sponsors of this podcast. This is the first time we've opened up sponsorship to the podcast as we are very particular about who we work with. But the Giant family are not just about bikes. They are about being a community and looking after each other. And that is what we really align with. Plus, if we don't say so ourselves, they are the fastest bikes in the business. If you look at the current Ironman 70.3 world champs in Christian Blummerfeld and Gustav Eden, the Norwegian hype train, they ride giants. They've got the Cadex wheels, the fastest wheels in the business. The men's and women's Australian cycling teams, Jayco Alula are sponsored by Giant and Liv, we've seen former world champions ride trinities to win the world champs in time trialing and Tom Dumoulin and for us, majority of tribal athletes ride a trinity and if we don't say so ourselves, they do pretty well on them with many age group national titles to our traveler name. So we just really want to welcome Giant Australia to the podcast. But dad, let's get into the episode. Welcome back for another one. We'll start with what are you grateful for?

Yeah, look just on the, on the, the announcement with Giant being a co partner with us, I'm pretty excited. I've had a relationship giant Australia for 12 years now and I'm, I'm super happy that we can call them an official partner on the podcast and look forward to a really exciting future. And yes, we are biased towards Giant. I have no bones about that. You know, I've been riding the bike for over 12 years now and it's been one of the joys that I've had. I'm sure, I'm sure there's fantastic bikes out there, but I'm pretty happy with what, what it's been able to do for me and, and not only the equipment but, but the actual way that the Giant group in Australia and probably worldwide, but I can't speak for that, but I can only speak for it in Australia, how well they look after their customers and care about their customers and, and it is a family. And that's the ethos that the, the head man at Giant, he, he professes that attitude and it truly trickles down through all the stores and you really feel like you're a special person when you go in there. So yeah, look, we don't take this lightly and this is a great opportunity that we're really grateful for. Yeah, my gratitude is finally being able to ride outdoors after 12 long weeks. For me, six weeks of no training and four weeks of starting to train a little bit and then two weeks of actually starting to ride with a bit more than zone one to zone two and zone three a little bit. But on Sunday we had just a local time trial event that we put on regularly over the years. We use the same course every time. We've probably done this event 20 times, 25 times over the last two or three years. And it was great to go and meet up with the guys and girls and ride my bike outside. And I just can't imagine how much longer I could have stayed indoors. Twelve weeks was, was long enough and we did that during COVID We had 12 weeks of lockdown. It was very similar experience. And to finally go outdoors, I felt almost released and I was a little bit wobbly on bike, I must admit, because the stationary trainer, you don't have to worry about that. So it was really good just to feel the wind in my face and have a smile and say hello to the group. So, yeah, that's my gratitude for this time.

I love that. My one, it's a little bit of a long winded story, but I'll try and keep it short. I just know that there is a lot of negativity online. When you're looking at social media, people can be very unfiltered because they can remain anonymous. And you can see a lot of the dark side of the Internet. And there's a guy I really like, I really follow his podcast and a lot of his posts. And he decided to take himself off Twitter. And everyone that quit social media will tell you how much it benefits them. But one of the specific points he made about how much it shocked him being off Twitter was how much he looked at the world differently when he was on Twitter. He realized that he just felt like there was a lot of negative people out there and a lot of negative things happening. And then when he went off Twitter and he kind of spent more time outside talking to people, he found in real life, most people are pretty nice and no one's just going to yell an abusive hate tweet at you or hate message at you. And he said it was so simple, it's such a simple thing. But he was kind of shocked by it. And for me, I just was thinking about a lot of people around when you're out in the real world, how much people around you are always willing to help and you just see so many acts of kindness or just little gestures. And specifically for us, I think recently we were just talking off air about how much people around us right now had just been doing some specific things to help us in small ways. And there's so many people who, if they listen to this podcast, will know who we're talking about. But we're just really grateful for people who are looking out, asking us, can they do anything to help? What do you need reaching out to see how things are going, especially you with your back surgery. I've just been feeling very grateful for a lot of the individual people in our lives who are reaching out and, and contributing to that mindset of, oh, people are actually pretty nice. And that related to that, that anecdote of the guy going off Twitter. Yeah, really stood out to me.

Unreal. I couldn't agree more. And you know, that's when you know who your, your close friends are, when people reach out when you're struggling. And yeah, it's really fantastic that you know, you've got a really good group around you and you know, if you're, if you're nice to people in return, someday eventually people are going to do the same in return. So. And that's how the world should operate. Not that you do things for other people so you get something back. It's really about being as helpful to others around you. And that's the ethos of this podcast, is trying to help those who probably can't afford a coach maybe, or just want some help and they don't really want a coach. But we're here to give as many tips as we possibly can for all those people who are really stuck in what they want to do in preparation. So the more of that in the world, the better off we are.

