IAM Cycling Training for the Team Time Trial

With the 4 Days of Dunkirk and the Tour of Bern barely finished, IAM Cycling gathered its troops again to prepare for one of its major objectives for the season.  Under the leadership of Marcello Albasini and Rubens Bertogliati, seven riders gathered together in the area around Frauenfeld, in the north of Switzerland, to drill themselves for three days in riding the team time trial.

After having six two hour sessions, Marcello Albasini explained the reasons for the training camp, which will be repeated at least twice between now and the World Championships that are scheduled to take place this September in Ponferrada (Spain).

“We have set a very specific goal at the beginning of the season.  IAM Cycling decided to register for this special event and we want to perform well in it.  We must therefore work hard in order to hope to get a result that matches our expectations.  You cannot improvise a team time trial.  One must turn to the specialists at the discipline since the effort is different from that which is required to ride an individual time trial.  A team time trial requires one to be a rouleur, of course, but one needs to ride as consistently as possible.  Riding a time trial course in unison with six, eight or nine riders means one must focus on the intensities, the relays, the departure, without forgetting the specifics of the course.”  

By doing their training in Albasini’s home region of the Swiss Thurgau region, the directeur sportif and team trainer stressed that they needed to find the best rider order and to learn how to ride together in formation without having to think about it.

“We managed to do a good job.  Physically, such an effort is challenging.  The guys should be able to repeat 30 second intensities with watts that are much greater than when doing a single effort.  We need these days to see the mistakes we make and then correct them.  We have to find the best rider to start off the time trial at the proper speed, and then also determine the group order.  It is all about finding the best way for seven guys to relay at 60 km/h, increasing their output, without causing a gap.  The right touch is not easy to find.”

The riders have been selected due to their abilities as individual time triallists, and have been included on the team time trial squad early in the season in order so that they can maximize their individual training and preparation for the event.  Marcello Albasini has started to add other additional exercises to each rider’s schedule for the weeks to come to ensure that everyone is in top form for the upcoming sessions during the months of August and September.

“The intensity is so high that we cannot exceed more than three days for this type of training.  The guys really hurt themselves during these sessions.  For the next one, we will look for some sort of racetrack.  But it must be long enough and have some types of climbs and turns.  At the World Championships, the course will have a climb with a 10% gradient and a descent with a 13% grade.  It is not easy to find a course that is closed to traffic but also corresponds to the types of characteristics that we will find in Spain on September 21^st.”