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Are they even testing no helmet?
Course not - there's no money in it! The last message a manufacturer wants to see is that their super aero helmet is better than all the competition, but worse than nothing, or than a cheap fairing. But a road helmet has got to be worse - its more or less doubling the size of your head!
frank9755-
Course not - there's no money in it!
That wouldn't stop an amateur from testing it. Of course, many people want to wear a helmet regardless, so they aren't going to test something they'd never use in a race.
What little evidence I've seen points to a shaved bare head being about equal to an well selected aero helmet, but a good head fairing beats either. As you suggest, the weakness of any "safety" helmet is that it significantly increases the frontal area, so it has to reduce the drag coefficient by a similar factor just to break even.
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I'm thinking more like Aerocoach services. They're not selling helmets and if no helmet was faster there'd be more riders leaving their sessions without helmets.
Frontal area isn't the be all end all of aero. If you can get your head low enough, aero helmet fill the gap behind your skull and probably shift air over your shoulders (but that's Xav's area I'm just guessing).
gbj_tester
hippy
Are they even testing no helmet?