What's caught our attention, the next segment kind of really ties in with today's topic, which is time trialing. And I want to touch on that beach road time trial you just mentioned where quite regularly in Melbourne we run this beach road time tr. And it was unbelievable to have, you know, 30 Tribalo riders flying down beach road mostly on giant trinities and you know, to see everyone prepare like it's a proper race to prepare as well as they can, to practice their execution and to see everyone dialed in and just flying up and down the road passing groups of riders on their TT bikes. You know, our best rider was riding at 45 kilometers an hour for a 25 minute TT. It was just absolutely exceptional. I just, yeah, wanted to, wanted to touch on that and talk about your experience as a coach. You know, seeing athletes go about that process. It was a really windy day, it was tough conditions and we can start to tie this into today's topic. But, but how important that is and the value of that and you know, the comments you were getting when you're riding around from other groups going, geez, these your riders are absolutely flying. And it's just such a confidence booster for our athletes.

Yeah, it's a bit of a Unique situation because it's an open road. And being a time trial, we're setting off each of our riders at 30 seconds or a minute apart, depending on where they start. And so actually, you know, they're looking like they're training by themselves, but they're in the middle of an event, really. And so there's, there's heaps of other riders on, on this particular course. And for those of you who know the Melbourne cycling scene, the beach road is a very iconic road. And it gets, I don't know, on a Saturday, 2,3000 cyclists use it from 6am till lunchtime each Saturday. So it's just such an iconic place to ride. And the water's on the right as you're, as you're riding along, so it's pretty, you know, the bay looks spectacular and it is a great place to ride. And some of the things that I wasn't in the race, I was just actually doing a bit of coaching and cheering. The guys as girls as they were riding past me and I had some of the other riders who were just doing their training session for the day, just continually making comments to me about how fast are these guys riding? They're going past us and giving us windburn. It's, it's, you know, they're, they're toodling along at, you know, anything between 30 and 35 ks an hour, and there's guys going past them at 40 to 45 ks an hour. It's a big difference in, in time. But, and that's the fun of time trialing, is getting in that position and, and just riding your bike fast. And, you know, it is such an easier way to get free speed than on your road bike. And you can put the same effort in a road bike and you're riding 38ks an hour and get yourself on a time trial bike and now you're riding 44Ks an hour. It's such a weird feeling that the same person with the same level of fitness can go so much faster on a different machine. So we're really, really dialing themselves in. And it's really good. I've got all sorts of levels. We've got people who are riding at 28ks an hour, we've got people who are riding at 45ks an hour. And everybody's planning and trying to improve them themselves each time they do this course. It's the same course. Start and finish place is always the same, but the wind is the conditions and the heat and the cold always are varying because we do it all year round. We do this event. So we do it in the middle of winter, we do it in the middle of summer. So conditions are really different. This week we had a block northerly for the way out. And normally it's a southwesterly on this course. So all of a sudden people are trying to, you know, do the same course, but, you know, ride different conditions and ride their power according to the conditions. And it's very tricky. And that's the art of time trialing. And kind of, that's what, that's what this podcast tonight is about. You know, how do you get faster on a time trial bike? And understanding the conditions is one of those things that, you know, that we want to talk about in this podcast.

Yeah. And we might even just launch straight into it. We do have five pretty key points to talk about. But, you know, I want to use this example because it really highlights a great example of tough conditions to ride in. And it has to be said that, as you said, because it's a, it's not a closed event, it's just the open road. It's funny when you turn up to this because you're also hoping for a bit of luck because there's, there's only three or four, I think, pedestrian lights along the way. But if you get one, you have to stop, obviously, because it's a red light. And your time, your time kind of goes down because you lose that, that 30 seconds of slowing down and speeding up again. And so we actually put, we, we record everyone's data in great detail of what sections they rode fast in, what power they were doing, where their heart rate was, their sections out and back. We really break it down in detail. Then we also put how many red lights did they get? Because it really impacts the result. And so one time you might have a great ride, but you had three red lights. And so that has to be accounted for. And then another time you'll have a perfect run with no red lights and you end up doing a pb. So that's pretty funny. But talk to us about the strategy with a block headwind at the start on the way out really kind of messes with the strategy of trying to go out conservatively and come home strong.

