Time Trialists: 1. Setting up your forecast

Racing a time trial is all about squeezing every bit of your potential out within the distance and time set. Falling short in race preparation is a disservice to the efforts you make in training, lifestyle and during the race itself. In this series of posts I will guide you on how to get the most out of myWindsock.com cycling weather forecasts for your time trial event.

Let’s take a look at how to get set up with the most accurate forecast.

Time trial course loaded
Time trial course loaded

The very first thing to do with any forecast is check the time and date of the forecast. If you have used the Open Events directory or Time Trial Finder this should be correct but it’s worth checking or adjusting for later start times. Click the icon to reveal the available forecasts.

Before we start checking out the numbers we first of all I need to check that the physics engine is using good estimates for my expected performance on the day. Clicking the icon in the top left corner reveals the Performance options tab. From here I can set some loose parameters for the physics engine to use when making predictions and metric calculations.

Adjust the parameters for accurate forecasting
Adjust the parameters for accurate forecasting

If you don’t know what numbers to enter for Watts, Rolling resistance and CdA check out the advice here Performance Options.

In the next article we look at getting the most out of the myWindsock forecast maps and charts.

Author: Ben Norbury

Ben Norbury is four times Manchester & District Middle Distance and Best All Rounder Time Trial Champion from 2016-2019. During this time he developed software to eliminate uncertainty of the weather conditions out of his pre-race preparation.