So, what is the difference, besides the obvious one, of a sleeveless vs. non-sleeveless wetsuit? Overall, the differences can be described in terms of “comfort,” with comfort breaking down into two categories - temperature differences and stroke differences.

If you are fighting for a podium spot that you routinely miss by a couple seconds, then, yes, a sleeved wetsuit will be faster in terms of strict hydrodynamics. But for most triathletes, the issue of hydrodynamics and fractions of a second of speed should take a back seat to comfort in the wetsuit.

In warm water, close to the 78F cutoff, a sleeveless wetsuit can keep you from overheating during the swim. Especially if it is sunny out, and you are in a black rubber suit, the extra cooling of water on your arms and a little more flow through the suit can make a big difference. In colder water, keeping water from flowing through the suit during the swim, as well as keeping your arms covered, can help make the swim a much more pleasant experience.

But beyond comfort with regards to water temperature, there is also the issue of swimming effectively in a wetsuit. A wetsuit should make you swim faster for a couple reasons. First off, it has a very, very smooth skin (which is why you paid for a fancy QR suit instead of a BodyGlove surf suit) which has a very, very low skin friction coefficient.

Think gliding across ice vs. gliding across, say, a pile of boulders. Secondly, it makes you more buoyant, so you float easier, which for many super-skinny runner/cyclist types, can be a big boon. It also provides that buoyancy in an engineered fashion, lifting your hips up especially high, to put you in what is known as a “downhill position,” which makes swimming with proper technique easier. Both sleeveless and sleeved wetsuits do this basically equally well.

The sleeves *can* get in the way of proper swimming, though. For some athletes, their rotator cuffs are not strong enough to flex the suit for an entire 1.2 or 2.4 miles of swimming. Moving the rubber shoulder, which is obviously molded to want to stay in one position, can be tremendously tiring.

Some companies, including Quintana Roo, have put a tremendous amount of effort into making the shoulders as flexible as possible. The ribbed, 0.5mm shoulders of the QR suit are paper thin. BUT, they are still less flexible than having nothing there. Especially over an IM, if you don’t posses the deltoids of a boxer, moving your arms can become tiring enough without needing to worry about flexing a suit as well.

If you feel this way, a sleeveless suit may very well end up being faster for you than a sleeved suit. I talk to many triathletes who bought sleeved suits because they think they are the fastest, without any sort of regard to how they would work for them specifically.

Wetsuits are a very individual item, just like a bike saddle or shoes. Don’t pick a suit just based on who swims in one. The right suit for the fellow leading the swim at an IM may not be the right suit for you. Of course it might be, but that’s just coincidence.

Many retailers have excellent exchange policies on suits that have only been used in the pool (with an obvious preference towards ones that have also not been peed in!). So try suits out. And, of course, make sure to try both sleeved and sleeveless to see which one works best for YOU.

Unfortunately, it is starting to get a bit chilly in the mornings up here in New York, and I’m starting to dread the arrival of winter. Actually, it is not winter so much as the indoor rides that go along with it that I really hate. The trainer is, in my mind, an odious and tortuous device, capable of driving the sanest of men crazy, to say nothing of those of us who already dance along that edge of athletic genius and madness. But the trainer can be a very valuable device, in large part because of what exactly it is that makes riding the trainer so different.

The trainer is, by definition, a “low inertia” (in layman’s terms there is not much weight moving) environment. Unlike on the road, where you have your body weight the weight of the bike moving at X mph, on the trainer, you have nothing but a little flywheel. Even on “deluxe” trainers, the heaviest flywheel commercially available weighs 6lbs.; this is the flywheel on the Kurt Kinetic road machine.

So, for an “average cyclist and rider” of ~180lbs. (this seems to be the industry standard), that means your flywheel is basically 1/30th the weight of your bike out on the road. The fluid or mag units in most trainers is designed to mimic air resistance on the road, so that as you go faster, it becomes exponentially harder to pedal.

Most good trainers do a pretty good job of mimicking the power required on the road to go a given speed, though you may feel a bit “slow” on the trainer if you are very light and/or have a very aerodynamic position. The trainer does not take into account your fancy aerobars, aerhelmet, skinsuit, etc.