Yeah. And it's interesting because I had a couple of discussions with a few of the guys in the post race analysis, which we, which we like to do for those, I think, that need a little bit of talking to. Because they got it wrong. But, you know, we all know, or maybe we don't all know, and this is why we're going to give this information. When you're on your bike as a time trialist, whether you're in an individual time trial or whether you're a triathlete in the middle of a, a triathlon, you are supposed to be riding by yourself. And so the thing that you should concentrate on are what are the conditions in terms of wind and temperature, what are the coarse terrain gradients look like? And, and then what's your actual data? Power, heart rate, cadence, speed. So there's quite a lot of things that you should be concentrating on. And the conditions is one thing that's probably not, it's not counted very much in people's planning. And I think it's, it's part of your preparation, understanding what the wind's doing before you actually go out and do this, the race or the, the training session or whatever you're doing. And so you know, things that you're not doing that's physically taxing, they're still. Preparation is still part of your, your actual day. And even though you're not actually huffing and puffing when you're thinking about preparation, you're actually doing something that's going to contribute to the outcome of your, of your actual race day. So that is a key to what you're doing. So understanding the conditions on the day. And this particular day, we're not on a flat course, by the way, either. This has got rolling, undulating hills all the way out and all the way back. And they're the things that, that are going to be where you have to be thinking on your feet. And the key thing I want people to actually understand about is how do you know whether you're on a hill or in a headwind? Because it could be that subtle, that it could be a slight gradient change from flat to 1% uphill, or it could be 1% downhill, or it could be a 1 km an hour wind or a 5 kilometer an hour wind or a 30 kilometer an hour wind. Obviously, when the gradient on the hill is steep, you know, you're. But it's those subtle changes there where you're not 100% sure whether you are going on uphill or it is a headwind or a tailwind because the wind's light. So these are things that you don't want to be a weather expert, but you actually want to understand what the conditions are because it really matters. And why does it matter? Well, the biggest gains, if you can understand this one thing, the biggest gains on a time trial bike are when the bike's going slowest and when are those, when are those periods? Those periods either in a headwind or going uphill. So those two particular scenarios, when you know that you're in a headwind or going uphill, you need to be riding the power at the top of your range. When you've got a tailwind and you're going downhill, it's okay. Most cyclists or time trials should have a range. And we could use an example of the bottom of your range. In a race, if you're trying to average 200 watts, the top of your range might be 210, 215. The bottom might 25, 180 watts. So you're averaging 200. And when it's, when it's really hard and slow and hilly, you'll be at 210, 215, depending on the length of the climb and the gradient. So there's a whole lot of things that you have to understand there. And when the bike's flying, you, you might be doing, you know, five or six kilometers an hour faster and you might be going downhill with a tailwind. You probably don't even need to pedal on those. We do have a rule where if the bike's going 60-65km an hour, you don't really need to pedal. You need to get into an aero position. But if you're aver 30ks an hour and your bike's doing 36ks an hour, you still need to pedal. It's okay to be at the bottom of the range at 175 watts when your average is 200. So they're the things that you would try to really think about when you're in the middle of this event. I'm asking myself every 10, 15 seconds, am I on the flat, am I on an incline or am I on a decline? And then the next question I'm asking is, am I still in the headwind? Is the wind change into a crosswind or is it a tailwind? And on this particular course, it starts in a northerly direction and all of a sud, the course changes to a westerly direction and then it swings back around to a northeasterly. And so on the way out, you've got almost three direction changes. And on this particular day it was a north easterly blowing 20 to 30 kilometers an hour. So it was pretty critical that you understood that the hardest part was going to be where the slowest parts of the race are, which is on the first outward leg. So we want our athletes to Be thinking about what power number can I risk riding on the outward course? Because on the, on the way back, there's less gains to be made in the downhill and the, and, and the tailwind. So I need to make all the gains in the slowest part of the course. And so therefore the concentration is, where's my limit? What can I push the power up to the top of the range to without going over my zones, so that when I come back, I've still got enough power to ride strong enough with the tailwind. So when you think about it like that, it's really tricky and you have to be understanding and concentrating on those key things. And one of the really good metrics that I use is my actual speed. So I would have that on my computer so I can glance at it. And if I know that I'm going to average 30 kilometers an hour, I'm just going to use that example. 30 kilometers an hour and 200 watts is my average power. If I'm doing 34Ks an hour, and I know that I average for this in general 30ks an hour, I must be having some sort of tailwind advantage or downhill. If I look down at my computer and the actual speed tells me I'm doing 26, that's a clear indication that I'm either riding poorly or I'm in a headwind or going uphill. So these are the times where I go, right, I need to be at the top of my power range instantly when I see my bike speed slowing down. And so these are the key things that I don't think many people actually knew about or understood or thought that was important. And these bits of information will determine what power you ride at. So if you haven't got this information in your brain about what speed am I doing? Am I in a headwind, am I a tailwind, am I uphill or downhill? Or I am, am I on the flat where I should be riding my 200 at 30ks an hour, then you can't make good decisions about what power number to push. And once you understand that basic concept, time trialing becomes such a simple thing. And I sounded like in the last five minutes it was very complicated. But if you break it down, understanding what your actual speed is at any given moment, not because you're trying to see how fast you're going, but to try and see what's happening with your bike. Is it slowing down or is it speeding up? Because where, where the bike goes slowest, they're the biggest gains, remember? So we want to make sure we're maximizing our power not too much above our range, but, you know, slightly above our average power so that we can maximize the time spent when the bike's going slowest, because that's the time where you'll make up on your opposition. And, you know, we all know the fair weather rider who gets a tailwind and you know, maxes out on the tailwind and he might gain 10 seconds over 10k because he's absolutely drilling it. But in a headwind, it might take you four or five minutes to go to go the same distance because you're doing half the speed. And the person who's got the strength and power in that headwind could get a minute advantage compared to a 10 second tailwind advantage. So that's how important it is to understand the conditions.

