Cycling Coach Finds 5% Gain in Time Trial [CASE STUDY]

Welcome back to another case study episode brought to you by Tribello Coaching. Every case study, we try to bring a story to you of some sort of athlete improvement. And the important thing to know is every athlete is on their own jersey. And our aim is that when you hear these cases, you can pick a parts that relate to your journey, avoid any mistakes that you might be making, and change your training to eventually race faster, which is the end goal. So today's case study is about our very own cycling coach here at Tribello, Nick. Nick is an elite cyclist himself and still rides among some of the highest level of racing possible, both on road and gravel. And we know that the higher level you are, the more marginal the gains become. And we often say that finding a watt or two here or there, finding minute improvements in speed becomes the goal because you're really maxing out your potential and you're actually at the top of your fitness capability. And that's why this time trial grain gain from Nick in this case study is so important. We've been looking at a lot of athletes these past few months who've been racing on this one particular time trial course. A few of our case studies have referenced this in our actual Get Fast podcast episodes. And on this course, nick found a 1 minute 7 second improvement over five weeks on the same course in essentially the same conditions. So that is whopping someone that's looking for marginal gains. So, dad, let's go through this case with Nick and I want to start with the stats. The stats are again, it was a five week turnaround between time trials. The distance was 16.9 kilometers. His time went from 23:17 to 22:10. So 1 minute 7 second improvement, 23 minutes 17 to 22 minutes 10 seconds. His watts, interestingly, stayed about the same. His watts were 333 watts to 336 watts. Now we're really going to hone in on this point. He his speed went from 43.3 kilometers an hour to 45.4, so almost 2.1 kilometers per hour faster. And his percentage improvement was a 5% improvement. So talk to us about this improvement.

I think there might be three key things that we should be focusing on. One is execution. His execution improved by an extreme amount, and that came about by discussion in post race analysis from the first event and also to the second event into the third event. And we identified areas on that particular course where he needed to ride harder and where he needed to not ride so hard. And essentially we're looking at where to put the power down and as we drum into everybody on every podcast about time trialing is when the bike's going slowest, that's when you need to be riding at a level that's going to give you the maximum improvement. And that's a fine line. We've always said that you can't go way over. I still have athletes who are literally 100 watts over their average power for that 20 minutes or 30 minutes. And in this case the guys at the front of the race, and I'm using Nick as an example, they're only 10, 15 watts above their average for the whole ride, whereas the guys who are at the lower end of the result sheet are doing a whopping 100 watts higher. And the problem with that is you're absolutely gassing yourself and burning matches so that when you want to keep the pressure on, maybe over the crest of the hill, on the downhill, you don't have the energy because you're too tired and you're soft pedaling because you have to. You're trying to recover and therefore the bike goes fast, slow, fast, slow. And that's a situation scenario we don't want to have. We want to have the bike speed continually at its optimum. And so gassing yourself on the hills and executing it in a different manner was one of the reasons why he improved. The second reason was time spent on the bike. On the TT bike in that TT position. He'd spend most of the time in the previous three or four months on his road bike getting unbelievably fit. And we know his fitness is there because you don't have a rapid improvement of 1 minute, 7 seconds over 5 weeks if you don't already have a good level of fitness. And as a percentage, Jordan, what was that improvement?

Yeah, it was 5% or 4.8%, I think.

So, you know, that's pretty significant for someone who's already at the pointy end of their, of their fitness level. And so spending time in that position was a game changer. He absolutely felt more comfortable after week one and started to do some, you know, two out of the seven sessions in, during those training weeks in the tt, on the TT bike, in the TT position, doing high intensity efforts so that his body started to adapt to, you know, I don't care how close you think the two bikes you have, your road bike and your TT bike are, they aren't the same, they're not the same, they're not the same position you're sitting in. So to expect that you could push the power not riding the TT bike after all those weeks and getting into a really good aero position, that's asking something that's not really going to happen.

