RST Lübeck Time Trial Cup – Round 4 (Salem) Training Plan & Preparation

Course & Elevation

For round four, the RST Lübeck time trial cup moves to Salem in the Duchy of Lauenburg district. At 13.8 km it is the longest course of the series — and also the steadiest: the profile contains not a single climb worth the name. A mere 59 metres of gain spread across the full distance, over 60 percent of it flat, the rest barely perceptible undulations between 38 and 62 metres of altitude with a faint net descent overall.

Like every round of the series it runs on a Tuesday evening from 18:15, on open public roads under normal traffic rules. Two separate classifications are scored — TT bikes and road bikes without aero extensions — and entry is by simple email until the Sunday before the race, with guest starters expressly welcome. If you are after time trialling in its purest form, this is it: no tactics, no crests to recover behind, just one long, quiet stretch of country road through the Lauenburg countryside where every fluctuation in power shows up directly on the clock.

Pacing Strategy

As a point-to-point course this time trial is shaped heavily by wind: it blows from the same direction across the full 13.8 kilometres, where a loop would average it out. Check beforehand whether the route mostly favours a tail or head wind and meter your effort accordingly — even and low into a headwind, a bigger gear with a tailwind.

The profile is 62 percent flat and drops gently (eight metres net), with no real climbs but several soft metre-high rolls running through it. Keep the pressure constant over these rolls rather than sagging up and coasting down.

The race is decided by even metering across the full distance; the trap is an over-ambitious start on fresh legs that turns into lost speed in the final third.

12-Week Preparation

13.8 level kilometres put the typical committed amateur at roughly 19 to 24 minutes of racing — an effort ridden almost exactly at functional threshold with a slight overshoot. Unlike the shorter rounds of the series, this distance does not forgive an exuberant start: go five minutes too hard at the gun and the second half will charge interest.

The course imposes no structure of its own — no ramps, no technical sections to break the rhythm. That is precisely the demand: maximum evenness for close to half an hour. The decisive phase is the middle third, after the opening freshness is gone but before the finish pulls you home; this is where disciplined pacing separates itself from wishful thinking.

In training, that calls for classic threshold blocks: two to three efforts of 12 to 20 minutes at threshold, building toward holding the full race duration in the aero position without interruption. A weekly steady-output session — say 20 minutes at a fixed wattage with no spikes — develops the internal calibration that this course rewards above all else. As the longest round of the series it also merits sorting gearing choices ahead of time and riding the aero position regularly for at least four to six weeks beforehand. Explosiveness, repeated accelerations and climbing strength are simply not on the exam.