Note that BestBikeSplit is one of my partners

How much faster can you ride with 10 watts more? How much time do I lose when sitting up compared to being aero? How much time do I save if I buy a Shimano Dura Ace cassette compared to the Ultegra version which weighs 58 grams more but cost on a third of the price?

These existential questions, and others like them were running thru my mind. Wouldn’t it be great with a software tool which could calculate this and give an accurate number? In my search for this software, I found BestBikeSplit.

BBS can answer all the questions above and many more. The answer to the questions above is nice to know and super cool for us slightly geeky triathletes. Where BBS truly becomes a performance enhancer is in their Power Plan. How you get fastest from T1 to T2 with the “watts you have available”.

Supply BBS with your weight, FTP and level (recreational, advanced or pro). Make a similar profile for your bike. Add a former race, or a ride in race kit and aero position to Race Analytics, where your aerodynamic drag gets estimated. Then you add your race course, which most of them can be found in BBS. The final step is to let BBS work it magic and you got a race plan. A very detailed plan of how many watts you should push at the different parts of the race.

Earlier I aimed to ride with as even watt as possible thru out the race. If my goal was 260 watts in average I planned to hold that as much as possible. That tactic is far better than what most people do, which is riding very hard in the start, even harder in the uphills followed by a complete blow-up in the last half. However, it is not optimal. Riding harder in the uphill and headwind, steady on the flats and easier in the downhill and tailwind is optimal.

To help you hit the optimal power you can install a BBS App on a Garmin computer which shows you this during the race. Or, as I like to do it, print out a Cheat Sheet which I print out and tape on my stem. While I truly understand that it is difficult to go “easy” in the start of the race, sticking to the race plan will without a doubt make you go faster to T2 and in a better state to execute a good run.

Power Plan is where the real performance gain can be found. On Time Analysis is where the existential questions can be answered. What does X per cent drag decrease translate to in minutes and seconds? And how about that Dura Ace vs Ultegra cassette? The answer to the last question is that 58 gram less weight saves me 4 seconds over the 180 km Norseman course.

Do you find BBS interesting? You can try it out for free. If you want to sign up you can use the code TRIALLAN and get 30 % discount. I don’t get any kickback but still think it’s a really good deal. Free demo, $13,3/month and $83/year with the discount truly make it one of the best performance per $ product you can get.