But when people describe feeling “bogged down” on the trainer, it is not that their wheels are going slower for a given effort, it is that the SAME effort feels easier out on the road. And this is one case where perception actually matches reality. Because the trainer doesn\’t have much momentum behind it, it slows down very quickly.

There is a noticable slowdown even within each pedal stroke. So while you are outside, your momentum carries you through those little blips in your pedal stroke, those brief moments of inattention where you are coasting without realizing it, and those extended pauses to drink from your waterbottle, the trainer punishes you and reminds you to keep pedalling.

Obsessive cyclists, of which there are many, who seek a more roadlike feel on their trainer can replace the flywheel. A simple ratchet removes the wheel on most trainers, and any good machine shop can build a 20 or 30lb. flywheel to replace it. This, of course, is going to be very heavy and make your trainer very awkward to move, but it will make it feel much nicer, albeit at a bit of cost.

But you can use the low-inertia of the trainer to your advantage. A trainer workout can be very productive for doing interval work, where you want to be 100% on all the time. During interval workouts, you should not be soft pedaling, drinking from your waterbottle for extended periods, or stopping to take in the scenery.

Since the trainer is so harsh on these momentary lapses, it will encourage good cycling behavior, forcing you to keep on top of yourself even more than you would outside. Especially for riders without a powermeter, the trainer offers a repeatable and consistent environment that can help to weed out the imperfections in your cycling technique.

One other reason the trainer is feels so much more difficult is because there is no air movement except what your piddly little fan pushes over you. Outside, the cooling effect of cycling at even modest speeds is tremendous. Inside, your core temperature can skyrocket without the cooling effect of the breeze, limiting your ability to cool down, which is why it feels similar to riding outside in heavy winter gear. A good fan (or two or three or four…) can make a big difference in performance.

Since there doesn’t seem to be much benefit in training with a higher core temperature, it makes sense to improve the circulation in the room so that you can ride harder. It makes a lot more sense, training wise, to feel exhausted from pushing the pedals rather than overheating. Drink more (the bathroom is close at hand), and even change jerseys, during a longer session to keep wicking the sweat away.

Indoor riding is practically a different sport, so knowing why it is so different, and realizing how best to take advantage of those differences, can go a long way towards making those tortuous hours on the trainer more bearable.

Before going any further, I want to emphasize that I will NOT get mired down in the tubular vs. clincher debate here (at least not in this entry). The purpose of this post is more to address the issue of choosing tires. Not necessarily the “right” tire, but going over differences in tire construction, choosing pressures, etc.

Michelin gives useful rankings on their website, rating each tire in terms of grip, comfort, rolling resistance, puncture resistance, weight, durability, and price. They key concept is that you can’t get something for nothing. If you want light weight, you will probably give up some durability.

If you want a lower price, you will probably give up some rolling resistance performance. A tire with a lot of puncture resistance might be a bit less comfortable. Finding the right tire is about evaluating what you want for each situation. So, this brings up to tire commandment #1:

Thou shalt have racing tires and training tires, and they shalt not be the same.

These most important criteria for race tires are, in order of importance: rolling resistance, puncture resistance, grip, weight, durability, price. Depending on how skilled you are at changing a tire, you may swap puncture resistance and rolling resistance. Fortunately, there are a lot of good tires out there where you don’t have to make this choice.

The Michelin ProRace (slightly better rolling resistance) and Ironman (slightly better grip) tires offer excellent puncture resistance so that you do not suffer a loss of air from your tires (otherwise known as a f–t — don’t say the word for karmic reasons) and among the best rolling resistance coefficients in the business.

Unfortunately, they only make clincher tires, so if you are interested in tubulars, you need to look elsewhere. They are, however, not tires that last forever since the rubber is very soft, which is why they ride so nicely.

This is true not only of Michelins, but of any top-quality, low-rolling resistance tire. They tend to wear qucikly, which is why I’d use these tires only when racing. If you like the cushy ride and don’t mind paying a bit more for nice tires a bit more often, then by all means, use the same tires for racing as for training, but do keep a separate pair of tires on hand as race-day tires, so that you are racing on fresh rubber.