It shows the level of specificity of that TT position, doesn't it? And I think in this example it's a good case of someone that's superiorly fit, like Nick. He was able to do that turnaround in five weeks, whereas for a lot of other people it probably would take them a bit longer to get used to that position and to get that muscle adaptation to get that specificity. You know, we probably see a lot of athletes who are trying to switch to the TT position in the TT bike. It might take them 12 weeks or longer for them to get their power up to or equal what they can do on the road bike. And for most people it is a little bit lower, but you're getting that aerodynamic gain.

Yeah. And look, look at the elite guys as cyclists at the World Tour level, as triathletes at the elite level. Christian Blumenfeld has been practicing for sprint and Olympic distance, where his hedge would be practicing on his road bike. He came to a 70.3. He got off the road, the time trial bike at the bike leg of his 70.3 key race and got cramp. And you know, it's not because he's got a lack of fitness, because he hasn't been training in that position. You look at the World Tour cyclists at the Tour de France, the Welter or the Giro, where there's key time trial events, the people who have, who have spent time. Remco Evenepoel is a classic. I watched a 12 minute video of him at the Velodrome, testing positions, testing skin suits, testing helmets, testing bikes, you know, everything he could do to really improve and hone his time trialing skills. So spending time on that bike in that position is one of the key things that Nick did that gave it such a huge turnaround. And really the third thing is really preparation and understanding the expectation of what you're trying to do in that particular event. So it does go in line with execution a little bit. But the execution is the doing, understanding and talking about how you're going to execute. That is the actual preparation part. So spending time in the bike, on the bike, in the position, executing well and then understanding what your plan is for the day is the key thing. So we got those three things right over a period of three different races in five weeks. We did that course three times. And you know, the fourth thing, which is probably not really as significant to most people's mindset would be understanding nuances of the course. So that's that recon that we talk about. When you're going to a major event. It's such an important thing to know the course intimately. And the more times you ride a course, the better you're going to be to understand where the hard parts are, where the easier parts are. And therefore your execution will improve because you've recon that course so many times. And this is a classic example of doing the same course three times. And you naturally would get better at it without improving your fitness, without improving all those other things. By doing the same course the second time compared to the first time, you will actually have a better understanding of the course.

And so a lot of people might think that, you know, the wattage was essentially the same in both efforts, but there was a 1 minute, 7 second difference. So how is that possible? And were the conditions better on the day? No, essentially they were the same conditions. And that is just. You can end up with the same watts at the end. But how you got those watts was totally different. You know, he averaged 333 and 336 watts respectively. He could have gotten that by averaging 400 watts in the first 10 minutes and then 280 watts or 290 watts in the second 10 minutes. Or he could have got that by averaging 3 33, 40 watts in the first 10 minutes and 329 watts in the second 10 minutes. They're two totally different ways to. And that's not even including the headwind tailwind sections up and down here. I'm just using that for a really simplistic example about how just because the end wattage is the same doesn't mean how you execute it or how you wrote it is the same. And so, and that's that. That just shows us how, yes, the end wattage averaged within 3 watts of each other, but his total speed was totally different because of how he executed. And I guess that last lesson, it's this nice little mix mixture of a bunch of factors working in his favor and getting used to the position, getting the execution right, getting the preparation right. I guess one of the main lessons you're saying is for any time trialists or triathletes out there, you can't just be training on your road bike all the time and then jump across the TT bike or race day and expect to get the same result. I mean, the whole goal of a time trial bike is that you can get more speed for potentially less Watts or you can. The goal is to be more aero by putting out the same amount of watts and that's a really hard balance to get right. And we see this in the pros all the time. I think we've spoken about Lucy Charles Barkley gave us a great example of this on her YouTube channel where she went to the Red Bull wind tunnel testing tent and she goes there regularly to try and update a position. And it's. And she was talking about it's this balance of getting as aero as possible while staying comfortable, while still being able to put this push out the same watts that she's used to. And she actually found that they were trying to drop her front position further, but the further they dropped it, the gains were absolutely minimal. She was gaining potentially really minimal gains in aerodynamics and speed. But the trade off was it was super uncomfortable. So she'd reached the limit of where it was comfortable for her and there was barely any gains being made. So they just decided that's it, we're not going to drop down any further. Or fun. There's no more gains to be made there. And that's a really good scientific way of going. This is the ideal position for that's getting that perfect balance between aerodynamics, comfort and speed.

