Hi all,

I’m looking for a bit of help with A) finding some decent data (my googlefoo is failing me), and B) some first hand experiences of effect of aero equipment on a road bike at ‘normal’ speeds.

Lets pretend for a minute that i’ve entered an event with a 180km TT (road bike, no clip-ons) as a part of it, and had an expected bike leg time of 6hrs (30km/h). What sort of time savings could be made from aero helmet, deep section wheels, aero frame etc?

For wheels…

How much faster are aero wheels? (video)

Aero helmet, tight jersey or skinsuit, shoe covers, shaved legs. Data is out there with a bit of googling.

Lots of variables.. How hilly, how windy, have you waxed your barse, how many watts you can put out, whether you are riding solo or in a group.
Decent aero position probably top of list..

Biggest Bang For Your Buck In Time Trial Equipment

What Mr blobby said, a few mags have had a pop at systematic testing (available online) and I’ve even seen tables ranking by cost effectiveness and the impact of different rim depths for different speeds –

http://flocycling.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/flo-cycling-how-much-time-will-flo.html?m=1
Back to Google.

As you sound like you’ve entered an IM or similar also check out bestbikesplits and bikecalculator.com.

Any reason why no aero bars, as they (and an appropriate position) are the biggest improvement you can make?

If they’re banned and the event allows drafting then getting into a quick group and working together will also pay huge dividends. I rode with a few fast IM TT bikes for first half of Long Course Weekend/Wales Sportive 112 miler (until I had to stop to refuel) and did sub 6hr and inside top 10 in Vet on a road bike with mid section wheels.

You’d need to be a fairly strong cyclist to solo TT a roadbike over that distance in that kind of time – why give yourself the disadvantage of not using aero bars?

Any reason why no aero bars

Not allowed (for stupid reasons that only make sense to the organisers) – although obviously unless its silly windy you can always wrap gel bar tap all the way to the stem and use the elbows on the tops technique.

If they’re banned and the event allows drafting then getting into a quick group

Also not allowed.

Biggest problem i’m having is trying to find quantifiable data at normal speeds. Clearly i’m not going to be spending much time troubling 50km/h!
Got no problem dropping £150 on an aero helmet for example if its going to make some decent gains, but for 1min on a 12hr event not so much.

http://flocycling.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/flo-cycling-how-much-time-will-flo.html?m=1

That looks a bit like what i’m after, will get a good look at it this evening.

Get yourself and aero suit and find the most comfortable aero position you can sustain for a few hours at a time.

No point getting super low on the front if you’re only able to take it for 20 mins at a time.

One on the big boys (Specialized, maybe) did some testing on watts saved with leg shaving, they were amazed that it showed between 7-15w!

Edit: Yeah Specialized, also a good read.

Good links above but I’d be looking at the following.

Position and ability to maintain it. Minimise frontal area.
Clothing – well fitted aero jersey or speedsuit (try galibier.cc)
Overshoes because they are cheap (velotoze)
Helmet if you can be bothered but I wan’t convinced when I looked.
Wheels, especially if you can borrow some?

Nutrition and practice – If you arent comfortable riding that distance hard, work out what you can actualyl reasonably expect. HAve a go and test your drink/food choices. Gels will be a disaster but equally a Ginsters will be prety hard to chew working hard.

Some of the tips in this FFT video will apply…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e10pAT38cs[/video]

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZnrE17Jg3I[/video]

If you get deep section rims – be aware it can be exciting if there is a cross wind!

In order; POSITION, skinsuit, shoe covers, helmet, wheels. Frame makes little difference – speaking as the rider a Propel SL.

If you have any swimming in said event, your biggest time improvement is to buy the best wetsuit you can find!

But wheels look the fastest. 🙂

Wheels are best in headwinds – I’m going racing on my Jet 6/9 combo this evening 😀

Biggest problem i’m having is trying to find quantifiable data at normal speeds.

some of the nopinz/aerocoach stuff has watt savings at lower speeds

35kph on the trip jersey

http://nopinz.uk/product/nopinzaerocoach-trip-jersey/

10 TT tips from Chris Boardman

if it is part of an IM or similar, if you go full aero make sure you can run after6 hours in the bike position.

Losing 15 mins on the bike and being able to run is better than a slightly quicker bike and looking like Dan Martin when you try to get off the bike…

(spent a wasted afternoon trying to explain to someone why he had a slower IM time than me – the 2 hours he had to stop and stretch to be able to run after the bike did count towards his total time!)

And I wouldn’t be in hurry to ‘slip’ on a set of Velotoze in transition….

I’d bet you’ll waste more time getting them on and off than from not wearing them!

