Velo Vol 

Time to activate.

genejockey 

I'm going out of town for most of a week, leaving next Tuesday I REALLY wish I'd shipped a bike to my sister who lives in The Ancestral Home, but I'm lazy and procrastination is my middle name. Well, Hugh, actually, but you know what I mean.

Part of it is the realization that if I did, I'd have to bring or ship a bunch of other stuff - tools to set it up again, floor pump, saddle bag, shoes, clothing, helmet, etc. I'd need a locked, preferably indoor spot to keep all of the stuff and I haven't yet negotiated that with my sister. But it's a big damn house and yard, with two outbuildings, one of which holds thousands of dollars worth of appliances, which are being accumulated in advance of the planned remodel of the kitchen, so the bike would be one of the LEAST valuable things in it.

DougRNS

I'm looking forward to my short, after work ride with a dew point of only 70° in my estimation. I'll post the ride data and dew point after I'm done.

LesterOfPuppets

Grabbing a bike off of craigslist back there could be fun. N+1

genejockey 

Might be worth doing it while I'm in Rockville, but I suspect Gettysburg would have slim pickings.

DougRNS

Fill in the blank
Carbs are your _________
Friend
Enemy
Frenemy

LesterOfPuppets

Yeah I reckon Baltimore CL would be the way to go.

TMonk

Friend! for sure man. We're endurance athletes!

TMonk

rode the TT bike outside this morning. reminds me of why I usually rarely do it if I don't have a race in the coming months - it handles like crap and is uncomfortable at least and dangerous at worst on the open road. not sure how triathletes do it all the time man. I mean, it was fine on Fiesta Island (non-stop 4 mi loop), but getting to and from was a bit sketchy.

I think I'll stick to riding it on the trainer once/week for a while. no TT races for the rest of the year.

Velo Vol 

(D) none of the above

genejockey 

Don't you want to be like Jonas Vingegaard and be so comfortable on the TT bike that you don't even change for the climb and gain at least a 20 second advantage?

WhyFi

Is that just this bike or your experience with TT bikes in general? I've always been interested in getting one, but don't know what kind of usage to realistically expect.

Mojo31

I wonder if there are any studies that show the time gained by using the TT bike for the flats and a road bike for the hills as opposed to a road bike for the whole race. There has got to be time lost during the transition. The question would be is the time lost during transition more or less than the time gained using the TT bike.

I'm not sure how you would test that considering you could never duplicate a run.

Bah Humbug

Wouldn't want to ride 23s on it though.

Bah Humbug

With a proper fit (realize very few people can do this) it should be at least as comfortable as your road bike and fine for most purposes on pavement. I rode mine at COTA over and over weaving around the kids and casuals.

Bah Humbug

The STers have the data, though I can't remember where it is. However, the situations where a road bike is faster in a TT vanish to almost nil if you're skilled. Even in Nice and St George the answer is "learn to handle your tri bike and ride that unless you like losing".

LesterOfPuppets

$800 in B'more!

TMonk

I only have appreciable experience on one TT bike. But, my rational brain thinks that others would handle similarly poorly, steep HT/ST angles, far forward position (relative to road), low visibility.

If you have a TT series in your area, I recommend trying it out. It’s fun to see continual improvement and tinker with things to get speed here and there. Plus, I enjoy the sensation of speed, and it does offer a bit more than road, even with regular training kit.

It is quite different on your muscles – more glute/hamstring emphasis than just pure quad. I try to ride it once/week for most of the year, maybe twice/week if I have an event coming up that I care about.

I’d bet you could calculate that fairly closely with a given course, the environmental conditions and a rider’s data (watt/CdA, watt/kg etc). But, my guess is that all the magic is in the transition. Like in real world races, you can probably only practice that so much, and you can certainly royally screw it up.

In SCNCA the Tour de Murrieta used to have an interesting day 1 TT, where about half the time was on a rolling paved road, and the second half (by time) was up a gravel climb. There was a great diversity of equipment choices all the way up to the pro race. It was a very cool race, I wish they would bring that stage 1 back. It was short too, like 20 minutes IIRC for elite times.

Yes, there are multiple ways (including TT bike skill) that I would like to be like Jonas Vingegaard haha. Although I don’t put in nearly the same time, I think my genetic ceiling is much lower and that I’ll have to stick to being one of the good guys in the Master’s fields of the SCNCA district (35+ - for now).

Mojo31

How did your kitchen cabinet project turn out?

Eric F 

Jumbo-Visma seems to have figured it out. At the Giro, they had Roglic do the bike switch, as did most/all of the top competitors. At the Tour, Jonas stayed on his TT bike, but others did not.

TMonk

My understanding is that with lots of training adaptation, maybe it would be "at best" as comfortable as your road bike. It's an inherently more challenging position. But, I may not have the same level of experience as you.

WhyFi

We're only in year 2 of the 5-year project

Mojo31

Gave me a laugh.

BillyD

Enemy, especially potatoes, rice, pasta and corn. Then there's bread, pie, cake, cookies and bagels. Then there's beer. Did I mention bread? Sadly, the "Friend" list is much shorter.

genejockey 

You gotta figure that at least 20 seconds of Vingegaards advantage over Pogacar was the lack of a bike switch - slow to stop, dismount, get on new bike, clip in, get back up to speed. And Vingegaard actually GAINED over a minute on Pogacar from the base of the climb to the finish - on a TT bike.