Originally Posted by
burnthesheep
I know it's the way it is, but very frustrating windy TT practice ride of about 10 miles. 8 miles "in the gas". I did a little tempo 10k run this morning and was down a tad on power. Power during the effort was decent.
But the stuff the wind was doing was just criminal. I went back and looked and on the out leg should have had a solid tail wind of about 10mph. Well, entire time outbound I felt it over my right shoulder from the front. It was even pushing me that way a touch.
Then, on the way back which is slightly uphill, definitely into the wind. Got me down pretty slow with a gust or two.
Just very frustrating to want to go ride the TT bike when I have time to myself and it's something like this.
The wind was playing games so much today that my avg speed was the same as a ride with driving rain and wind at the coliseum weeks back where I had to coast and brake like crazy. And with more power today too!
For out/back, what constitutes a good situation vs. a bad situation for your speed? Let's say it's downhill outbound and uphill inbound on the out/back.
I guess on a wind-less day I need to do some base-line testing to get some data. I'm just flustered right now.
TTs are going to happen on windy days. So your ride today was a chance to learn what that feels like. There’s zero reason to feel frustrated, it really should be seen as an opportunity- to read the wind, pace your effort, and gain experience with handling the bike in windy conditions.
The point of TTing is not to go as fast as you ever can. It’s to go faster than anyone else for the day’s conditions.
I don’t understand your question about a good vs bad situation for speed on an out and back. But in TTing your speed is what it is. The goal is to parcel out your effort perfectly. If you’re asking how to pace an outbound/downhill/tailwind vs a return/uphill/headwind, it really depends on several factors: the magnitude of the wind, how aero you are, your likely speed (ie how long you will be experiencing each condition), and the % grade up/downhill. You will get a bigger bang for your buck putting out slightly more power when you’re going slower- ie into a headwind or up a hill.
So if I ride a TT course with an outbound/downhill/tailwind leg (as I frequently do), I would start by trying to predict my split times based on forecast temperature and wind, and to a lesser extent road conditions (ie whether the road will be wet). So for me, racing a 20k TT, in 8 mph wind, tailwind outbound at 1% downhill grade, 70F, my splits mighg be something like 14 min out and 18 min back. In theory, I should be able to do the entire race at 105%, so I might go out at around 102-103% and try to come back at 107%, if I felt like 107% was gonna be sustainable for me for 18 min based on how training has been going at that point in time. All of that is just a gameplan though- when you are actually out there racing, you just have to take it moment by moment because forecasts are inaccurate and no matter how well prepared you are, you can always have an off day.
tl/dr train in wind if you want to learn to race in wind