Malcolm Firth's 10 mile TT pacing suggestions agree with my thinking very much. I arrived at my conclusions over a lifetime of poor time trial riding (and a wish to improve), and much close observation of great time trial riders. In the 80s I worked for several professional teams, and was able to observe many great riders in person. The key observation for me personally was a Tour de France yime trial of more than an hour in which Bernard Hinault was one of the favourites. Hinault rolled off the start ramp, and when he hit the transition to the pavement, his sunglasses were knocked off his face. He somehow caught them in his hand, and then sat up and rode no handed, calmly placing the sunglasses back on his face, even looked around at the crowd for a moment. I was amazed, many of the others had started so seriously, some almost sprinting away. But the finish was completely different. On the run into the finish, Hinault came in like a freight train, his eyes totally focused. This was 110% riding, nothing but pure power.

From this moment onward, I vowed to 'Start easy, Finish hard'. It has been the single most important insight in time trial riding. I'm 42 years old now, so I would have been a little over 30 then. My best 25 mile (40k) time then would have been around 58 minutes. Last weekend I rode 52:45, a personal best for me. I've never been a morning person, and all our time trials are very early morning. I never sleep beforehand, and never warm up correctly, so this time was pretty much from a cold start. It would appear that I might ride even faster if I could find a time trial that started in the afternoon or evening.

A second observation I've found very helpful. American rider Thurlow Rogers was well known for his ultrafast spin, usually two gears lower than the average rider. One year at the Master's 35-39 National Championships he had to ride a 25 mile time trial, a 76 mile road race, and 45 mile criterium in three successive days. He won the time trial on a hilly course in around 50 minutes, and won the road race in a solo breakaway over an entire chasing field. The third day he got in an early break in the criterium on a flat, open and windy course. By halfway point he was alone again, averaging just under 30mph, still spinning his two gears lower, perhaps a 53 x 16 or 15. Over the second half of the race, he grew fatigued. Unable to maintain his normal ultrafast cadence, he was forced to change up. By the final laps he was slogging around in 53xl2. But each lap the announced lap time and average speed never changed.

I realised that there is a cascade of cadence, and that if you can start at the highest pedal revs you can maintain power at, for each stage of fatigue you can upshift a single gear, and drop cadence gradually. By the time you reach the endpoint, you have produced constant power over a much longer period of time than if you had started at a normal cadence to begin with.

I think you can extend this observation to the 2000 Tour de France and Lance Armstrong's ultra-fast spinning in the Prologue, and first mountain stage where he established his lead. As he fatigued, day by day, his cadence visibly decreased, until he and Pantani appeared to be both turning similar big gears at low revs. By the time he was dropped (on the joux-Plaine) he was pedalling very slowly. The point is, that if Lance hadn't developed the ultrafast spin to begin with, he would have reached this low revs fatigue point several days earlier, because his range of power would be smaller.

I call this range of power the 'envelope,' just as jet fighter pilots describe the graph of velocity vs. altitude as an aircraft's envelope. You want the largest envelope possible: if your aircraft has an area that your combatants doesn't, you fly to that portion of the envelope to escape. In cycling the envelope is the graph of power vs. pedal revs. By maximizing this area, you can use it to defeat competitors by tactically riding in portions of your envelope that they don't possess; or by using the extended power before fatigue time to force your competitors into premature fatigue.

This concept of envelope has led me to a training program that emphasises the extremes in pedal revs and torque. I've found that if you can turn high revs with power, and low revs with power, all pedal revs in the middle naturally has power also. Therefore, the training that works best tends to try and stretch the corners of the envelope out further. There are several examples of riders using similar training achieving spectacular results. Perhaps the most famous would be Graham O'bree and his ultra high revs on his turbo trainer combined with the ultra-low revs when mountain bike riding up the moors in his biggest gear. His envelope would be very large, by riding with power at these extreme pedal revs.