I think there's a lot you've summarized there in a really good way and I want to just hone in on. One of the things you said is you can average the same wattage within 3 or 4 watts and get a completely different average speed improvement. And we do a thing where we assign everybody to understand how much time did they spend in zone one all the way through to zone six when they analyze their post race analysis of the actual event. And our goal is to have no time in zone one, obviously. So if you have got a lot of turns in a course, you might have to have 30, 50 seconds in zone one, which is you pedaling, you know, less than, I suppose, 30% of your FTP where it might be, you know, 50 watts or 30 watts when you're coming into it into a turn. So that would be a reason why you would have some power in zone one and we don't want to have any power in zone six in a time trial. So zone one and zone six are the no go zones. The reason you would be in Zone 6 would be at the finish of an event where you are just emptying the tank. So, so we've established that zone one is for turns and zone six is for this, for the finish where you, you could Possibly be riding the last two minutes at Zone 6, you know, 50 watts above what you're capable of doing. And that might indicate you haven't executed that well. If you've got that much energy left at the end to be do that. So zone one and six are kind of a no go zone. Zone two is that that really weak area where on the downhill, if you've gassed yourself on the uphill, you will be in that zone two area because you are trying to recover. And so that's going to be a slow area of speed for your bike. So you want to keep out of that zone too. Ideally we want to be in zone four or five. And when I'm saying there's a choice between those two zones, it's predicted by the distance or the, the event time. So if you're doing a 20 minute time trial compared to a two hour time trial, then those zones move back towards zone two, zone three, zone four. So the time determines the actual time spent in those zones, the time of the event determines the time spent in those zones. So we want to see an athlete in a 20 or 30 minute time trial with all of his time 50% or above in zone four and maybe 50% or below in zone five. So depending on their ability.

Yes.

When we look at the graphs, that's where we see, we see nothing in zone one, two and three and nothing in zone six. And all the time is in zone four and five. And when I look at the people who are at the bottom end of the results, they've got heap of time in zone one, two and three, a little bit more time in zone four and five and a heap of time in zone six. And their graphs look like they've spent equal amount of time across all six zones compared to the guy who's really riding fast. He's got none of those time spent in those 1, 2, 3 and 6. And that's an area that people you know should really listen to when we're talking about because that's a game changer. If you can look at those graphs in your training peaks or whatever platform you're using, that'll tell you how much time you're actually in the wrong zones. And they're the things you can concentrate on.

The reason this is such an exciting kind of thing to look at and break down is because it's absolutely not a fitness improvement. You know, exactly what you just gave. It's totally an execution improvement and a preparation improvement and a specificity improvement. And that's really exciting because One of the reasons we love to hone in on time trials and we do so much time trialing here at Tribello is not just for the cyclists that love to do a time trial race, but every triathlon is essentially a time trial. So if we break down this 4.8% improvement over a 16K or a 20 minute race, if this was an Olympic distance triathlon, that 4.8% improvement Nick would have been, would have gained about three minutes on the bike just from execution, not from fitness. He's three minutes faster in the race. If it was a 70.3, so a 90 kilometer time trial, he's gaining over five to six minutes. You know, if it was an Ironman, he's gaining almost 12 minutes and that's just from execution. He's finding an extra 12 minutes, you know, off his time just from executing better. And if you combine that with a fitness improvement, think about how much time you could be wiping off your bike leg.

And let's just reiterate that point. If Nick executed the way that he used to and then he executed the way that we've just described, he would be 12 minutes better with the same fitness level. He goes into the race executing one way or the other way with the same fitness, he can have a 12 minute different result. That's like 12 minutes of free speed for not doing anything to do with your fitness. It's just to do with concentrating on how to execute.

