Rider Chat: Tom Temple (Junior)

With a PB in the ‘19s’ for the 10 mile TT, Tom Temple is one of many fast young 17 year olds – we spoke to him about going fast …

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Rider Chat: Tom Temple (Junior)

With Juniors these days doing times for 10 and 25 miles that even seniors back in the 70s could only dream of when there were no tri bars, disc or deep section wheels, VeloUK was curious how these youngsters were going so quick.

Back in the 70’s,it was time trialing on road bikes with ‘spokies’ although interestingly enough, even though the bikes were heavier back then, having seen a pro TT bike at the Tour of Britain weigh in just under 10kilos, at least that was something that made me feel better about the old school weapons.

Modern bikes though are in a different league to the ones I grew up using in time trials but you still need to pedal them and to do times under 20 minutes for 10 miles takes a special kind of young rider. Tom Temple, who rides for a team sponsored by his dad’s bike shops Primera Sports, (Primera Sports Team Jobs) is just such a rider.

The week before the 10 champs, he did a 19.23 on the V718 which shows that there’s some power in those legs to turn the pedals around quickly and whilst his result at the 10 champs (9th, a minute shy of the winner) was disappointing, at the end of a long season, Tom has happy enough with the ride.

Curious about juniors who can ride so fast these days, I spoke to 17 year old Tom before the 10 championship who explained how he does a lot of road racing which has been the main aim but how time trialling is also something he is looking to do well at next season in events such as the national 10 and 25.

Asked how he’s got to the point where he can ride for 10 miles at 30mph plus, something those who have tried and failed to do for even a single mile will respect, Tom explained “It’s taken a lot of hard work. I do a lot of FTP (Functional Threshold Power) work and zone 4 threshold efforts to build the power up and up. It’s the power and the aero dynamics that helps get you that speed.”

“Riding at 30mph is only recently something I have been able to achieve over 10 miles but in training I have been able to do it for about a year now”.

Tom, who is still at school, explained “I have a few rest days during the week, like Monday, then Tuesday would be intervals on the road like 20 minute threshold efforts and then Wednesday I do some power, low cadence work to build the power on the hills and then some more FTP work and speed work in the week.”

To measure the power he is putting through the pedals, he uses Garmin Vector pedals but is looking at moving over to the renowned instrument for measuring power, SRM. He’s not been racing that long explaining how he got into riding with his dad who took a 15 year old Tom to races to see how he got on. Very well is how …

One of Tom’s recent highlights was doing the ‘19’ on the V718. Asked to describe the course, he says “It is a very quick course with a smooth surface. You start at the dual carriageway from a downhill slope and keep going before turning left to go to two roundabouts at the top of the course. They are slow turns but after the second one you have a nice downhill to get the momentum going again”.

He said he his maximum speed was 38 mph during his 19 minute ride.

To do that you need a fast bike and the one Tom has been using is a Kuota Kalibur. It has the latest Dura Ace Di2, Zip disc rear wheel and Enve 7.8 front deep section. As for tyres, he explained how there is a lot of debate on tyres and tyre pressures so he used 95 psi in his SWorks 24mm clinchers.

Finally, asked what his season highlight was, he says the win on the Sopley course, the P311 which locally is called the ‘rumble strip’ because of its bumps and the time he did was one which pleased him. No doubt the times will get even quicker though from this young man, an example of the very good bike riders coming through into the sport. Good luck to Tom in the future…

 

 

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