For training tires, I rank the following way: puncture resistance, durability, price, rolling resistance, grip, weight. Fortunately, there are several great options for training tires that are moderately prices and offer exellent durability, while not making you feel like the fillings are coming out of your teeth when you ride down the road.

I use the Michelin Krylion Carbon as my training tire, and I’ve been getting about 2500 miles per pair. The back goes first, and I could rotate them, but I just toss the back tire, get a new pair, and designate the front as a training tire for the winter. Which brings up to commandment #2:

Thou shalt endeavour to use a specific tire for the indoor trainer.

Nothing chews up a tire quicker than an aluminum roller on a trainer. So if you know you are going to be riding on the trainer regularly, such as in the winter for those of us in colder climates, make sure you use a tire just for the trainer.

This offers two big advantages - first, you won’t care that the tire gets burned up really quickly, and since you are not going anywhere, you can get a cheap tire that doesn’t have good features anywhere else. That budget touring tire works just fine on the trainer.

Second, you won’t worry about the trainer grinding bits of road debris deep into your regular tires, so that when you do head out on the road, you won’t worry that you tire might give way should you encounter some small obstacle seeking to remove air from your tires. Which brings us to commandment #3:

Thou shalt inspectest your tires regularly before usage.

Don’t just assume that you made it safely through that field of broken Heinekens. Actually check to make sure you did. Use tweezers or a small screwdriver to pry bit of glass and road debris out of the tire. Take care of your tires, and they will take care of you! (Okay that was a bit over the top, but you get the point). Getting the most out of your tires, whatever that means for your situation - mileage or speed - means attention to the details.

But what about what goes inside your tires? For clincher users this has two meanings, tubes and air. For those on tubulars, I’m just talking about air. We’ll cover the tube issue first, because it is quicker. There are two kinds of tubes - latex and butyl. 99.44% of you probably have only ever used butyl tubes. These are the black tubes that you think of a bicycle tubes.

But there is another option - latex. Latex tubes are made from natural rubber and are usually semi-transparent and pink or green or tan, but never black. Butyl tubes came about long before I was born when there was a shortage of natural rubber. Butyl turned out to be a great substance for making inner-tubes. Some say better than latex. Butyl is tougher than latex, meaning it is harder for an object to puncture. This is why it is so nice for your everyday tube.

BUT, latex does still offer a couple advantages. It is more supple than butyl, meaning if you have a supple (i.e. low rolling resistance tire), using a latex tube will further minimize your rolling resistance. Latex tubes are also less likely to suffer a pinch f–t because of their suppleness; they are less likely to get caught between the rim and the ground, which is what causes these “snake bites.” I also find them to be more comfortable. I like to use latex tubes on race day, and butyl for training. If you’ve never tried latex tubes, give ‘em a whirl. You just might love them.

Much more important the kind of tube you use is what you put in it, and by that, I mean air. When Mr. Dunlop invented the pneumatic, which is a fancy way of saying “air-filled,” tire back in 1887 for his sons tricycle, he changed the world. The pneumatic tire is probably the single most important invetion in the history of the bicycle.

When you look at track bikes, which do fine with no brakes, shifters, or much of anything else, you realize that the essence of the bicycle is really the two wheels. And it is the pneumatic tire that makes those two wheels so useful. Without tires, bicycles would be much less fast and comfortable. But, of course, the real question for us is not whether or not to use air, but how much air to use. Which brings us to commandments #4 and #5

Thou shalt not over inflatest thine tires.

Thou shalt inflatest thine tires regularly.

Commandment Four deals with the typical modern mentality of “if some is good, more is better.” This is not true. On most tires, this is why the manufacturer often writes “Max PSI” instead of “Recommended PSI.” They know that many of us will put in the max. So they just swap recommended with max, and suddenly people put in the right amount. Some manufacturers, for whatever reason, have taken advantage of this in an odd way and have started marketing the higher maximum inflation pressure of their tires.

I find this to be very odd, because it doesn’t really mean anything. But that is marketing for you. The standard rule of thumb is that for a rider of about 160lbs., which is guess is “average,” on 23mm tires, which are “standard,” the right pressure is about 115psi. If you weigh closer to 130 lbs., the you can go down 5psi. If you are closer to 200lbs., then up 5psi is a good idea.