It's a simple concept, but the execution is quite complex. And it's only a matter of time before I think that cycling evolves to another level where it's akin to something like Formula one. You know, the level of, of intelligence in the Formula one sheds of those engineers because they are working out to the precise 1,000th of a second how to get marginal aerodynamic gains. I think that needs to come across the cycling. And that's already happening in wind tunnel testing where they're getting really high level experts who understand aerodynamics at an incredible level to do this kind of wind testing and figure out where the gains are worth it, where the arrow gains are worth it, versus the comfort of position, etc. And I wouldn't be surprised if a team like Jumbo already has some of these high quality people in there. And I want to segue this into talking about what you've just said, into what actually happened at the Tour de France in stage 17 in that time trial, because I am continuously shocked at how often time trials at pro level come down to one, two or five seconds. There's just, from what you just described then there is just so much variability in the potential for different sections of a course to be different. And that's why we love time trialing. That's why you and I just love it as a sport. We love it from a cycling perspective. You know, a cycling race, cycling time trial. We encourage so many tribal athletes to become time trollers. A lot of people just stick to road cycling, but we love it. And it's also the natural part of the way a triathlon works is it's a, a 20, 40K, 20K and a sprint 40K, 90K or 180 kilometer time trial. And so the potential for variability in results is insane when you think about all these varying factors. And so to see finally what I would probably normally expect to see such a varying result in a TT between Vingegaard and Pogachar. One, it was shocking. But two, that's kind of what I would expect sometimes because every section, every 200 meters is slightly different. It's a slightly different gradient, it's a slightly different wind, you come into a corner slightly different. So there's so much potential for time gain and time loss. And I wish that we could sit down with both sets of data, look at every single section, look at what power they average, their cadence, you know, look at their position in those sections and compare where the time times were gained and lost first two performances. Because it was clear that Vinegard was able to make gains so often on Poguchar and ended up just absolutely destroying him. And when, when time trials come down to one, two or five seconds, you don't know what, whether that was because someone gained 10 seconds once in one section and lost 10 seconds another. Like, it's just there's so many variables to see. And that's why, as we said, to execute this as well as possible, the absolute gold standard would be have the really highly intelligent engineer with you to look at every single segment and be able to tell you this is the exact power you need to ride in this section according to your position, according to the wind, etc. But that might come into cycling in the future, but for us age groupers, that's not going to happen. So what we have to use, well, that's our experience. That's exactly what you're just talking about in. And it's almost, you know, you're having to do it off your own kind of experience, wisdom, knowing your own numbers, seeing how you feel and doing the best you can, because you're not going to get it perfect. And that's where this practice comes in. So there's a lot here. But let's break down Vinegar and Poguchar and I think the ABC did a really good analysis of it. They showed maybe four or five key sections of the course and they just showed the video analysis of Poguchar and Vingard getting to that same section and you could see how much harder either Vingard was hitting the corner, the top of line he was taking, and in 50 meter stretches he was putting 5 to 10 meters, 1 to 2 seconds or 3 or 4 seconds into Poga char. If you look at over a 30 minute time trial, how many of those sections there are. It's quite easy to see how if he gains one, two or three seconds 30 times, suddenly there's 60 to 90 seconds gained. And so when people are shocked by it, I'm actually not. Because when he's hitting those segments like that and winning every single time, that's how I see that he won the Tour de France.

