With CycleOps Power product manager, Jesse Bartholomew on the scene at this year's 2008 Giro d’ Italia Team Time Trial, CycleOps was able to download data from almost every rider on the Slipstream team. That's a lot of data, and it begs the question: where to begin?

Our first thought was to take all the riders' power data and graph it over time. Doing this, we get a graph like this:

Aside from showing that Magnus Backstedt had the highest maximum power, the graph is just a bunch of nonsensical jagged lines. The more compelling story comes from looking at each rider's data individually.

With the training and race preparation under their belts, Team Slipstream shows how to execute a successful time trial on the day of the event.

1. Preride the course.
2. Check your equipment.
3. Have a pacing stragegy.
4. Keep your cool.
5. Do a proper warmup.
6. Follow your plan.
7. CELEBRATE!

Watch Team Slipstream put these steps into action...

from Jesse Bartholomew

With Team Slipstream’s success at the Tour of Georgia we knew there would be a big opportunity at the upcoming Giro and we wanted to be there to help however we could. The amount of preparation for the opening stage’s team time trial is staggering. When I arrived in Palermo, Sicily almost 4 days before the start of the race, team staff had already arrived and begun preparations and the riders had been preparing for weeks prior to that even with camps at their home base in Girona, Spain.

Rocky Reifenstuhl

2008 marks my 21st year of human-powered racing on the Iditarod Trail. I finished 5th in the 350-miler, with the 1,000 mile Nome race as my main focus. The 350 miles to McGrath were nearly all ridable, and the best- and most fun mountain biking.

After my 5th in the 350-mile McGrath race, I departed 15 hours later for Nome. I rode the 43 miles to Ophir, and then pushed nearly ALL of the 250 miles from Ophir to Galena in soft, unbroken, snow-drifted trails. And those 5 days of leaning over the bike 15 to 17 hours each day was too much for my right rhomboid back muscles. Additionally, my right arm and hand did not respond to my commands due to severe tendonitis partly from desperately trying to ride impossible trails.

by CycleOps Power Master Trainer, Charles "Joey" Adams

Are you a slow twitcher, a fast twitcher or do you just twitch when you get on your bike? It comes down to the specificity of how you train and knowing your power zones. Cycling is primarily an aerobic sport. The longer you use and develop your aerobic engine the stronger you will ride, unless you are trying to become a track sprinter. As you take a close look at the physiology of muscle fiber types you discover the keys to zone training and your power zones. In a very simplistic sense the Fast Twitch IIb fibers are your sprint fibers (the Phosphogen or PCr system below), the Fast Twitch IIa fibers are your Anaerobic Glycolysis fibers, and the Slow Twitch fibers are the Aerobic fibers. You can see in the graph below how these fibers might play out in the land of track and field (source ACSM).