TTT Pacing Strategy

Bruce Diesel said:

This is probably not the right forum, but I know quite a few people that hang out here are interested in Time Trial Strategies, so here goes.

In a couple of weeks time, I will be taking part in a Team Time Trial (longest in the world I'm told) of 208km's.

Each team is allowed 12 riders, and the teams time is the 6th rider across the finish.

So, what would be the best way to pace this?
1. Do you try to conserve the 6 strongest riders and burn out the other six?
2. Do you all take equal turns?
3. Should you ride a single pace line or double pace line?

I have attached a profile for the route.

very interesting. Is the profile in feet or meters? How much team practice will you have? Will all riders have 'equal' aero kit?

rmur

Bruce Diesel said:

This is probably not the right forum, but I know quite a few people that hang out here are interested in Time Trial Strategies, so here goes.

In a couple of weeks time, I will be taking part in a Team Time Trial (longest in the world I'm told) of 208km's.

Each team is allowed 12 riders, and the teams time is the 6th rider across the finish.

So, what would be the best way to pace this?

This is the most complex pacing problem there is.

Bruce Diesel said:

1. Do you try to conserve the 6 strongest riders and burn out the other six?

There is no generic answer. Given the profile of your course, if there is a significant disparity in w/kg among the riders, it is probably not in the team's best interest to wait for the riders with the lowest w/kg after the climb. The team is probably better off to ride to the finish line with the first 6 over the top of the climb.

Bruce Diesel said:

2. Do you all take equal turns?

Absolutely not. You basically want to keep the riders with the lowest FTP at their limits (a bit less than FTP given the ride duration). Depending on the disparity in FTPs, some riders might take very short pulls (e.g., 15secs) while others take long pulls (e.g., 2mins). The duration of each rider's pull is a function of grade and wind. In the downgrade segments, you leave the riders with the lowest w/kg at the back and send your horses to the front where they pull their brains out for short durations (e.g., 15secs). This is because it takes so much power on front (e.g., 150%FTP) to get the riders in back to have to work at all.

Bruce Diesel said:

3. Should you ride a single pace line or double pace line?

Single pace line.

Communication is huge for such a ride! You might want to rent a few (e.g., 3-4) 2-way radios with the earpieces and lapel push-to-talk mics (ala Secret Service). The problem is that it is very hard to communicate verbally with the rider in front of you over the wind and road noise. So, paceline gaps open up and it forces some of the team to have to try and chase back on. This is a complete waste of energy and they are likely to get dropped almost immediately after they chase on. If a gap opens up anywhere in the paceline, you want to have the guy on front immediately throttle back to get the paceline intact again. The best way to communicate is to have a few guys with 2-way radios distributed through the paceline so that one of them is always near the front and he can quickly get the message that there is a gap. I can't overemphasize how important communication is (or how difficult it is without radios).

BTW, TTTs are one of my favorite types of rides.

rmur17 said:

very interesting. Is the profile in feet or meters? How much team practice will you have? Will all riders have 'equal' aero kit?

rmur

The profile is in meters, no aero kit allowed, and must be on standard road bikes.

I would say take the 5 guys with the lowest watts/kg and have them do all of the pulling until you get to the base of the hill. The 7 remaining guys just sit in. When you get to the base of the hill, the 7 remaining guys stay together and pace themselves up so that the weakest two are at their limit but no higher. The 5 guys who pulled on the flats just sit in and do their best to get up the hill but 7 don't wait for them.

At the top of the hill, put your strongest remaining guys in the front and let them do most of the work so that the two guys who were at their limit on the climb can recover as much as possible. Admittedly, there will probably be parts where coasting is just as fast as pedaling.

The reason for having 7 climbers instead of 6 is in case someone gets a flat or cracks.

--Steve

RapDaddyo said:

This is the most complex pacing problem there is.
There is no generic answer. Given the profile of your course, if there is a significant disparity in w/kg among the riders, it is probably not in the team's best interest to wait for the riders with the lowest w/kg after the climb. The team is probably better off to ride to the finish line with the first 6 over the top of the climb.
Absolutely not. You basically want to keep the riders with the lowest FTP at their limits (a bit less than FTP given the ride duration). Depending on the disparity in FTPs, some riders might take very short pulls (e.g., 15secs) while others take long pulls (e.g., 2mins). The duration of each rider's pull is a function of grade and wind. In the downgrade segments, you leave the riders with the lowest w/kg at the back and send your horses to the front where they pull their brains out for short durations (e.g., 15secs). This is because it takes so much power on front (e.g., 150%FTP) to get the riders in back to have to work at all.
Single pace line.

Communication is huge for such a ride! You might want to rent a few (e.g., 3-4) 2-way radios with the earpieces and lapel push-to-talk mics (ala Secret Service). The problem is that it is very hard to communicate verbally with the rider in front of you over the wind and road noise. So, paceline gaps open up and it forces some of the team to have to try and chase back on. This is a complete waste of energy and they are likely to get dropped almost immediately after they chase on. If a gap opens up anywhere in the paceline, you want to have the guy on front immediately throttle back to get the paceline intact again. The best way to communicate is to have a few guys with 2-way radios distributed through the paceline so that one of them is always near the front and he can quickly get the message that there is a gap. I can't overemphasize how important communication is (or how difficult it is without radios).

BTW, TTTs are one of my favorite types of rides.

There will be a disparity - in your langauge probably 4 Elite riders, 2 Cat 1, 2 Cat 2, the rest cat 3 or below.

We have radios for our road racing team, so we can use those.