Yeah, it's a great summary. And even at the age group level, I can give that example. When I was doing a post race analysis and I was comparing some of the good riders, when I was talking to one particular rider, I was comparing segments individual, I was breaking up segments of that 25 minute time trial and showing him what his power was in particular segments and what the good cyclists who beat him by three minutes was doing in comparison what he was doing. And not only what you just spoke about there. I want to come back to that if you can remind me after I've given this little bit of information. He was riding so much above his upper level, like 100 watts above his upper level and gassing himself so much that when he came to the downhill, he could barely ride because he had to recover. And I showed him what the even cyclist was doing who beat him by three minutes. He was staying in his range and riding at the top of his range. And when he got over the crest of the hill, he kept the pressure on and was gaining. If we had to have them side by side, he would have put 20 or 30 meters into him from the top of the hill by the time they got to the down bottom of the hill on the other side. Yet on the way up, he probably put, you know, the other way around. He probably lost 5 or 6 meters because the guy was riding so hard. He was riding way above his level and that can muck your whole ride up if you're, you know, if I went into that ride riding like that and then I went into the ride riding the other way with the same level of fitness, I would get two completely different outcomes. And that's the point that I want to get across to everybody. Go into a race with the same level of fitness. Execute one way compared to another way and you'll get a different result even though you've got the same level of fitness. And I think what Poguchar and Vinegard, that example was just exactly what I've been telling people for years about. Every second counts. And that concept of 17 corners, if you can get 1 second or 4 meters, that's the difference between 35 seconds and 70 seconds or 12 seconds. So they all make, they all make a difference in the end result and they all add up. And that's what time trialing is. Small segments of decision making about what you're doing to get you the end result and not worrying about what time I'm going to do or what average speed I'm going to do at the end of the event. Do it in the race. Think about that. Concentrate. You know, I always say concentrate as much as you can because you should be that exhausted from thinking about what you're doing as you are physically exhausted from the effort you're putting in. And that was a great example for the world to see how Poga Chow was losing one and two seconds here and there because he was less aggressive. His lines were worse, as you said. And then all of a sudden he's got race radio telling him after that first initial segment, he's 25 seconds down. So what does a normal human being do when they're being told they're losing? They start changing their plan and they start riding harder and they basically try to get that back as soon as they can. So he's going to ride above himself now, which is going to have a flow on effect down the track further when he gets to the hard part, he's now going to be getting to the bit that counts, which is what we said earlier, the slowest part of the course was the hill. And vinegar put another 40 seconds into him on the hill because Poga, between getting told that he'd lost 20, 30 seconds, rode above his level, got to the hill exhausted, couldn't ride properly because he'd gassed himself. And all of a sudden Vinegar's, you know, putting time into him because he's riding hard where it should be and he's getting in his ear saying, you're 20, 30 seconds up and he's, he's sticking to his plan. And. And then the third thing that happened was the cars got separated in, you know how you've got follow cars. Vinegar got a glimpse of Poga Char up the road. So that's another piece of incentive. So all these things combined will add up to five seconds here, five seconds there. Riding too hard, you know you're going to end up not riding hard where you should be. So you end up with this terrible outcome because of the start of the ride, not riding the right lines.

Don't forget the 15 or 20 second bike changeover that, you know, Poga Shah had. I just feel like, yeah, that was A big mistake. And just because it worked last time for Pogucha, I think they really got that wrong. And. And everyone kept saying, oh, that wasn't the reason you lost, but the explanation you just gave then was the entire reason. It's never just one thing, as you always say. And what we talked about just then, it shows clearly how someone like Vanguard can beat the next best rider in the world by a minute and a half or two minutes if they get all these things right. And that ride on the day seems to get all these things wrong. And. And Poga was tired. He didn't have the legs he came into the Tour with a bit more like a preparation vineyard. Looked like he just mentally really wanted it. He was just so aggressive. Whereas Pocket charges wasn't his day. Combined with taking every corner better than Pogacha, combined with, you know. Yeah. Riding each segment better, combined with not changing his bike, you know, all these things, it just seems obvious that he could. Oh, yeah, of course, that would make sense to be in by a minute, half or two minutes. And that's why my original point of I'm shocked when they come in within five seconds of each other. It's pretty funny because I guarantee they didn't ride the entire thing exactly the same. I guarantee that. Different segments, someone's pulling away from the other person by 10 or 15 meters, and then they're coming back in different segments. You know, if you were able to put a hologram of them side by side for the entire course, it would be really cool to see. But they're definitely not riding the whole thing the same. And so look, what we've spoken about is. It seems quite complicated, but the good thing for the age grouper, just on.

That point, George, before we move on, you know, what you said is so exact. It's never one thing. And you and I spoke about this in March. Poga Shah was unbeatable at the Classics. He was. He was just a level above. And, you know, he won Flanders. He. He won just about every race.

He went into almost one of three. All three of the Ardennes Classics.

Yeah, he was just in brilliant form. And you and I spoke about it on the podcast at the time. If he's going to do the Tour de France, how is his form going to be in a few months time? And where was Vinegar when he was doing this? Vinegar was at Altitude Camp, you know, training specifically for that one event. And I think my opinion is that it's a good cyclist who can ride well everywhere. It's a brilliant cyclist. Who can win everything at any point, but there aren't too many of those. And Poga kind of proved that point that. I know he broke his wrist, so he missed a bit of training, but that's another aspect that he had to look at coming into the Tour. He's not quite the same rider he was two years ago, but then again, he didn't have the competition that he has now. Vinegar has, as you know, in my opinion, they're the one and two best riders in the world at Grand Tour level, and everybody else is miles away. So it only takes a few things to go wrong and not have the right preparation. And you can't hold form for that long a period for. For one person to get the upper hand. And, boy, the floodgates opened, didn't he, when. When he put that time into him. And then the next day, the same thing happened when he basically couldn't climb. You know, you could see the strength of Vinegard's preparation and the lack of preparation with the broken wrist and spending so much time at the Classics and not doing that, that specific Tour de France preparation. And they're the things that accumulate and people would forget all that. But that's why I'm reminding everybody these things that as an everyday cyclist or triathlete, we have to take into consideration what we did six months ago, what we did a year ago, what we did three months ago, and what we did in the last four weeks. And that will determine everything about how we're going to time trial. And they're the points we want to get onto in the next sort of segment we're up to. Yeah.

