Time Trial Race Strategy for Competitive Cyclists

Video Transcript

"SAL COLLURA: One other thing I'd like to say about competing in the time trial. If there's a turnaround or a really sharp corner, well before that turnaround or before that sharp corner is where maybe you're going to take that drink or stretch your back. You're having to slow down your machine anyway so that's a good time to get that business out of the way to take care of that. So, for instance, 40k, 20k out, there's a turnaround, well that's a great place to drink, to stretch your back to just get out of that position for a second when you're slowing down for that corner. Then when you've got to be back on it for the corner and getting through as fast as you can and accelerating out, then you're back to business, but that's a good time to kind of take care of yourself is at that turnaround or before a sharp corner, or maybe on the end of a downhill, or after you've had a little bit of a climb. Stay in your tuck, but you may not have to pedal. Maybe that's a chance to rest your legs on a steep downhill. The start, don't go out too hard. It's similar to the turnaround in that you don't want to jump 100% out of that turnaround; you want to build back up, get in your rhythm. At the start, you don't want to go 100%, sprinting out of the gate, and then you've blown yourself up. You need to build up. Yeah, you gotta go hard and you need to accelerate, but you need to build up until you get to the speed where you're going to be in your rhythm. And a very important thing in the time trial is that rhythm. You are in that uncomfortable but rhythm spot where you're just outputting, you're doing your thing, the power is going to the road, and you're in that groove."