Age: 38 Hometown: Loughborough, Leicestershire Occupation: Lecturer in sports engineering Rides for: Coalville Wheelers Current FTP: 290W (estimated) @SHFaulkner stevefaulkner1984
My goal for this Project was to ride 10 miles in less than 20 minutes. It was a simple, specific target, and one that was never going to be easy to achieve. Now here we are six months on and I have to confess to you, dear reader: I failed. I’m making no excuses and will admit I’m disappointed, but there are plenty of positives to take away. Firstly, I’ve enjoyed being accountable to the Project – because you were reading, I knew I couldn’t jack it in!
By midway through, I realised the goal was slipping from my grasp: family and work commitments were such that my training hours were seriously squeezed. Conscious that going sub-20 was growing less realistic by the day, I remained determined to give it my best shot. And there are some sweet crumbs of consolation. From a performance perspective, although I missed out on my primary goal, I was really pleased to set a new 10-mile PB of 20.52 – over a minute faster than my previous best. I also reclaimed my club’s 25-mile title and finished a close second in the ‘10’. It was fun to experiment too.
For the first time in my life, I really focused on improving my aerodynamics through tech and position optimisation. This meant I was able to make time gains despite limited training, getting my CdA down to 0.175. At the start of the Project, I’d have needed over 400 watts to break 20 minutes, whereas by the end I was so aero that I needed only around 315 watts – 85 watts less! It’s an uncomfortable truth that time trialling is something of an arms race. I was lucky in having support from some top brands, but if you’re serious about winning, you’d better have plentiful funds.
Being on the Project also meant I paid closer attention to small details: for example, taking caffeine and beetroot shots before rac
