I have been to see Mark Harvey at Take 3 Tri before, and I’ve always been happy with the position he put me in. I went to see him on Thursday, taking my fixed TT bike and my road bike, so he could put me into as aero a position as possible on the TT bike, and tweak the road bike position (last year for a little while I was changing saddle and position on the bike quite regularly, so the fit I had decayed a little).

Mark had done the cleat setup and flexibility assesments last year, and not much has changed since then, so we had a bit of a discussion about what I was looking for, and then went straight to the TT bike on his trainer. Mark uses the Retul fit system, which involves putting little velcro dots at various different points on your body, and then attaching a special set of lights to them so that they can be picked up by a sensor and all the data sucked into the computer to analyse. You can find out more about Retul in this review.

We started by evaluating the position I had my bike set up in. I wasn’t expecting this position to be ideal – the last even I rode this in was a hill climb, and since then I’ve switched the saddle back to the TT one and changed the stem and bars. It wasn’t! As you can see from the picture I’m quite a long way back and my knees are getting pretty close to hitting me in the chest!

Mark moved the saddle as forward as it would go on the rails, and up a little bit, and that gave me a much improved position and felt so much easier to pedal in. The seatpost is a layback model, and combined with the fairly relaxed geometry of the (regular road) frame, meant that I couldn’t get as far forward as Mark wanted to move me. We had a discussion about how this could be improved, and tried switching the seatpost the wrong way around, but there wasn’t enough adjustment in the clamp and the saddle couldn’t be set flat. Given the restriction of the frame and seatpost, this was going to be as good as it could get, however there are seatposts available that have a set forward design specifically to get around this problem. I have subsequently ordered one of these seatposts, so I will be fitting it myself and then getting Mark to check that it’s OK in dues course. I haven’t got pictures of the new setup yet, or the changes that I made with Mark, so I’ll do a new setup post with pictures of how it has changed when that’s sorted out..

We also evaluated my position on my road bike. Mark had fitted me last year, so I was expecting this to be good, but we moved the saddle about a centimetre forwards and a few mm upwards. It’s amazing how much difference that made – the next few rides that I did were both easier to generate power and also a fair bit more comfortable seating-wise (I never have saddle discomfort when riding on the road, but I sometimes do when on the turbo)..

I wanted to start Trainer Road’s “Sustained Power Build” plan as soon as possible to get as much fitness as I could early in the year. I’ve been doing the Sweet Spot Base plans over autumn, so I was hoping I had picked up some power (especially over SSB 2 as it’s pretty hard). I’ve also got a new (to me) turbo trainer (it’s a Tacx Bushido Smart), which should allow me to use “erg mode” to automatically set the power level required to what the Trainer Road plan requires. I’ve been experimenting with what the turbo is capable of – I’ll write that up properly in its own post.

The first thing that you do on any of the plans is an FTP test. There are 3 FTP tests as part of the Trainer Road workout suite, the regular 20 minute and 8 minute tests, and the new default one – the Ramp Test. I did a Ramp Test, which on this occasion started at 112W for 5 minutes, and then went up by 15W each minute. The final FTP is taken to be approximately 75% of the highest minute of power. The test I did was not as good as I was hoping for. There are probably a couple of factors that didn’t help (I spent a chunk of the morning running around as a helper/spectator at a cyclo cross event, I didn’t eat a carb rich lunch beforehand), but the key reason was mental – I quit at the point it got really hard, rather than completely burying myself and trying to get every single Watt out. The result was a suggested FTP of 224W (from a prior FTP of 244W at the start of Sweet Spot Base 2). As I don’t think that 224W is a legitimate FTP, I’ve reduced it to 240W and started the Sustained Power Build.

Because I did my Ramp test on the Sunday, rather than on the Tuesday as in the plan, I had space on Tuesday. I planned to fill it with a workout called Adams +1, but I didn’t wake up in time as I didn’t set my alarm correctly. I managed to persuade myself to do Adams -1, which is only 30 minutes long but contains 7 minutes at 252W, 5 minutes at 261W, 3 minutes at 272W, and 2 minutes at 299. I completed it, with only a quick backpedal rest in the middle of the 3 minute interval, so I think my new estimated FTP is probably reasonable – this is a hard workout. I’m pleased – this was an example of hitting the resolution number 1 and doing something rather than nothing after the scheduled workout wasn’t possible. Hopefully, the way is upwards from here.

I got up and rode on Thursday as planned, but my hip was really tight and painful so I didn’t complete intervals 2 and 3. I was considering whether I ought to have reduced my FTP further. However, Sunday I completed an hour and a half of “Mounte Goode”, which is 3 intervals of 15 minutes at threshold. While I needed a couple of short breaks in the second and third intervals, I completed it on power at 100%, so I’m happy to keep my FTP the same and work from here.

I have a bike fit scheduled for Thursday, so I will report how that goes here (hopefully with some position pictures). The fit is with Mark at http://www.take3tri.co.uk/ – I’ve had a fit with him for my road bike and was very happy with the process.

I wanted to experiment with TTing in 2018, so I actually started using Trainer Road in the autumn to build some fitness. I dragged my functional threshold power (FTP) from 171W in September 2017 to 261W by July 2018 (detail to follow in a subsequent post detailing my training and FTP improvements).

I rode 5 time trials and one hillclimb, all organised by my club, the Cowley Road Condors. I also rode a 9 up team time trial with a mixed ability Condor group at Weston on the Green airfield (organised by Bicester Millenium cycling club).

My fastest time was 27:25 on my road bike (with clip-on bars) – the route can be seen here, though the strava segment time isn’t correct, and the full track has the warmup included: https://www.strava.com/activities/1653379195

The only TT I did on my fixie was on the Stadhampton course – it’s not a fast one because the road surface is terrible, but I set a time of 27.58 , which is a PB on that course (I did it earlier in the year on the road bike and did 28:27): https://www.strava.com/activities/1795848662

I think I could have gone significantly faster – I injured my foot on July 1 and was unable to ride my bike for a month. My FTP at that point was around 231W, and it was 261W at the time I did the 27:25. I suspect I could have done a PB had I not hurt my foot. I’ll cover the training I did and the FTP progress in another post.

I thought that the list was going to be quite short, but turned out to be quite long. It is probably best split into process and outcome goals.

Process:

1. Consistency – do the scheduled Trainer Road workouts, and if I can’t fit one in, then do something
2. Do some core work on a regular basis
3. Stretch regularly
4. Work on the ability to produce power in the TT position
5. Work on the ability to sustain the TT position for an entire hour
6. Ride at least 10 10s
7. Ride at least 1 25
8. Ride a hillclimb (on the fix)
9. Ride a cyclo-cross race (not on fixed)
10. Ride a century

Outcome:

1. Hit the target times for a 10 (current PB – 27:28 on gears):
   1. Standard target: sub 26 minutes
   2. Stretch: sub 24 minutes
2. For the 25:
   1. Standard target: sub 1hr 5 minutes
   2. Stretch: sub 1 hour
3. Hit 4 W/kg

The time goals depend to a certain extent on what courses I get to ride, and the conditions at the time. I think I’ll need good conditions to hit the stretch goals, though if I got on a fast course then they should be very achievable.

The W/kg goal is as much a weight goal as an FTP one. My max FTP last year was 261, and I currently weigh around 78kg. It should be reasonable to get above 280W, and below 75kg at the same time, but it’s going to take a bit of work!