So, why don't you come down to sunny S.A. next year and ride it with us 😎

ZimboNC said:

I would say take the 5 guys with the lowest watts/kg and have them do all of the pulling until you get to the base of the hill. The 7 remaining guys just sit in. When you get to the base of the hill, the 7 remaining guys stay together and pace themselves up so that the weakest two are at their limit but no higher. The 5 guys who pulled on the flats just sit in and do their best to get up the hill but 7 don't wait for them.

At the top of the hill, put your strongest remaining guys in the front and let them do most of the work so that the two guys who were at their limit on the climb can recover as much as possible. Admittedly, there will probably be parts where coasting is just as fast as pedaling.

The reason for having 7 climbers instead of 6 is in case someone gets a flat or cracks.

--Steve

Agreed, we have to be careful, rules of the race are that riders may not receive mechanical assistance from backup cars etc. There are also a limited number of designated feed stops - 6 I think.

If you can help it you don't want to be down to 6 riders is possible.

zimbo has a good idea, but i think that everyone should be lending a hand throughout the race, the 7 riders with the highest w/kg take short pulls (i.e. 15-20sec) and wait for the climb at which point they take over and get over the climb as fast as possible. if you use all 12 people leading up to the climb the strongest might be a bit more tired. but, at the same time if you only us 5 then you're bound to lose at least 1 or 2 riders before you even get anywhere near the climb and then could possbily have only 3 people setting the pace, and they would become very tired very quickly, and then everything will be out the window. so i think that you will need to have all riders participate for as long as they can. once you hit the climb gradually increase and at the top the 7th rider should be at his limit and hopefully he'll recover and someone will catch back on during the descent.

sash said:

the 7 riders with the highest w/kg take short pulls (i.e. 15-20sec) and wait for the climb at which point they take over and get over the climb as fast as possible.

There is no advantage to any of the riders getting to the top before the last of the group that is going to descend together, especially because they will need their full power (and then some) on the descent. The descents are the hardest parts of these events because you're only rotating those with the most power and when they're on front they're pulling their brains out (for a short time). When I do these rides and we approach a descent, I really get sweaty palms knowing what's coming (basically an AWC workout).

RapDaddyo said:

When I do these rides and we approach a descent, I really get sweaty palms knowing what's coming (basically an AWC workout).

Do you have a group that does this style of organized workout often? Do you have a TT setup or are you using the "standard road bike" package?

Pureshot78 said:

Do you have a group that does this style of organized workout often? Do you have a TT setup or are you using the "standard road bike" package?

Yes, I do these types of rides fairly often, with two different groups. One group is a mixed group of riders, with ~4 riders with >4w/kg and ~4 riders with closer to 3w/kg. The other group is just those with ~4w/kg in the first group. Pacing is a real challenge with the first group because it's easy to blow up the guys with less power on the climbs. Not everyone has a PM, so I have to give those without a PM a pacing target in mph, which of course varies a lot depending on grade and wind. On the descents, I bring the 4w/kg guys to the front and set up a 10-15sec rotation among them at ~400W. The descents are killers. Pacing is a lot easier with the second group because there's more homogeneity. My main problem is to keep the guys with ~4w/kg awake on the climbs because they're pretty bored riding at ~75%FTP. If I were putting together a team for a competition on a course with any significant climbs, I would search high and low for guys with similar w/kg.

BTW, I'm working on putting on a TTT competition using the Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2, 4 & 8 rider teams). I love the TTT in the TdF and hate it that they have eliminated it the last couple of years.

As to bikes, so far we have just used standard road rigs. I'll probably begin doing some rides with the stronger group using TT rigs, but we haven't done it yet.

Quoted post said:

BTW, I'm working on putting on a TTT competition using the Las Vegas Motor Speedway (2, 4 & 8 rider teams).

Sounds like I need to put together a team.

Quoted post said:

I love the TTT in the TdF and hate it that they have eliminated it the last couple of years.

I agree, it was always my favorite stage to watch as well. Too bad they aren't having it this coming year, especially since Tmobile is using CyclingPeaks with SRMs this year. 😄

Someday we will be able to watch in real time the Power Meter outputs of each team member while they are on the course.

Quoted post said:

As to bikes, so far we have just used standard road rigs. I'll probably begin doing some rides with the stronger group using TT rigs, but we haven't done it yet.

So many toys, so little time. 😉

Pureshot78 said:

Someday we will be able to watch in real time the Power Meter outputs of each team member while they are on the course.

I'm salivating at that prospect. In fact, I want more than just real-time power (e.g., NP, IF). I also want to see how long (on average) each team member is on front. I basically want to look under the hood and see how they are managing the engine.

Bruce Diesel said:

In a couple of weeks time, I will be taking part in a Team Time Trial (longest in the world I'm told) of 208km's. Each team is allowed 12 riders, and the teams time is the 6th rider across the finish.

If you have access to the numbers, why don't you post the FTP and w/kg of each of the 12 team members. I'll try to work up a rough rotation plan for (1) the flat, (2) an upgrade and (3) a downgrade.

RapDaddyo said:

If you have access to the numbers, why don't you post the FTP and w/kg of each of the 12 team members. I'll try to work up a rough rotation plan for (1) the flat, (2) an upgrade and (3) a downgrade.

Unfortunately I don't. PM's are only used by a very few riders here in S.A. and even less by the Elites!!

But, the team breakdown will hopefully look like:

4 Elite riders, 2 Cat 1, 2 Cat 2, the rest cat 3

Which would give an indication of the various power levels - based on Coggan's profile.