Do you enjoying number crunching during and after your rides? Love riding in the saddle? Prefer long, steady high power efforts over short jumpy ones? Well, you are likely to be a Classics TT Rider.
The Classics Time Trial rider is an endurance-centric athlete who matches this ability with unmatched short, explosive power, creating a unique ability to time trial. They are the hard men and women of cycling who embrace difficult terrain, harsh conditions, and adventure. They can ride solo off the front of a group, climb medium-length hills well, time trial strongly, and ride at a high level in the peloton.
This rider is like an engineer, who is methodical in their approach to almost everything in life. They love to analyze data and solve complicated problems and are rarely seen out of control. They approach situations with logic rather than emotion. They rarely go into competitions without a solid plan that they’ve forged through research and experience. They have a very specific way of doing things, which lends itself to a certain degree of stubbornness. Whether it’s at a spring classic or a gravel event, these athletes are gritty and are not shaken easily.
Rider Pro Rider Examples: Fabian Cancellara, Bradley Wiggins, Chloé Dygert Owen, Kristin Armstrong.
Physique: Taller, muscular, long femurs.
Physical Strengths: Strong endurance, powerful, favors in-the-saddle riding to develop power, prefers steadier riding overall, explosive ability, can do both short explosive efforts and longer sustained TT-like efforts, and steady shallow climbing.
Physical Weaknesses: Long sustained climbs, long climbs with terrain changes, and multi-day stage races or hard efforts.
Mental Strengths: Gritty, determined, resilient, strong mental endurance, and intense short focus.
Mental Weaknesses: Often too focused on other riders, struggles with intense focus for long periods of time, and uncomfortable with physical pressure on climbs.
Ideal Races/Events: Rolling endurance events, events with rough terrain or difficult weather conditions like rain, wind, cold, and or mud, short and long time trials, and endurance time trials.
Ideal Race-Winning Strategy: In a hard, long race of attrition, break the group down to a select few. Win with a strong solo attack or ride away from the other riders.