2014 Texas State Time Trial Champion Gear and Tech Specs

by Jack Mott

Being former or current multi-sport athletes in many cases, the ATC Racing women pride themselves on their time trialing prowess and put up impressive results at this year's Texas State Time Trial Championship. Katie Kantzes nailed a third place in the Eddy Merckx category, Marla Briley got second in category 3, and Kat Hunter took first place in Cat 1/2. (You can read Kat's race report on TexasBikeRacing.com.)

On Sunday, the team of Missy Ruthven (ATC owner), Maggi Finley, Marla Briley, and Kat Hunter backed up those impressive results with a 56:37, fastest women's time, in the team time trial.

To give you an idea of the attention to detail that goes into a winning time trial, we will break down all the gear, aero data, and power data of Kat Hunter's winning ride.

Bike Build Specs

• Frame - Cervelo P2C classic with modified top tube cable routing 
• Wheels - HED Jet 6 front, HED Jet 9 with wheelbuilder disc cover and G3 Powertap hub
• Tires - Continental Attack Clinchers, 22mm @ 105psi with Vittoria latex tubes
• Aerobars - UCI Legal HED Corsair with integrated brake levers and Vision clipons
• Stem - TriRig Sigma aero stem
• Fork - Cervelo FK26
• Brakes - TriRig Omega aero brake
• Saddle - Adamo
• Head Unit - Powertap Joule
• Hydration - One between the arms rocket science bottle in a XLAB Gorilla cage
• Skewers - View-Speed aero bolt on skewers
• Helmet - Giro Selector
• Cranks - FSA Gossamer with FSA 54T aero chainring
• Pedals - Look Keo Blade aero pedal
• Gruppo - Shimano Ultegra
• Cassette - Shimano Dura Ace 12-25
• Derailleur Pulleys - Hawk Racing
• Bottom Bracket - Hawk Racing
• Chain Lube - Rock n' Roll Extreme
• Bar Tape - Tennis grip from Target. I dunno. It was thin.

Power Meter Data

• Goal Power -  250 watts
• Actual Average Power - 247 watts
• Variability Index - 1.0
• First Half Power (Headwind) - 254 watts
• Second Half Power (Tailwind) - 241watts
• Avg Temp - 82 deg G
• Avg Cadence - 92
• Avg Speed - 26.6 mph
• Distance - 40k
• Time - 56:23

Power File

WKO format power file

Powertap CSV format power file

WKO+ Power File from the TT

Aero Data

Approximate yaw angle distribution from BestBikeSplit.com

Using BestBikeSplit, an excellent online aerodynamic and pacing tool, we can approximate that Kat had a CdA of approximately .20 at 0 yaw, and .19 at yaw. We can also see that about 70% of the race was between 0 and 5 degrees of yaw, with most of the rest of the race between 10 and 15 degrees of yaw.  Knowing what the angle of attack of the wind is during a race can help you make intelligent equipment choices. For instance, we can see from this data that a deeper front wheel would have been faster, as around 30% of the race had yaw angles where a Jet 9 is a bit faster than a Jet 6.  Since about 70% of the race was at very low yaw angles,  choosing a narrower tire was definitely a good call. Narrow tends to be aero, at low yaw.

Close-up Bike Shots 

The venerable P2 Classic remains competitive

View Speed Skewers, Cervelo FK26 fork, and HED Jet 6 with Continental Attacks

HED Jet 9 with a disc cover taped on,  nice clean chain

TriRig brake, stem, and HED aerobars make for a clean front end

2012 Texas State Time Trial Championship

by Jack Mott

This past weekend was the annual Texas State Time Trial Championship. Hosted the last two years in Lytle, Texas near San Antonio, it features a 40 kilometer out and back course with rolling hills and smooth pavement. Each year the fastest athletes in the state test their time trial skills and aero equipment in hopes of winning a coveted state championship jersey, and cash prizes of course.

Kickstand Racing, who has been running the event of late, has paralympic categories, multisport categories, and an Eddy Merckx (non aero) category along with the usual roadie categories. The multisport category makes the event perfect for triathletes to test their bike skills and win some money in the process. It is also a great way to check out the positions and equipment of the roadie studs, which can often be instructive for new triathletes.

Riders are sent off at 30 seconds intervals, grouped by category. Drafting is not allowed. The course is rather simple with no technical turns other than the turnaround at half way. It is open to traffic but there is a sizable shoulder the entire length of the course. Saturday features all of the individual categories, while Sunday hosts team time trial competitions, where teams of 3 or 4 must carefully work together to go even faster.

