Rob Coapman's 10-mile TT

In August 2002, Rob Coapman recorded a 10-mile ITT with his Power Tap hub built into a Zipp disk rear wheel. Rob's data file is available here (21KB) as a comma-delimited ASCII file.

Rob recorded a 21:32 for this race (his personal best on this particular course is 21:08). Below, you will see two plots of Rob's data. The top panel shows Rob's power during the course of the TT, with a line showing his average for the entire ride. The bottom panel shows his gear usage during the ride.

The graphs suggest that the course was a mostly flat out-and-back, with a turnaround and either a slight rise or a slight headwind on the outbound leg. This was verified by Rob.

Note that the power was quite even, though he did average slightly more wattage on the way out than on the way back (425 watts out, 404 watts back, for an overall average of 415 watts; Rob is a big guy at 195lbs).

The calculated gear ratios are a surprise: Rob was averaging 80rpm on the way back, and at his speeds I calculated gear ratios in excess of 5.0; Rob also verified that he uses a 56-tooth chainring and that on the return leg he occasionally got into a 56x11.

In June 2002, Rob broke the course record (in finishing third) during the 40km TT of the USCF North Atlantic Region Championships.


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