Coach's Tips For... Boonsboro Time Trial

[ed: This is the next article by coach BJ Basham, and part of a continuing series called "Coach's Tips for... ", in which BJ will give all the racers lucky enough to have found GamJams.net the inside track on how to race a specific event. BJ knows all these races, and he probably also knows most of the racers hellbent on beating you at them. If you like BJ's contributions, let him know in the Comments section below. You can even ask him questions in the comments, which he'll answer there as well.]

Coach's Tips for... Boonsboro Time Trial
by BJ Basham
USA Cycling Level II Certified Coach

I love this course!!!
This course hates me!!??

I've ridden well on this course and I have died on this course and most memorably, I flatted twice at nearly the same point two years in a row on this course.

The Boonsboro TT is your basic out and back course with one steep climb on the way out and a nice downhill section to the turn around. By the way, the turnaround is at the bottom of a pretty steep hill, which means you scream down the hill, break hard and then start climbing. On the way back, the climb is a lot longer, basically uphill to about 5 miles to go.

Time trials are in part about being physically ready to race, and partly about knowing how to pace your effort so that you make it around the course as fast as possible. A flat TT is relatively easy to pace -  basically pick the intensity or power output that you believe you can hold the whole way around and go. On a hilly TT, the pacing strategy can have a bigger affect on your average speed even though your average power may be the same. 

On a hilly time trial course, trying to keep your watts down to what you want to average on the uphills and then working to keep the power up on the down hills is actually the slower way to go. Due to the slower speeds on the climbs, the time you lose by going slower on a climb by even one mile per hour will be greater than the time you would lose on a fast descent going one mile an hour slower.

So, mathematically and to a certain extent physically, the fastest way to ride a hilly time trial is to go harder on the climbs and then ease up and recover on the descents. Your average power output might be the same, but your time will be better.  The bad news is that trick is still knowing how hard to go on the climbs and on the descents.

Here are a few thoughts about time trialing in general that you might want to think about:

1. Don't start too hard.
2. Warm-up. You want to be racing from the gun. 
3. Don't start too hard.
4. You can buy speed, but only relative to yourself. A disk wheel doesn't mean you will win, just that you will go faster than you would without it.
5. Don't start too hard.
6. You body is the biggest souce of wind resistance. Get yourself into a good TT position and you will beat riders with cooler gear riding in a poor position.
7. Don't start too hard.
8. You need to train in your time trial position. 12 miles into a 40k TT is not the time to realize that your super aero posture leaves you with numb hands or no power. 
9. Don't start too hard.
10. Time trials hurt.

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BJ Basham is a USA Cycling Level II Certified Coach with Peaks Coaching Group. He lives in Fairfax, VA and competes in most of the same races you do. To learn more about his coaching practice and philosophy, just email him.