If you are riding in the wet or really rough roads, down 5psi is a good idea. And if you are riding wider (25mm tires), then go down about 10psi. On narrower tires (20mm tires), go up 10psi. This are just some helpful baselines. But, unless you are getting on the velodrome, you don’t need to be maxing out that floor pump or wishing you had a pump that went to 250psi. Anywhere in that 110-120psi range is great for 23mm tires, 95-105 is great for 25mm, and 125-135 is great for 20mm tires.

The differences in PSI won’t make a huge difference to your racing. If you get outside that range on the highside, you risk tire blowoff, which can be a very exciting and also very hazardous experience. On the lowside, you are at great risk for a f–t. All tubes lose some pressure over time (with latex tubes losing most of their pressure overnight), so it is important to pump your tires regularly. I pump mine before every ride, which means basically every day. It is an easy habit to get into, and if you don’t ride daily, it is a necessary habit.

Anyway, I hope this provide some helpful tips. The differences between certain brands of tire can be striking, so if you are thinking about testing some new tires, take them out for a spin. Tires are one the cheapest ways to make a big difference in your speed.

Choosing the right tire and inflating it properly can make as much as a minute over an Olympic distance triathlon (25 miles), 2-3 minutes over a 70.3 race, and 5+ minutes over an Ironman. So if you head out on some new tires, and they feel faster, they very well might be.

Until next time, here’s hoping for constant tailwinds and clean roads…

Going faster on a bicycle can be achieved in four different ways. The first, and simplest, is to apply more power to the pedals. This requires a lot of hard work, training, and dedication. So let’s ignore that. The other three are all basically “free” speed. They are, in order of importance, aerodynamic drag, rolling resistance, and weight.

Weight does play a minor role in determining rolling resistance, i.e. a lighter bike and rider will have lower rolling resistance than a heavier bike and rider but the difference is so small as to be essentially negligible. Rolling resistance, which is governed by your tires and tubes, is a really interesting topic that we’ll cover in the future. For now, our focus is on aerodynamic drag and how to minimize it, while also minimizing your expenses

Ironically, weight is probably the most emphasized of the three methods of “free speed,” but is actually the least important, at least among most bicycles. Dropping from a 40lb. hyrid to a 20lb. mountain bike will make a huge difference, but between say a 12lb. ultralight or an 18lb. average tribike, there is not much difference. Also, by weight, I am talking about strictly bike weight, not the weight of the rider. It is even less important for triathlon than for cycling, where it is also overrated, since there are no summit finishes and even the hilliest of triathlons is quite flat compared to a hilly cycling race.

The hour record for the bicycle, which is up over 50mph, was set on a recumbent bike that probably weighs about as much as a downhill mountain bike, maybe more. The advantage of the recumbent - superior aerodynamics. Everyone wants the lightest this and that, but on most triathlon courses, the average speed of most finishers is in the range where aerodynamics matters much more than weight.

So what causes drag? To keep it extremely simple and general, drag is caused when something pushes air out of the way so that it can be where the air was. The shape of this object is important, since certain shapes push air of the way more effciently that others. And the size of this object is important, since a bigger object needs to push more air out of the way than a small object in order to move through it. Things like texture also have an effect on drag, but we’ll leave that out of this discussion since it is, generally speaking, a much smaller factor than the other two.

So how does this relate to you? And, more specifically, how does it relate to helmets, our topic of discussion for today? Simple. Racing with an aerohelmet can make a big difference in how much drag you generate on your bike. Aerohelmets work because of two things, their smooth covering (none of those massive vents of your regular road helmet) and their long profiles. How much an aerohelmet benefits you will be determined, to some extent, by your position on the bike.

If you are sitting up into the wind on regular road bars, then a piar of aerobars probably should be your first investment. But if you can ride comfortably on the aerobars, an aerohelmet is the cheapest way to gain some free speed. When you consider that you need to race in a CPSC-certified helmet in the US, meaning that your aerohelmet must be as good at protecting your brain as your regular helmet, you can actually gain speed totally almost for free, since you could get away with only owning one helmet.

Whenever I recommend an aerohelmet to someone, I hear a number of different arguments about why someone doesn’t want one: “They are don’t make much of a difference.” This is occassionally followed with “for people riding less than 30mph.”

