I’m not a fan of the time trial (individual or team) unless it’s vintage pre-time trial bike, pre-aero helmet stuff (like the pic above featuring Jacques Anquetil circa 1953) or on dirt (like the Yankee Springs Time Trial here in Michigan each spring). While I have NO plans to ever do a road time trial, I do plan on returning to Yankee this spring. This winter I also plan on continuing my version of the time trial on the trainer; pedaling my ass off, going nowhere for 15 miles trying to best the time before. It’s basically doing lactate threshold training but that sounds all fancy and like I actually know what I’m doing. Since I don’t, and tend to wing things by the seat of my soiled chamois, I just call it doing a time trial.
I’ve done three TTs this late fall/winter. My second one saw a mere four-second improvement over the first (boo!), however today I bested that time by a minute and five seconds. I have trouble believing that my fitness is actually improving, so I have to think that most of the improvement was due to the three mugs of pre-ride french press coffee that was coursing through my veins and The Chemical Brothers’ Electronic Battle Weapon album (disc II in the Brotherhood compilation) that was pounding in my sweat filled hairy ears.
By the way, is there anything more strange (boring?) than watching DJs/electronic musicians live? No wonder everyone is fucked up on ecstasy and the like at gigs like that.
Photo: A 19-year-old Jacques Anquetil riding his first 87-mile Grand Prix des Nations time trial.
Source: Original photo via Flickr, Robert, Vintage Cycling Photographs. Monkeyed with by me.