May 15 Time Trial Information

This is our first time trial of the year, and we want you to know all about it. Please read through everything!

BASIC INFORMATION

This is our first time trial of the year. We want to make sure that parents and families know that they are invited to come and watch/participate, as we want to replicate somewhat a race type atmosphere. Come cheer on your rider and our team!

We will be riding the Eagle Mountain Race Course - this is the same course that we will race for Regionals (High School riders). Time trials are used as a great baseline for us so that we can appropriately group you into training groups during the season, and they help prepare us for race days. They simulate many of the aspects of a race day, from wave starts, timed racing, race course distance, check-in and pitzone, and more. They are a super important part of our year.

DATE: Saturday May 15th

TIME: 7:30 am - 12:00 pm - ends when all riders are off the course

LOCATION: Eagle Mountain Race Course

CONTACT INFO: If, for any reason, you need to contact us during the event or before, please use slack, or text/call either Coach Clark at 801-691-3249 or Bryant Ercanbrack at 801-916-1323. Please know, we are going to be pretty busy, so we’ll have someone monitoring Slack for us, and we’ll answer/respond as quickly as possible. Ultimately, it is your responsibility to know when things are, where to be, and what times, etc. It is all posted here in the email, will be in Slack, and will be on our wiki.

See numbers on Map and matching descriptions below for the key places for the weekend:

  1. Hidden Hollow Elementary: We will have someone there to shuttle anyone who needs a ride from there to the rock pile. That will run only until 8:00, after which you will need to get yourself to the rock pile.

  2. This is the access road that runs up from the school (first bit is paved), and up to what we call the Rock Pile (marked by a very large pile of rocks. It is about 1.5 miles from the school.

  3. This is the rock pile. Follow the road till you see a pile of rocks, a flat dirt parking lot, and other cars parked there. Please do not park in other places, unless it fills up, in which case we will direct to other parking in the area that is authorized by the property owner.

  4. This is the check-in and our “pitzone”. It is near the finish line, and not far from the start as well.

RACE COURSE

The race course we use is the NICA (our league) race course here in Eagle Mountain. You can preview it here: https://www.trailforks.com/route/eagle-mountain-uhscl-course/map/

The course is 5.9 miles long (every group did at least that many miles last Saturday), and has a total of 500 ft of elevation climbing and 500 ft descent.

It is very typical of a race course we ride for our races. In fact, this one will be used for the High School Regional Championships for our region this year on October 2nd.

See the map below for a general idea of how it flows. The number 1 is where we start, number 12 is where we end. The rest of the numbers are where we will have people stationed throughout the time to guide and watch for riders.

TIME TRIAL TIMELINE

7:00 am : Coaches Setup course and Pitzone
7:30 am : Check-in begins (see schedule)
8:15 am : First wave of the day begins!

See wave schedule for full time schedule for each wave, and what wave you are in.

WAVE SCHEDULE

We will be sending riders out in waves (smaller groups of riders) to keep trail congestion down. Here is the link to our wave groupings/schedule - find what group you are in and make sure to check-in on time, get warmed up, and be ready to go!

WAVE SCHEDULE

Know that if you are injured and cannot ride, we still encourage you to come and participate cheering, etc with us on Saturday. If you are in this category (injured), we also did not list you on the wave list - we are aware of you, however.

TIME TRIAL PREPARATION

Time trials are not easy. Riders are trying their best on the course and pushing their limits. It’s important that they come prepared for the day. Here are some important tips to be ready:

  1. Start hydrating 2-3 days before, making sure you are fully ready on Saturday

  2. Make sure you get good sleep for at least the day or two leading up to the race

  3. Get out this week and ride! getting some riding in will keep you body primed for a hard ride on Saturday. Ride hardest at the start of the week, and then go lighter each day (Tapering). I would recommend maybe taking Friday off and resting the legs, or maybe just a light, easy ride.

  4. Eat breakfast. Get up early enough to eat on Saturday. DO NOT eat a bunch of sugary food. Eat some protein, along with some good carbohydrates, but don’t overdo it. Keep it simple.

  5. Bring a water bottle or other water system to keep yourself hydrated on the time trial.

  6. Make sure your bike is tuned up. We will have repair stands and tools to help on Saturday, but you need to come early enough to get that help before you warm up. We will have innertubes for emergencies only, and they will cost the price of what we paid for them. We will provide lube at no cost if you need it, but you should have a clean bike before.

  7. Clean and lube your bike - try to give it a cleaning and a lube before coming if you can. There are a lot of great youtube videos on how to do that.

CLOSING THOUGHTS/INFO

IF YOU CANNOT MAKE THE TIME TRIAL:

If, for some reason, you are unable to make the time trail, we have a few options for you:

  1. You can go out to the course and ride it on your own, recording your ride on Strava and letting us see it, so we know your time.

  2. We will have a makeup day in after June 1 during one of our first few practices were you will be able to ride it as well and we will record it.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

This is our pre-season time trial. It is a starting point. Placement only makes sure you get put into the appropriate level practice group. Those groups are not permanent, and you will have plenty of opportunities to move up or down as you need and can progress to. We will have other time trials as well, to measure your improvement. These are supposed to be both hard and super fun, as you get to feel what racing is like a bit, and get to have people cheering for you as you go. So come have fun, do your best, and let the results motivate you, no matter what, to progress this season!