The word among the cycling community was that Yumbo were relentless in their pursuit of. Of nailing that time trial. You know, they just. That was one of their main focuses and. And that could be right. That's where POG was maybe focused on the Classics. And of course, he wants to win some great races. And Vinegard was time trolling the house down. And one of the cyclists, I think it was more Cov has come out and said that he went on a recon ride on the time trial course, and the same day Vanguard happened to be there. And I guarantee that wasn't the only day he was there. But he said he saw him do the same corner five or six times, you know, cycling through it as hard as he could, riding back around, cycling through it as hard as he could. And you imagine if he was doing that for every corner. That's why he's winning every corner.

And so the Confidence you gain from that, isn't it is you know, when it comes to the real thing, you've done the preparation and you can attack with confidence and that's how you get seconds.

You could see it when there was some clips of them going side by side around a corners, which is what the SBS put up. I can't remember if I said ABC or SBS before, but I meant sbs. That's, that's funny. You could see how wide Vineyard was willing to go. He's foot, his clip was almost hitting the edge of the, the road on the left hand side before he pulled in. Right. Whereas Porkachow was probably a meter inside him, therefore taking the corner slightly slower, therefore coming out slightly slower. And that's where the time gains were being made. So yeah, talking to the age grouper, you know, the whole point of this is, is how to five ways to get faster at TT bike, which is kind of nailing a lot of them here. But it doesn't have to be this complicated. For a lot of us it can be simple. You know, we're looking for the absolute top of the world class gains here in these kind of conversations so far. But for the standard person, there's some simple things that you can do really well to, to go a lot faster. And the first is what we've just been talking about and that is the course recon. And you know, we have this out from our own nationals experience. Our riders do so well at nationals because we commit so much to going and recon in the course and practicing it and getting around these corners and finding the sections where you can go better. And I think that just has to be said that before you look at anything else. You know, the course recon is just a really important thing to have in your mind to make sure you put into your checklist of preparation.

Yes. And oftentimes it just gets dismissed and it's an afterthought. Had I known the course was like that, I would have raced completely different or I would have trained differently. Well, that's your job to find out what the course requirements are. And we've got such technology now. And you know, one of the latest things that we've got, Zwift, we've got full gas and full gas, have pretty much every triathlon on footage. And so, you know, people say, oh, how am I going to do a recon when I, I'm going to a race in Hawaii or, or Nice or wherever, you know, Boulder or Perth. How do I do that? Well, that's how you do it. You, you know, I remember training our guys to the in individual time trial at the Australian national titles last year at Wollongong. We all got on full gas and the course was there and we had ridden it, I don't know, 20 times in training, not as a time trial race but in doing a RICO and doing our zone two, we're just riding the course. So when the guys got to Wollongong time trial course, they knew every up and down, every hill, every corner and you know, they had never been to the course but they were so well drilled. And I did the same with a lot of the guys who went to Hawaii. You know, get them to ride a lot of the training sessions on the full G, just pick sections and do your training session on that part of the course so you know, you know what it feels like and that, you know, if you can do a recon and the race you're doing is close by where you live, then you go physically and check the course out. I was just talking to one of our guys on the phone today and there's a race up in the country and our nationals are coming up in September, our national time trial road race and criterium. And on the way home from this race he's going to deviate a couple of hundred kilometres to check out the national road time trial course. This particular guy has won four time trial national titles and that's why, because he does things like that where no one else does it and people just keep saying, oh wow, what a great job he's doing. Well, they don't see all the things that he is actually doing that are the 1 percenters and that is one of them.

The next point, we've spoken about this a lot, but it's position and we're not going to go into how to fix your position on here because it's again, it's quite a complex topic but it is something that you really want to work on because, because it's the position that you're in and the error gains, you can have the entirety of your time trial, whether it's 20 minutes or four and a half hours or five and a half hours in 180 kilometer course. So getting the balance right between aerodynamics and comfort is just really key to getting yourself faster. But comfortable.

Yeah, interesting being comfortable as compared to being fast. You need a combination of both and, and being fast, being completely uncomfortable is unsustainable in an Ironman. You might get away with it in a sprint where it's 20k, but you still going to compromise the run by being uncomfortable on the ride. So there is a period where you've got to get your position as aerodynamic as you possibly can. And that's being narrow at the front and getting your head out of the way. They're the two key things that are the problem. Broad shoulders and a big head sticking up. We need to get those two things better. You do that and you're getting free speed straight away. Change those two things and you're getting free speed. But you also need to be in an angle where you can push good power. So no good being beautifully aerodynamic, flat back, right down the bars. And you can't push the power because the angle between your hip and your legs is not good enough for you to actually push the power. So we need to think of those things and get that right. And that's worth investing in, in my opinion.

