sbs z31

This is my first year racing and was wondering what would be consider fast and what are you guys averaging on your local TT course. I know weather and hills will play a role on your overall average speed. My local TT's are 8.3mi and 13mi and when I first started this season I was only averaging 20mph but now I'm in the mid 23mph. The first 40k TT I did a couple of weeks ago I was only able to manage a 21.8mph avs and I should've geared up(fixed gear) because I was spinning way too much. I'm hoping I could improve on my overall average speed by another 1mph and do fairly well at the State Champ TT in a month. Enough of me and let's hear how fast you guys are!

Ygduf

depends on course, wind, etc.

here in a 10mi out and back with ~80ft/mile of rolling hills I was at ~27mph. Usually top-10 of the day. Fastest guys were ~28mph

sbs z31

Wow that's amazingly fast man, how long did it take you to start seeing that kind of speed?

mattm

mine: never fast enough.

waterrockets 

Depends.

There are a lot of factors that go into TT speed. Look at last year's results and see where you are and where you want to be. Do some aero testing and see if you can improve (search here for terminal velocity testing by Racer Ex).

jsutkeepspining

we have a local tt which is a 8 mile out and back tt. The record is 30.5 or 31 mph. I've only ever broken 29, but the out has two climbs, and i'm a fatty (this is with full tt gear on my tt bike)

Then we had (wish we still had) a prologue tt that was just awesome! it was maybe 9 miles total, and the winner of the p/1/2 race was always north of 30. I hit 28.x in it last year (#imslow)

I did a 11 mile tt the other day on my road bike for another local tt series, and hit 26.9, but it's relatively flat (one small climb at the beginning, and a short descent before the final turn back to the finish).

But to put things in even better perspective. the 29 mph tt was at something like 330-340 watts, where as my 10 mile tt was north of 360 watts because i was on my road bike, without aero gear (I'm not that aero even on my tt bike).

Ygduf

I've been riding for real since 2009. I just started TTs this year, but have lots of cumulative hours of solo (usually hillclimb) hurting to apply to the bike.

Racer Ex 

Best 40k was 28.9 mph. I have been over 30 on a couple of shorter TT's. The 40k was done on relatively small watts. Take the suggestion about working on the aero end of things. I know of several people that break 24mph on less than 200w.

veloboy971

Depends a lot on course as well as whether you're fresh or not for it (a lot of the promoters like to do TT's after road races at least around here in local races).

Last (almost completely) flat TT was Merckx only at North Star GP (a little over 5 miles), I did 27.5 on 325 watts. Good enough for 55th coverall in P/1 and 16th amateur. I've only used my TT bike once for a race this year...

jsutkeepspining

One other point to add is that almost ever tt in the U.S. is pretty basic, and not too technical (except for a few that i can think of off the top of my head, which are either prologues or high caliber race tts). The local tt is much easier to do well in then a tour de france tt. You might have 1 to 6 turns total, versus 20+ turns and constantly changing gradient.

sbs z31

You guys are amazingly fast, only two things I have left to do is get a pair of shoe covers and a real pro fit. I'm not too sure what to expect for speed as this is my first year racing but I'll be happy to end the season with 24mph overall average speed. Also, I'm riding a track bike and don't have a power meter but I do use a Garmin Edge 510 and go off of my heart rate. I've been playing a lot with different gearing and noticed I'm getting stronger and faster the more I race. I race at least one road TT a week and starting track racing in a few weeks.

carpediemracing 

Best 40k, out and back, 23.5 mph (1:03:30, winning times were typically 51-53 min). Normal time was 1:06-ish.

Best 7 mile, out and back, 25.4 mph (16:28, winners usually got 14:05 or so which is 30 mph, no one broke 14:00). Normal time for me, meaning I never broke 17:00 except that one time, was 17:30-18:00.

Incidentally this is with all the aero doodads available to me. TT bike (steel tubed so very skinny), disk wheel with 17mm wide rim, TT helmet, skinsuit, no bottle or aero bottle, 24" front wheel, 17mm tires F&R, TT bars… I even trained on the bike regularly. it's pretty demoralizing just how slow I go even with the doodads.

furiousferret

I think for the few short triathlons on an 11 mile hilly course I did it was 20-21. Back then I only put in about 2k of miles a year. Having almost tripled that, I'm hoping that would be bumped to 23-24. These days when I get on my TT bike, I'm just praying it goes straight.

waterrockets 

There are a million things left to do.

One last time for advice to put some significant effort and hours into the aerodynamics bit. TTs are very heavily influenced by how slippery you are, and you will be surprised how big of a difference seemingly small changes can make. It will take a lot of time to nail down tweaks like where to put your elbows, where to put your head, where to put your shoulders, which helmet, etc. Get yourself really slippery in your TT position.