NosTTalgia: A Love Letter to the TT Bike
An ode to the discipline that made my career.
September 25th, 2018
I’m sprawled on the ground somewhere in the middle of Innsbruck. One foot is clipped into my bike, the other is straight out fighting the impending cramp. There’s a healthy streak of saliva hanging from the corner of my mouth and my chest is pounding. I’ve just crossed the line in the Junior World TT Championships and gone into the hot seat.
That day, I’d go onto sprawl myself across the Shimano hot-seat on centre stage. It was one of the best rides and possibly best days of my life. I finished 8th in the world.
April 3rd 2025
I’m rolling around the flatlands of Boulder grinning like a Cheshire cat. It’s my first time on a TT bike in almost a year, and I can't help but feel nostalgic. I don’t get to ride a TT bike often these days. I’m nostalgic, how the heck did TTing around Lincolnshire lead me here?
My brain is going to go in a million directions as you read this piece.
There’s many reasons I don’t spend much time on the TT rig these days, namely the lack of any big one day race, but also because nobody really cares about TTing. It’s expensive, it’s a pain, and more often than not it includes violating certain sponsor agreements if you want to go fast.
It becomes more and more difficult to fit time-trial kilometres into my calendar which spans multiple continents and disciplines. It’s difficult to explain to people that I’m doing TT blocks and missing events which could be important when it comes to social media activations or the like.
Then there’s the cost. Even in my fortunate position of getting most things covered for me, every time I do a TT block it seems to cost me a thousand dollars in something.
Yet, like a forbidden love, I keep coming back. Afterall, it’s the time trial bike that has given me my best memories in the sport, heck I owe my career to it…
NosTTalgia
My first taste of success in cycling - winning the 10-Mile GHS schoolboy champs back in 2016 - came on the TT bike. A year later it was the same race that taught me a valuable lesson in defeat. I finished 2nd by a handful of seconds and spat my dummy out. My Dad took me to the side to give me some stern words about being as gracious in defeat as I was in success.
The ride I still dine out on to this day—the Ster van Zuid-Limburg prologue. Yep, the race where I rolled Remco. I can picture Bas van Belle, my Dutch teammate who passed away last year, translating the time gaps into English for me. Then the whole team dancing around the tent of my adopted Belgian squad, Soenens-Boom, when it was announced that I’d won.
There are those days driving around the country with my parents chasing course and national records. A drive to Wales and the R25/3H brought me a handful of seconds away from the junior national record, then a trip over the bridge to the V718 brought me a handful of seconds away from the ‘10’ record too. Heartbreak.
It’s not all highs though. The lowest of lows at 2019 National Champs, maybe the worst ride of my life. Struggling at the Flanders Tomorrow Tour, coming back from injury, I couldn’t understand why my result was buried in the thirties.
Though, it was time-trialing that led to my introduction to a certain Mr Alex Dowsett, the man who I owe everything I’ve done in cycling to. I wish I could go back to the GB hotel at Innsbruck Worlds. I remember sitting on the couch in the lobby with Alex. He was talking me through a pacing plan and how to execute a perfect ride. Those power targets never came true - my power meter died five minutes into the race…
The more I think about it, the more I realise how important that discipline has been.
The Reprise
I’m panic training once again. It seems every time I pick up the TT bike these days it’s for panic training. Gone are the days when a Tuesday night Club 10 was the norm.
There’s a whole list of things you forget when you haven’t trained in the TT bars for a while. The micro-adjustments to a new position. The speed you carry, even at a leisurely 200 watts. Oh, and the fear of God when a car looks like it might pull out—while you’re sitting in the skis, a full second away from the brakes.
It’s just above freezing at 08:30 in the morning as I roll around the roads of Boulder on reco day. I’m admiring the bike as I go, totting up the value of parts in my head. There’s no doubt that time-trialling has changed since I first started a decade ago.
For better or worse, it’s an arms race. Speed is for sale. The equipment side of things is something that I both love and love to hate. It’s what put me off the discipline for a few years when I was riding sub-standard ‘stock’ team bike set-ups. It’s frustrating sitting on a start line knowing that the team next to you has a faster helmet, better skinsuit, or overshoe.
Equally, it’s the side that I love to embrace. I’m not sure what year the tide started to turn on the equipment side of things. Somewhere around 2018 or 2019, the tide turned. You could no longer bodge aerodynamics to the same level - wind tunnels became relatively standard.
Away from the team pursuit on the track, it’s the closest cycling comes to motorsport. The ultimate intersection between human physiology and world class engineering.
There’s a part of me that’s annoyed that I haven’t done aero-testing or got into a wind tunnel. Then again, it doesn’t really matter. It’s only Redlands.
More TTo Come?
I’m writing this now because I don’t want the result of next week’s TT to influence how I feel. There’s a certain process to TTs. Hours and hours are spent nailing the internal cabling, getting the Di2 set-up right and of course, the position UCI legal.
Until everything goes right, TT bikes are a nightmare, and I understand why a certain corner of the sport wants to outlaw them. Equally, TTing is an art. It’s where engineering, aerodynamics, psychology, biomechanics and physiology all come out to plan in the simplest of fashion: man vs. clock.
Alexey, thanks for the loan. I fear you’ve just cost me a few thousand dollars.
An ode to the TT bike. I’m not in the country for National Champs this season, but 2026?
While you’re here…
I’ve added a paid subscription and a ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ link to this post. As the year progresses, I’m planning on building this blog and putting out articles which I’ve always wanted to write but, for whatever reason, haven’t wanted to pitch. Your contributions allow me to do that.
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/joelaverick
The following brands are racing partners of mine which allow me to do cool stuff.
Pulling my TT bike off of the hooks in the garage tomorrow to take it for it's first spin in almost a year. Sadly there aren't many TTs left here in the states so often times I look at the bike and know/want to ride it but then say to myself "what for its just one race". Thankfully I do have some races with TTs coming up...so I'll panic train with you! Thanks for sharing.