Northern hemisphere time triallists are an elusive species in winter time. With little competition available, they can be most often found tucked away in cosy pubs or at home working on extensive Christmas lists designed to improve their CdA.
The time trial bike might get an outing, decked out with tinsel, on the Boxing Day '10', but other than that is liable to languish in the shed for several months as its owner grows ever more itchy to pin on a number once again.
However, race-starved testers now have winter options. UK TT governing body Cycling Time Trials has launched the second iteration of its Winter Time Trial Series on Zwift, and the number of riders taking part so far suggest that there are plenty out there already missing competition.
"It's had an amazing response, with over 1,100 rides over the first week [across two events]," CTT chair Andrea Parish told Cycling Weekly.
"The objective is outreach into the wider cycling online community to reach cyclists who've not ridden CTT time trials – also, it's great fun," she added.
"Building an online, supportive community is a fantastic way to evangelise for the sport while providing a competitive outlet. It's keeping CTT front and centre during winter too, and anecdotally, from others, I fully expect to see riders transition to our real-life events next season," she said.
"I see this as an important part of CTT and pretty forward-looking. It's more investing in the future rather than immediate revenue"
Parish also said the CTT Zwift Club had amassed more than 1,200 members and the Discord and club chats had proved extremely popular.
The series is being run by elite time triallist Hayley Simmonds, who also ran it last year and is joined this time round by Ali McLean and Phil Gilbanks.
"Hayley, Ali and Phil are super-committed and are volunteers in this," Parish points out.
The series should offer enough racing for even the most eager online time triallist, with two races weekly all the way through to the end of February. There is a break of nearly three weeks between December 20 and January 7 – enough time to fully digest the turkey and play with your Christmas presents, and perhaps don a Santa hat for that Boxing Day 10.
It features a variety of courses on all kinds of terrains, from the flat, 10.3-mile London Classique to the super-hilly Everything Bagel in New York, which measures 21.7 miles and promises to be a tough call.
Events are held at 7pm GMT on Wednesday evenings, and are repeated at 9am on the Saturday.
All riders are welcome, and you can dip in and out of the series as you wish. However, there is the option of competing for an overall series placing, you'll need to race in seven of the 14 weeks, and include four flat rounds, two rolling and one mountainous.
Elsewhere Parish was keen to highlight the performance of the CTT website, which had been revamped at the beginning of this year and had so far seen 5.2 million views, against 1.1 million total last year.