And Lucy Charles Barkley just put out a great video. One of the world's best female triathletes where she was doing some pretty advanced wind tunnel testing with Red Bull. And they, they go test frequently and they were trying to get any more marginal gains they could. And she's got quite broad shoulders coming from such a strong swing background. And they just found that because of her shoulder width, as she was explaining in the video, they had her as low as possible. They had her head down as. And look, they could go further. And they did keep going further, you know, centimeter by centimeter. But it just got more and more uncomfortable for her. And then they found that even if they went down a little bit more, the gains were so minimal, but the uncomfort was so maximal, they just decided it was, well, not worth it. They basically got her in as aeros position as they can for the maximum comfort. And I just think that's a really good example.

And also, Jordan, the position is one thing, but practicing the position. So it's great to get yourself in the good position that's fast. And you should be experimenting. Once you've got your bike fit, you should be experimenting with your body positioning. So the bike fit is important. Where the handlebar heights are and your extension and your seat and you know the, you know the angles you've got. But your body is as important in this positioning as the actual bike fit. So you can do something about that without actually paying for it. Just put your head down and bring your shoulders in.

And we've had a lot of examples, including both you and I, but many other athletes where you go and get your bike fit. It's very uncomfortable. And you have to be willing to take a bit of a gamble and trust the process and go. So often you'll do an FTP test after that first bike fit and suddenly you're 20 watts lower than what you could push before. And it is demoralizing. And then it takes six to eight weeks of tough training where the sessions feel so crap and you're pushing not the power that you like for your muscles just to get used to that new position, just that slightly new angle just for your muscles to adapt a little bit. But then we've had so many examples of eight to 12 or 16 weeks later, riders just absolutely flying, pushing their better power ever. Plus they're going so much faster because their position is better. So yeah, that has to be taken into account. That's what you're talking about with training specificity. It's, you need to get your body used to training like that.

Yeah. The more time in training you can spend in that position and look, you can do things incrementally. So if you're feeling uncomfortable right away, do you warm up not in the position, do you warm up with your hands on the bars, then spend one minute in that position, then spend the next five minutes back on the bars and just slowly add more time into the position. This is really easy indoor on the trainer. You can also do this on a local velodrome where there's no traffic, but when you get onto the main road, you know, people are actually uncomfortable sometimes in that position and haven't got the experience to balance the bike properly. So it is important that you actually practice, not just in the time trial sessions, but in recovery sessions and all sessions. Get used to riding that position as many times as you can.

And it has to be said that, you know, we've spoken about two, a few pretty specific things so far, but I guess none of this matters unless you are doing the training, unless you're doing the training consistently and doing the right training. And that's probably the next point of how to go faster is you need to be training on the time trial bike and you need to be doing a specific type of training sessions that are going to get you faster on race day.

Yeah, well, in my opinion, this is the key. If you, if you don't have the program to get you faster on the TT bike, the position, the, the course recon, everything else that comes comes along with, with getting those 1 percenters. If you don't actually do the training in the time trial position in the zones, you're supposed to be doing, then you're not. I've already had experience and people who did the race on Sunday, some riders hadn't been in their time trial bike for weeks and they just could not push the power that they expected to because they haven't been practicing, they've been on their road bike and they haven't put the time into their time trial position. You hear the pros on telly, you know, saying, oh, if I had more time to ride the time trial bike, I'd be better at it. Of course you would be. But they don't have that time because there's. Time trials are only in tours, generally grand tours. But as a triathlete or as a time trialist, as a cyclist, you need to be spending time on the bike that you're going to race on. And I also have the question, can I ride my road bike as a triathlete? When I say for sure, but at the end of the day, are you riding that road bike in the race? And if the answer is yes, well, sure, you need to be riding in training on that bike, but if you've got a time trial bike, you need to be training on it. And whether that's the endurance ride or your specific interval sessions, you need to be on the time trial bike.

And that's probably the key, isn't it? We talk about what are the specific sessions you need to be doing. You need to be doing race specific sessions. So sessions at the intensity of what the race is going to be, but also the sessions outside of that. And the one you just said is the endurance ride. People are so shocked often when we're getting triathletes or anyone that's just wanting to improve their time trialing, even just cyclists, to be doing their endurance ride on a time trial bike just to get them used to that position. Because if you can ride for two to three hours on a TT bike, there's obviously going to be brakes in there, which happens on the road naturally, which with traffic lights, or as you said before, you can just sit up to give yourself a bit of a rest. But if you can get used to that, then suddenly a 30 minute or 60 minute or 2 hour time trial in that position feels really comfortable and easy and you're really training your body well.

