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Description
Races against the clock aren't limited to licensed road competitions or triathlons—even the most casual among us can find ourselves pegged at our power threshold in a desperate bid to get to the grocery store before it closes or finish out commute in time to clean up before the morning meeting. When you find yourself counting seconds, here are some strategies you can use to achieve at least a temporary victory over time itself.

Uno (#1): Ride at Your Threshold
In the past few years, the point at which you can sustain a high level of power for an extended period of time has been associated with several terms, such as AT (anaerobic threshold), LT (lactic threshold) and power threshold. All of them get to the same idea: You want to find the magic point that lets you ride as hard as you can for as long as you need to. Go too fast and you blow up and must ease off to recover; pedal too slowly and you finish with energy you should have used. You don't need a power meter or heart-rate monitor to find this zone: just ride hard enough so that when you try to speak, you can get only a few words at a time rather than complete sentences or even long phrases. That's you optimal extended-TT (time trial) speed.

Dos (#2): Get Aero
Most people think of equipment-aero bars, deep-dish rims, skinsuits-when they imagen ways to cheat the wind. But lots of speed is free: When you're in a hurry, scoot your butt back on the saddle and ride with your hands in the drops. (If you have a flat bar, scooting back and bending your elbows will still lower your profile, making you more aerodynamic.) On descents, tuck you elbows and your knees in toward your bike and lower your head as much as possible while still maintaining control. If you need just one bottle, put it in the cage of your seat tube, where it's slightly more aero, instead of your down tube. If you're riding in street shoes, tuck your laces into your shoes instead of letting them flap in the wind-every millisecond counts, right?

Thres (#3): Stay Smooth
In a group - say when you're barreling toward home to beat a storm – stay as close to others as you can while maintaining a steady pace. Smoothness trumps speed: If one of the group is uncomfortable riding as close as everyone else wants to, that rider will likely form gaps or make the pace herky-jerky by braking and accelerating. Though it may seem frustrating, it's best to establish a uniform spacing the entire group can maintain. When you get to the front of a pace line, don't accelerate dramatically or sprint past the receding rider. Instead, maintain the group's speed. If you feel strong and want to increase the pace, do so gradually over the course of your turn. Big jumps in pace break up the group and harm your overall average speed.