UKC

I do a bit of road biking and quite a bit of high intensity stuff on the turbo to help keep fit.

I quite fancy having a go at a few TT events, 10 miles as a starter I guess. I'm not interested in group racing.

How do I go about it?

Are there any prerequisites?

Will I be OK on a standard road bike, at least until I decide if it's for me?

In reply to The New NickB:

Join a club and go along to their evening club time trials, generally on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

In reply to The New NickB:

Try emailing your local club and asking if they let non club members come along to the evening tts. Then you just turn up pay a few quid and have a go, very straightforward. There's no pre requisites or kit you need (other than possibly a helmet). Most clubs won't start the tts of till the evenings are a bit longer though.

There are time trials on my local dual carriageway at least once a week in the summer. Most but not I think all are using specialised equipment. With the traffic thundering past it doesn't look my idea of fun at all but good luck.

In reply to The New NickB: Tuesday night 10. Turn up and pay your £2 and get a number.

Dead easy and great once you get into them.

In reply to The New NickB:

Thanks all, I'll enquire at a few local clubs.

In reply to Oujmik:

Generally, huh ? Ours are a Wednesday........

In reply to Dark-Cloud:

In my experience the vast majority of clubs do Tuesdays or Thursdays (normally whichever the nearest alternative club doesn't do) in order to be able to fit in the traditional Sunday ride plus another evening activity with at least one day between each, but there are obviously exceptions!

In reply to Oujmik:

Or in our case with a number of local clubs common sense prevailed and a coordinated calendar was proposed so there is a TT on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday people can choose which one they fancy, or all three if you are keen......

In reply to The New NickB:

And no you don't need any special equipment although you'll soon start craving some when you can't seem to get within 2 minutes of someone 20 years older than you... assuming you already own a road bike, the best 'speed to money ratio' is to get some clip-on aero bars to allow you to adopt a more aero position but you're absolutely fine on a road bike or even a mountain bike if you're particularly masochistic.

I can't recall if helmets are compulsory yet for club competitions, I'm pretty certain they are for all higher levels. Some basic lights can also be useful early in the season as it can get a bit dull towards the end of the race if there's a large field.

Fortunately most early season club TTs tend to be on 'club' circuits - often on quiet country roads and not dual carriageways or anything of the like. These are likely to feature more junctions and other 'random' elements than a course used for serious competition but they are generally more pleasant to ride.

In reply to The New NickB:
Evening 10s or 15s are on Thursday evenings around here. Pay your £1.50 and 50p for tea and cake afterwards. Many ordinary road bikes. You just get used to some condom-clad youth on a TT bike coming past sounding like a starfighter. You're all totally knackered at the end, no matter how fast you've gone.

Highlight of last year was a chap in his 80s turned up on a 100 year old time trial bike, all made out of the thinnest steel tubes you ever did see, with a leather sadde that was suspended on cords that hung like a hammock from tubes front and rear (the bike wasn't a standards shape at all). For the avoidance of doubt. no, I didn't catch him.

PS. the TTs are open to all - it's a club public service

In reply to The New NickB:

I did my first 10 mile TT last summer on a bog-standard 2nd hand Allez that I got from eBay. I didn't win it, but I wasn't last either

It can be hard to break into, as they are generally very low key, and everything seems to be done on e-mail rather than a web-site, so its hard to find calendars and results. However, once we got on the right mailing list then it was, as others have suggested, a case of turning up and paying a couple of quid. We usually pre-enter, as that way we know our exact start time and don't have to wait around for ages.

There will be a mix of kit from one end of the extreme (A 50+ me on my Allez) to the other (my son in a skin-suit on his Merida Warp TT!) but my experience has been that everyone was very friendly and I never felt in any way awkward.

One word of advice (having done 3 of these now) they are really horrid. *Really* horrid. I had been a runner for 23 years when I did my first TT. I've competed over distances from 1 mile to marathon, and nothing was preparation for just how lung-bursting a 10 Mile TT was, an I didn't get the time I was after, so I've had to keep coming back

Good luck.

In reply to LittleRob:

Indeed - one reason why 'hardly used' TT bikes are easy to pick up on ebay. It seems like a good idea at the time, but so painful!

Our club 10 mile TT, by special arrangement with the National Trust, is the Olympic circuit of Box Hill - the finish is half a mile form the top of the hill, which is a special kind of torture!

The Surrey 4-up TTT is also a hoot - in my case, 4 gentlemen of a certain age turning themselves inside out to avoid finishing last. 36 miles, that one. I think it's the only team time trial around on open roads

To the OP - here is a good starting point for finding out what's what http://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/

In reply to The New NickB:

Yeah I did a few, just rock up and sign up normally. They were pretty low key, plenty will have the full set up but the standard bike is fine. Look at the results and you should get an idea of the quality there.

In reply to nniff:



That sounds like a Dursley Pedersen? http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/62869000/jpg/_62869986_7ec11152-c3c7-...

Wonderful machines. My Dad has one and it's a great bit of engineering, but not exactly ideal for riding fast on!

To the OP; as others have said, get in touch with your local club and find out what their arrangements are. Almost always, you will need to be a member with them or anther Cycling Time Trials (CTT) affiliated club - there are a few 'come and try' events but they're extremely rare! Someone mentioned helmets; if it's run under CTT regs then they're not compulsory, but some clubs may insist.

Time trialling is definitely an acquired taste and it could do with being a lot more accessible, but's worth getting into...they hurt and you have to enjoy the mental side of it, but the satisfaction of knocking time off your PBs is well worth it!

In reply to Byronius Maximus:

That's the thing - his one was gleaming. I suppose he did about 17mph average on it over 10 miles on an undulating course, which wasn't bad at the age of 80 something!

In reply to ro8x:

> Tuesday night 10. Turn up and pay your £2 and get a number.

Dunno where they run club 10's with only a £2 entry fee. Almost all time trials are run under CTT rules, and CTT takes a levy of £2 for each rider - leaving nothing for the organising club. My club ( Southport CC) run a series of evening 10's on Thursdays from early April to the end of August and the entry fee is £4 per rider. The only time we charge £2 per rider is for our 'closed' Boxing day event that is run purely for our own club members.

We allow non club riders to 'try it out' for 2 events, after which time they are requested to join a club that is affilliated to CTT -- Keeps things right for insurance purposes.

In reply to nniff: > Evening 10s or 15s are on Thursday evenings around here. Pay your £1.50 and 50p for tea and cake afterwards.

Highly surprised at the entry prices -- your club must subsidise the events, or they are not being run under the auspices of Cyling Time Trials (CTT). CTT charges a levy of £2 per rider in both open and closed club events. Here in Lancashire the police will only permit time trials on the highway if they are run under CTT regulations - I'd be surprised if it were different elsewhere in the country.

PS I'm an accredited timekeeper so know a thing or two about organising events.

In reply to Lord of Starkness:

Alan

Where does your club run its time trials?

In reply to The New NickB:

On the A59 between Tarleton and Preston.

http://oldsite.southportcc.co.uk/SubPages/TimeTrial/TimeTrial%20Course%20De...

First event this year is on 7th April - first man off at 18.45
For the rest of the season the first man off is at 19.01, except for the last event which is an 18.45 start
The Last Thursdays of May, June & july are 25's.

In reply to Lord of Starkness:

It might have been £2 - missed last two summers as my job meant I couldn't get back in time - but for the OP - it's around that sort of ball park, but still glove compartment of the car level of change!

In reply to Lord of Starkness:

Some clubs did decide to subsidise the levy when CTT increased it a few year's back. In fact prior to that my club TTs were free to club members so they were already subsidising.