The weather this year was hot, as usual, and a bit windy which is also the norm in central Texas. In the Category 1 men ranks, the favorites were 787 Racing's Brant Speed and Super Squadra's David Wenger who were 3rd and 5th respectively at Nationals just a few weeks before. As the Cat 1 men were finishing it became clear that the course was almost a kilometer too long. In the end Brant Speed came away with the win, with an average speed of nearly 30 miles per hour and a full minute ahead of 2nd place Logan Hutchings. David Wenger would end up fourth.

In the Women's category 1, Snapple-ATC TT specialist Kat Hunter was the favorite with Jenny Park of Team Brain and Spine and Jenn Mix of Team 787 gunning to upset her. Kat managed to hold them off and take the win with a time of 59:25 after holding an average of 240 watts for the 40+ kilometer course. She was aboard her Cervelo P2, with HED Jet clincher wheels and a brand new super fast Continental Supersonic 20mm front tire thanks to Kaleb West at ATC. Other trick equipment included the new Omega aero brake up front, a very cool new piece. Men be warned: the women in this event were cycling at 25+ mph for an hour

Browsing through the pictures of the competitors a clear pattern emerges. The people going fast are talented, and hard working, and they extend that hard work into their position on the bike. They have spent time figuring out how to get low and powerful, and even focus on how they hold their head through the course. In the time trial, the wind and your pain are the only enemies, and they must both be conquered. Triathletes can learn a lot by watching the top road cyclists in a TT.

On Sunday one of the more fascinating cycling disciplines takes place with the team time trials. These contests are fascinating due to their complexity and the high speeds that are achieved. Teammates fly along the road at over 30mph, wheels just inches from one another, hands in the aero bars away from the brake levers. Perfecting the timing of when each teammate should pull requires thought and practice. The top teams are ones with great athletes who have also put in the time to practice. In the men's top category, team Think Finance took the victory. They were the only top team present at the Mineral Wells team time trial a couple weeks before, and their dedication was rewarded with a state championship.

In the men's category 4, a victory for the triathletes as team Jockstrap Catapult of Houston narrowly bested team Ghisallo by 14 seconds with a 54 minute effort. Team Ghisallo did avenge this shame with overall wins in both the Category 4 and Eddy Merckx individual categories by Matt "Baby Jan" DeMartino and Adam Butler respectively.

In the most important race of all, the Category 4 Slowtwitch bragging rights contest, your author, Jack Mott, bested Charlie Buser by over 2 minutes in route to breaking the hour barrier for the first time, but still slower than his own wife.

Full TT Results Here (Scroll to the bottom)

The 40k Time Trial An Hour of Power, an Hour of Pain

Tom Anhalt of California, Amateur TT Enthusiast. Photo by Steve Weixel

The History

Time trialing began in the late 1800s in England as a response to a national ban on road racing. At the time, instead of conflicts being between cyclists and cars as they are today, it was often cyclists and people on horseback. After some accidents and subsequent complaints, cyclists in England were in danger of being banned from the roads completely, and racers were seen as a threat that could inspire legal action against all cyclists. To prevent that eventuality, the National Cyclists' Union prohibited racing on the road, hoping to keep the races to the velodrome, just as car enthusiasts today encourage kids to keep the racing on the track. Few velodromes existed, however, so underground organizations formed and began a new racing format that they hoped would not attract so much attention.

Triathlete Uber-Biker Philip Graves frequents
the modern day UK TT Events

The first time trial on public roads may have been in 1895, when Frederick Thomas Bidlake organized a 50-mile race against the clock. Drafting was not yet against the rules in these races, but riders were set out at 2- or 3-minute intervals, with the fastest going first, so drafting was unlikely to occur.

Over time these events evolved into races of 10, 25, 50, and 100 miles, with records being tracked for each one. That 25-mile distance, when converted to the metric 40 kilometers (24.85 miles), would become the 40k TT we know today.

The Significance

Perhaps by accident, or perhaps inevitably, the 40k TT comes up again and again as a relevant and important distance not just in cycling, but in triathlon as well.