And as we said at the start, you know, Nick's no slouch. This is someone that is a absolute top cyclist. And that first time trial, you know, five weeks prior, that was a really well executed time trial. If you really looked at the graphs like you said he was, he executed that really, it's not like he executed it poorly. You know, he really was maxing out probably what he was at at that point. But then you can still find gains even at that top level. You know, if we, if you looked at his graph, it still had barely anything in zone 1, 2, 3 and 6. It was really well executed in zone 4 or 5, but he was still able to find areas of improvement. So if that's someone at his level that can find that 4.8%, anyone, that's probably lower standard. It's actually really encouraging because you can find even more. So that's really an encouraging thought. And one last thing to mention, if we don't say so ourselves, he actually just had a great win over the weekend. A big race here in Vic Amy's Gran fondo, which I think is worth mentioning.

I think one of the things we can talk about too, which, which he's doing very well is preparation for that race, understanding what the tactics should be. So not only in a time trial do you actually have to understand how to execute. He's, he's just gone from, you know, riding a superb time trial, then to go and do 120 kilometer Gran Fondo race where, you know, you're still got to actually execute your, your race tactics to, to the, to. To the letter end. And he went about that race unbelievably well. The race plan he stuck to and he knew the finish line and won a bunch sprint. And you need to do a lot of things well to win a road race. And this is, you know, this is quite a big race in, in our local area in Victoria. And I'm, you know, I'm so over the moon for the way he's going about really getting attention to detail about the preparation and, and the execution and what a difference it makes when, when you do that for, for all of your events that you're focusing on whether they're an A race for the whole year or whether they're just B races in, in. In stepping up for your A race or C races, you need to keep that same mindset of preparing properly no matter what the event is. The minute you put a number on, you need to think about the course nuances, your power numbers plan and the execution and the strategies. If it's a road race compared to a triathlon and, and I think if you do a lot of that well, you will get the outcome and the improvement you want. We're not talking all the time about winning. It just so happens that, you know, Nick won that race, but that's an outcome that would be just as good for the other people that we coached in that race who performed to their maximum potential. And winning is not the answer, but getting an improvement and feeling comfortable executing the way they did on the race.

Yeah, and I think it's a great testament to Nick to lead by example as our cycling coach. We love it. And I think the last point I wanted to make to wrap this all up was a lot of people were asking the question after the Tour de France time trial showdown between youngest vineyard and pogger and, and vinegard. That is just a historical time trial that will always be talked about where he blew Poguchar out of the water by a minute 30. He blew the rest of the field out of the water by two and a half minutes, three minutes. You Know w his teammate who is an exceptional time trust. These are world's best time trialers. How did someone be that far ahead? And this is the answer. You know, this is where if someone is, has got this much attention to a detail on a course and can find these marginal gains everywhere throughout the course in execution, you know, it comes down to this execution part and not so much the fitness part. And I think that's the beauty of time trialing and why it's so encouraging for any athlete to see where you can make so many gains.

Yeah. And if we look at the welter time trial just recently, the turnaround from Vinegard to be beaten by Garner, who he beat in the previous time trial at the Tour de France by, you know, two or three minutes. And, and yet the, the course was a really straightforward course with very little technical turns in it. And, and obviously the fitness level from when you were in July compared to what you are doing in, in August, September is different as well. So you can see how people's form can be up and down at even the World Tour level. You after the time trial at the Tour de France, you would think that Vinegar was going to win every time trial, including the world, the world championships in Scotland and then the, the Giro, the welters time trial. But that's not possible because you can't hold form forever. And, and they're good examples of, of, you know, just because you've got things done execution wise. Well, on some occasion your fitness level is going to be going to play a part in it. And that's not what we're honing in on here today. We're honing in on the opposite, which is the preparation and execution and getting the result that way. But they all contribute to the outcome.

We know how much preparation Jonas did for the Tour de France time trial. It was out of this world. We don't know how much preparation he did for the Volta time trial, but would. It would be interesting to see and I imagine it was a lot less. I imagine it wasn't. He's probably priority in terms of his training to go do the volta time trial practice. So that's it for this case study episode. We hope you've enjoyed it. We hope it inspires you to make some changes in your own training. We'll see you in the next episode. It.