Essay: On the Defense of the Time Trial
(2021) The UCI World Championship is underway in the city of Brugge, Belgium, and it couldn’t have served a better role. With a cycling calendar in constant change, a World Championship in the heart of cycling could not have been a more refreshing tonic. The week started with a deflating time trial for Belgium, where Filippo Ganna quieted the home crowd by sending Belgians Wout van Aeart and Remco Evenepoel to the bottom of the podium. All the while, the echoes of people commenting that the ‘race of truth’ is supremely boring.
The Belgian course was perfectly suited for the discipline of time trial. There were no climbs, no technical turns really. It was sheer horsepower where one drop in power could lead to a tumbling down the leaderboard. These are the dragsters of cycling, science instead of art. Recognizing that the time trial specialists and their niche bikes and equipment divorce them from the identifiable peloton is what makes the race of truth supremely masterful.
As one who dabbled in time trials, it has been something relished as time has passed. When triathletes came into the shop asking for a TT bike but with a comfortable set up, it was hard to relay that the bikes are an extension of suffering. The joke, “They ride fast because if you were as uncomfortable as they were, you’d race to finish quickly, too,” was often used. There is no comfort in time trials, nor will there ever be. Don’t let the poker faces with strings of drool fool, a time trial specialist is an engine fifty revs from exploding.
If road racing were art, time trials are science. Come to the windtunnel to have an elbow pulled in a centimeter, saw an inch off the tail of the aero helmet in the event the rider looks down a lot. Which 3D-printed aero bars produce the most results? A disc on the back, but which deep section wheel on the front? The team radio now clings to the chest instead of resting on the back. The everyday cyclist can hardly identify with kitted out specialists who manage to average double wattage with 56-tooth rings. All this is unimaginable to us. And when was the last time anyone saw a time trial bike for sale in a shop?
A long time ago, Route 29 time trials saw us with a questionably-legal bike line up for the monthly events. Often Category 5 ranked riders would average nearly 50 kph, taking home hardware that hardly seemed consistent with ranking. One year our team time trial was swapping lead positions on our TT bikes while an Individual Time Trialist kept pace next to us for nearly ten miles. How does that happen? Even when cyclists manage to roll off the start, specialists befuddle us. They shirk riding in packs, but they can suffer in a straight line.
Luckily the Brugge course played to the discipline’s skill. The Tour has minimized the role of time trials; fear they may be removed altogether has been whispered. Seeing the crowds leaning into the tree-lined course for the men’s and women’s elite as well as the U23 versions of the World Championship show that given the right setting, a time trial is darling stuff. Last time I checked, the NHRA doesn’t send dragsters up hills or install a turn mid-track. If time trials are meant to be truthful, Brugge delivered with a truthfully blistering course proving that time trials are enjoyable science.
