At the beginning of the year, much of the season is decided, both the competitive season (the calendar) and the training season. More and more often we hear coaches and athletes talk about hours of training, not just in cycling, and not in kilometres. This approach gives an overall picture of how large the business volumes are over the course of the year.
In this subdivision, the difference in hours spent in the saddle between those who are also time trialists and those who are not is very striking. There can be differences of up to ten times between those who pedal for 10-12 hours and those who pedal for 100-120 hours. When we get into the topic of stopwatches and preparation it almost goes without saying that the interlocutor is Marco Pinotti, coach of the Jayco-AlUla.
Marco, are we really talking about those amounts of hours and those differences?
Maybe 120 hours is actually a lot, even if it's not an impossible number, however it can be there especially if you include competitions.
Is the number of hours established at the beginning of the season?
Not entirely. There are no percentages of time trial hours and road hours. Let's say you try to provide a time trialist with a "time trial" bike before anyone else, and they rent it for at least one ride a week. Always. That becomes two before a major Giro or a race with a time trial, and three before an event like a World Championship, an Olympics, a national championship... All things that a road racer doesn't do, and which clearly contribute to shifting their training hours toward time trials.
And at the end of the season, how much of their total time does a specialist spend on the time trial bike, expressed as a percentage?
It ranges from 10 to 50 percent for super specialists. I believe a more realistic number of hours is between 80 and 100 hours per year for a time trialist on a time trial bike. While others average above 20 hours.
How much more can riding a time trial bike give you? If it can even be determined...
It's difficult, it depends a lot on how you spend those hours on the time trial bike and also on the position that specialist has, that is, whether it is more or less extreme. Let's say there can be a 5 percent improvement difference. But this is a very rough figure.
Who was an athlete who really spent a lot of hours on the time trial bike?
It comes to mind kung, but perhaps more than all Rohan DennisHe also does specific jobs for us and maybe that's why he is one of the very few athletes capable of expressing the same watts, if not more, on the time trial bike than on the road bike. Because it's important to remember that the real difference a time trialist makes is biomechanical efficiency. It's a question of muscle.
So far, we've talked about time trialists. But how important is it for the climber to spend time on that bike too?
It is important, but this must not take anything away from its main activity which is going fast on climbs. It's clearly important, especially in today's super-leveled (high-level) cycling, but the goals for time trialists and climbers are different.
That?
The time trialist trains to be fast in that discipline. The climber especially because the day after the time trial stage he must not suffer too much on a muscular level changing bikes. It's called transition. Simon yates (in the opening photo, ed.) for example, he worked hard on it and it's no coincidence that at the Tour the day after the time trial he finished second. Obviously when I say it's important for the climber, I'm referring to what he has to do in the general classification.
Marco, you said earlier that, broadly speaking, riding a time trial bike a lot can give you a 5 percent boost compared to someone who uses it less in terms of performance, biomechanical efficiency, and handling?
Clearly it is needed, but with the phenomena and materials that exist now it counts a little less than in the pastToday there are some super specialists and some phenomena among the top-ranked players: enough. Many riders, for various reasons (traffic, time pressure, ensuring they meet certain wattages, etc.), use their time trial bikes on rollers. This may improve their muscle strength and posture, but not their riding style. However, this type of improvement is closely linked to the individual athlete's riding ability. Matteo sobrero for example, he is very good and, speaking of driving, he wouldn't need to spend so many hours at it. Kristen Faulkner, On the contrary, she really needed it. This year she increased her time on the time trial bike and improved a lot..