Remember to enjoy cycling past people in full on TdF TT kit too. Fitness makes you faster, not just the kit

Specialized evade tri is nice, Aero and magnetic buckle to save you some time in transition.

Velotoze – best avoided if you’re at all skinny. The long one’s fitted me about as snugly as a pair of wellies!! 🙂

I’d adjust your contact points for a more aerodynamic position.

Fit some 38cm bars, get rid of any stem spacers and fit a -17 stem then push you saddle forward a bit. You could also put some gel pads on top of your bars and wrap your tape to the stem, as I guess there’s nothing preventing you from the “faux” aero-bar position with your forearms on top of the bars?

Specialized evade tri is nice, Aero and magnetic buckle to save you some time in transition.

thats 0.000006 seconds saved

Struggling to find any reviews, but today’s PX “alphabet” stuff is TT related, including speedsuit; helmets; gloves; overshoes. ~£13-85 including the 15% discount code.

Makes getting free delivery for ?£100 very doable, the question is are they worth buying?

What tyres for a 200km TT ?
Surely will make as much a difference as some overshoes.

Vittoria Corsa Speed tubeless on a Hed Jet 6/9 wheelset. I bought my wheelset use for £450. Thet do a jet Plus instead now, but for the 66% saving, I forego the extra 2mm width

Seriously fast wheels and tyres

@singletrackmind
Easy choice on the tyres for me: GP4000SII
I’m looking for a much better performance than simply finishing, but wont be troubling a podium, so no sense chasing a few watts and risking a visit from the fairy in the process.

tyres?

http://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews

That tyre rolling resistance calculator thing is brilliant!

my wholly scientific testing says I get 2-3 km/h free speed out of my aero wheels.

(same power, cadence, heartrate, and road)

Assuming its some kind of ironman event OP?

Ive just listened to a podcast with Matt Bottrill, the watts he’s had to save in his TT position to knock a minute off his 10 mile time is insane! Shoe covers, long sleeve jerseys all save you watts, but it’s not going to save you any significant time if you don’t put the training in. Plenty of sweet spot efforts on the turbo is your answer here. enjoy!

Assuming its some kind of ironman event OP?

Sort of, its more or less an iron distance duathlon.

but it’s not going to save you any significant time if you don’t put the training in

Strava says i’ve managed 248hrs so far this year – hopefully that counts as putting the training in.

Plenty of sweet spot efforts on the turbo is your answer here

That’ll not be happening. Done it in the past, and it gave the worst results of any training i’ve tried. In my opinion sweetspot is best left for time crunched riders and 4-6 weeks or so as a stepping stone to harder efforts. This year i decided to more or less ignore muscular endurance type intervals, and instead focused on the underlying cornerstones of endurance and force, and it’s worked very well.

But regardless of what training I do, this thread is/was about trying to make the most of my meagre supply of Watts.

Sort of, its more or less an iron distance duathlon.

That sounds horrendous!

Fair enough on the SS stuff, whatever works for you. Good luck!

my wholly scientific testing says I get 2-3 km/h free speed out of my aero wheels.

I would place money on that being mostly from faster tyres on those wheels.

Aero wheels are a very expensive way of going very slightly faster (but they look nice).

I would place money on that being mostly from faster tyres on those wheels

how much? please send a postal order of the amount, because they were the same tyres and tubes.

I know he is a bit of a love/hate character, but Durianrider on YouTube did something on this recently and he was showing some data from some source that basically agreed with what TiRed says. In Durianriders usual style he was taking the mickey out of people who spend big on TT bikes when they are sat bolt upright on them and not taking advantage of all the much cheaper things that the data says delivers much bigger aero gains than an aero frame.

By the way i’ve got a Propel too! But in my defence I bought it purely based on its aesthetics and it was too good a deal to pass by. I’m under no illusions that the best improvement I can make to my cycling performance is to loose a KG or two, but it’s nice to have nice kit.

Well the cycling weekly link back up the thread somewhere suggested ~2kph at 200W.
However the Flo link suggested more like ~1kph.

Lots of good stuff so far though. And looking like an aero tri suit could potentially be a good investment

I would place money on that being mostly from faster tyres on those wheels
how much? please send a postal order of the amount, because they were the same tyres and tubes.

LOL 1p then.

Wind different? Psychological? Aero wheels are worth getting if you have the cash, but they’re the least cost effective way of saving time and I don’t think your speed difference would’ve been down to the wheels.

GP4000 score highly on rolling resistance but they’re supposedly also aero – Swiss side (?) Tested loads of tyres on their wheels and now always use them in wind tunnel tests. Speculation is its a fluke of the basically cosmetic edge tread pattern but Conti are now trying to develop it specifically for aero gains (proto tyres at TdeF).