• State and National Championships - The 40k TT is often the standard distance used in regional and national time trial championships. Any cyclist interested in winning the yearly TT championships in his or her category will have to focus on this distance. In some regions the women do a shorter distance, but in Texas, women do the same course (because Texas is awesome).
• The Gold Standard - The Hour - In days gone by, when the 40K was actually 25 miles, and when time trial bikes had round steel tubes and bullhorn bars and wheels had spokes, going under an hour for 40k was seen as a gold standard for cyclists. If you could do that, you were serious business. Since then, equipment has come a long way, and a sub-hour 40k won't even always win a cat 5 TT. However, for triathletes, who spend a large portion of their training time running and have to carry around an upper body that is actually useful so they can swim, breaking an hour is still a gold standard. Going sub-hour is proof of studly-ness (on the bike, at least), especially if done in the course of an Olympic distance triathlon (but only if you don't blow up on the run).
• Functional Threshold Power (FTP) - FTP is defined as the amount of power a cyclist can average for one hour. This happens to be an interesting physiological power level, as it represents the crossover point between an almost entirely aerobic power output, and a power output that starts eating into anaerobic reserves that will eventually fatigue you. Cruise around at slightly less than your FTP and you can go for a long, long time. Cruise around slightly above it and you will soon blow up. Many coaches and athletes use this metric to set up training zones. There are many ways to estimate your FTP but the one way to get it exactly right? Go as hard as you can for an hour. For most people, a 40k TT and a power meter will be the best way to do that. To geek out further - Go Here.
• Olympic-Distance Triathlon - One of the most popular distances in triathlon is the Olympic distance, when it first starts to get serious. The bike leg here is 40k, with a 1,500m swim before and a 10k run after. Age group athletes who can break an hour mid race have a good chance of starting the run in the lead. Also, while they rarely time trial it solo, ITU athletes making their bid for the Olympic games also bike this distance in their draft legal format.

Where to Race in Texas

• Iron Haus Time Trial Series - First Saturday of each month - Great out and back course with a wide shoulder the whole way. Located just west of San Antonio in Castroville Texas. You only need to touch the brakes once at the turnaround. It's an informal event, so you can sign up online or the morning of.
• Horse Country TT Series - May 14 and July 17 - Located in Aubrey, TX, this TT course features smooth roads, wide shoulders, and a bit of climbing.
• CapTex Triathlon - May 30 - One of the biggest triathlons in Texas. The CapTex bike course is in downtown Austin. It is a twisty, crowded, multiple-loop course that will test your handling skills as well as your threshold power. Somehow this course remains fast despite the turns and crowds, perhaps due to the constant draft affect of passing slower waves.
• Mineral Wells Summer TT - June 25 and 26 - Event still tentative, check the link for updates
• Marble Falls Triathlon - July 17 - A wee bit short of 40k at 23 miles, but another beautiful bike course with no loops and no crowds. A big uphill to start things off and a fast downhill to finish it.
• The Small Texan Triathlon - July 24 - Is 40k not quite enough? Runner studs got you down? This smaller event in Boerne, Texas, just outside of San Antonio, adds an extra 5k to the bike course for this otherwise Olympic-distance event. It will be hot, there will be no shade, but there will be a great course with beautiful water to swim in before you bike.


Corey May at the TX State TT

• Texas State Time Trial Championships - July 30-31 - Details TBD but this event usually takes place somewhere in Central Texas near San Antonio. Anyone can sign up and they even include a multisport category for triathletes and duathletes. There is also a team competition the following day.
• The Austin Triathlon - Sept 5th - Another huge event with tons of quality competition, The Austin Triathlon takes place in the same location as CapTex with slightly different courses. The 40k bike has the same challenges of twists and traffic, with multiple loops.
• The Houston Triathlon - Sept 25 - A standard distance event near Houston.

Tips

A 40k Time Trial is an exercise in pain and patience. Athletes who go out too enthusiastically will explode enormously. The best way to pace it is an even effort with perhaps a little kick in the closing minutes. It takes great pain tolerance to keep that effort up all the way through. A bike computer can help you pace if the course is flat and winds are low. A power meter is even better; if you know your FTP you can just hold your average power right at it (easier said than done!). Click here for a sample power file of a perfectly paced, sub hour 40k. Stop by ATC and ask about power meter or bike computer options. Even better, stop by ATC any time and head upstairs to the trainer cave and make use of the ATC Computrainers for free! Just ask Don or Adam to help set you up.

Training for a 40k TT will be pretty familiar to triathletes who are used to constant, evenly paced efforts. Cyclists may want to take a break from short intervals and sprinting in the weeks leading up to a big event. One popular workout is to do 2x20minute intervals at threshold power.

Get aerodynamic! We covered most of the key tips here in our Victory by a Thousand Cuts in February. Be sure to clean that bike of clutter and remember you will need little, if any, water for a 40k TT.

Copyright (C) 2011 Jack Mott