Yeah. And look, I have some pushback from a lot of riders when I ask them to do strength work in their endurance ride and they're just presuming, I mean ride their road bike and I don't, I want them on their time Trial bike in the hills. And I get shocked and amazement. Answers back saying, are you serious? You want me on the time trial bike in the hills? I said, yes, that's what you need to be doing. Get your body used to the angles that you're pushing so the muscles are adapted to the time trial bike. Don't go training on the road bike. When your angle from your seat to your pedals and from your hands to your seat is different, it's different to your time trial bike. They aren't the same. So train on the bike in every scenario on the bike you're going to race on.

To summarize, to finish off, you use something called the three P's and I really want to finish with that. So can you take us through the 3Ps and how that contributes to getting faster on the time trial bike?

Yep, and we've covered a little bit of it already. The preparation, in my opinion is probably the most undervalued aspect of the prepare, plan and perform. Everybody focuses on the performance, which is well and good, but the preparation, and I'm talking about preparation that's not in training, not on the bike stuff you do that's off the bike, such as, you know, the leading up into your race where you should know what the course is, what the course requirements are, what the wind's doing, what your pre week taper looks like, the numbers you should be riding at on race day, the numbers you should be riding into the headwind, the number you should try to ride in the tailwind. These are all the preparation things that have got nothing to do with you actually riding the bike, but they're going to give you the plan which is the next step so you can actually do something on race day. So we need to get all this preparation work in our mind, right? And that looks six months out from the race, three months out, one week out, the night before, the morning of. They're all the preparation parts that are crucial to you getting the outcome you want. And you know, what does the night before mean? Well, the night before means making sure you're getting the fueling you need, you're getting to bed at the right time, you've got your time to wake up, you've got your breakfast planned, you've got your warm up planned, you know what you're going to do, you've got your boxes ticked with the equipment, you're not going to leave your pump at home or your shoes or your helmet. These are all the preparation things that seem so obvious, but if you don't do those things, then you're opening yourself to getting an outcome that's not ideal. So that's the number one thing. The second thing is then planning the actual race. And again, this is something that's not really part of the actual event. But if you don't plan what you're going to do. I had the example of one of the guys on Sunday, after we did our race analysis. I said, oh, you know, what was your plan for your power yesterday? It didn't look like you had much idea of, you know, you were. At one point you're 100 watts above what your average power was for the whole ride, and at another point you were 70 watts below. And, you know, he had to say, well, I didn't actually think about what power I was going to ride, where I was going to ride the power, and what I was going to do on the hills or the. Or the tailwind or the headwind. And, you know, it was almost an aha moment for him saying, what, what. What was the point of doing that without a plan? And. And had he gone in with a plan with the same fitness as I said before, he would have got a different outcome. He would have got probably another 50 seconds better than he did.

I guess once you got the race plan, the execution is the most important part. And to keep this really simple, we've gone through executing, you know, most of this episode. But I think the fun part about it is it takes away the nerves for the race because you're just so focused on executing each section. And that's kind of the fun part.

It is. And look, the execution is the key. You know, you can do all the planning and preparation you like, and that's what I want you to do. I want you to do all that. But if you don't go out there and do it on race day, that's, you know, that's what performing is. You do all this work and you spend all this money on getting to the race. And if you're traveling on flights and accommodation and food and paying for a coach and equipment and you just want to actually perform on race day and having all those things, the preparation and planning will give you the opportunity to execute. If you understand everything about what we've talked about in the previous 45 minutes, that is going to get you to actually get the outcome you want and executing where it counts and when it counts, and having the patience to let the event evolve the way you want it to, rather than being so excited and motivated and going way above what you should be doing and then having it all fall apart towards the end because you've got, you've executed poorly. We use the example all the time of the one athlete executing differently and getting a different outcome. And at the end of the day, you don't want to be that person. You want to get to race day, perform at your best, get your PB and walk away looking for the next race. And that's what the fun part of it is. Because if you get all that right, it is such an enjoyable experience. Just a couple of athletes that we had doing a half marathon and you know, didn't believe that the plan that we'd set was achievable. And getting to the end of the race and doing a four minute pb, you know, they can't wait for the next event because they've actually executed according to what the planning and preparation was aligned to. And you just believe in yourself. Then you get such confidence for the next time because you are the person performing when it counts as an athlete.

The result does it almost stops mattering. When you set yourself a race plan and you execute it so well, you're so proud of yourself and you're so stoked that you actually did it. And it's our favorite thing to have a post race analysis with an athlete. And they might even send us a long email with their post race analysis and say, here's where I executed exactly right. Here's where I made a good decision, here's where I was concentrating well and it's just the best and most rewarding thing to see. So that's it for this episode on getting faster on a TT bike. We hope it's been really valuable for you. We hope to see you in the next episode. And if you'd like to advertise your business on the Get Fast podcast, please email me jordanrivellocoaching.com and that's it for now. See you next time.