Before addressing the “not much of a difference” issue, I’d like to cover the 30mph issue, which seems to come up often when discussing aerodynamics. Without going into too much detail, let’s first off say that there is nothing about 30mph that is special. Nothing happens to air at 30mph that makes it much different than air at 25, 20, or even 15mph.

It is true that if you are lucky enough to ride at 25 or 30mph, you will save more power than someone at 15 or 20mph. BUT, because the person at 15 or 20mph is going proportionally slower, they will be saving a higher total amount of time. Basically, someone going faster will save a higher percentage of time, but the person going slower will save more time in total.

And this true for everyone at virtually every speed achieveable by bicycle. In order for drag not to make a difference, you’d be going so slowly that you’d miss the cutoff to finish the race. So things that help time trialists in the Tour de France will help you, even if they ride more than twice as fast.

As far as not making a difference in general, let’s look at the average road helmet, which now seems to be marketed by the total number of “vents” on the helmet. All these vents which are designed to keep you just as cool as if you were not wearing any helmet at all. But all those vents come at a price. Those vents don’t just allow air to pass over your head. There is also a lot of air that comes and slams into the surface of those vents. And that slows you down.

The difference, according to a recent issue of Bicycling which contained an issue with some engineers at MIT who do research in the windtunnel there, between a regular helmet and an aerohelmet is rougly 400%. A regular helmet generates four times the drag of an aerohelmet. They didn’t discuss the brands used, so it’s not like that number is hard and fast for all helmets, but it gives you an idea as to the difference between helmets.

Of course, you may say, but 4 times very little is still very little. And that is true. But as more and more athletes head to the windtunnel, we have even more information on what sort of difference equipment makes. One easy to remember comparison is that an aerohelmet saves about as much drag as a disc wheel in the back as compared with a regular high-spoke count training wheel.

Now you might say “but everyone’s position is so different.” And that is definitely true, but everyone’s bike is also different, and their legs are different shapes, all of which affects the airflow over a disc, yet a disc still is superior because a solid shape is much smoother through any air than a whole mass of spokes.

The easiest way to approach is to look at an aerohelmet and a regular helmet, and compare the amount of area where air contacts a flat shape, like hitting the front of a bus. On most aerohelmets, there are only a few tiny vents, and a nice smooth profile. Even if you are sitting up into the wind, you will be more aerodynamic with an aerohelmet, just because the shape is more efficient.

“They are hot.” There is some truth to this. In order to give up speed, you are giving up some ventilation. But even in very hot weather, cycling does an amazing job of cooling the body. Even at relatively low speeds, an amazing amount of air passes over your body and does a great job of cooling you. Given how many people I see wearing dark clothing and dark helmets at races, I also think there are plenty of other places to make yourself cooler than needed a massively ventilated helmet.

In addition, there are number of different helmets to choose from. The Rudy Project Syton, which the Timex Team uses, is a great helmet since it leaves the ears exposed. Does this sacrifice some pure aerodynamic speed for comfort? Probably. But it also means it is a great choice for people that don’t want to put a really full helmet on their dome. It also comes in all-white, which means it is as cool as any helmet can be in sunny weather.

As much as I hate to rely on anecdotal-type stories as support, I don’t know of any athlete for whom the reduction in ventilation correpsonded to overheating so much that they were slower. It does make sense to train with the helmet, so you can get a feeling for it. But by the time it is universally “too hot” for an aerohelmet, most of us won’t be riding our bikes anyway.

You may think you sweat more in the helmet as well, but you can easily check this with a scale weighing yourself before and after rides in similar conditions with different helmets. I think that a lot of the perception of higher sweat rate comes from the sweat dripping off your head rather than being blown out the back off your ventilated helmet.

Lastly, “they look stupid.” I don’t really know what to say to this one, except to say that nothing looks cooler than going fast. :)

So hopefully that gives you a reason to rethink your helmet choice on race day. An aerohelmet can be a huge asset to athletes at all speeds. And given the relatively low cost (most aerohelmets cost no more than a top quality “regular” helmet), they represent the best dollar-for-dollar investment in speed after a pair of aerobars, which are practically ubiquitous in triathlon these days.