Time Trial / Time Trialling / TT

Maybe the older hands will say it was always thus but it just feels like a money game now

'twas ever thus🙂

But yeah, the difference my £14.19s frame made in a TT over something less #tartmode which cost £5 was basically zero, whereas today there is equipment, and maybe even more so techniques, which really make a difference, and those things are not cheap.

You reckon that's bad, you lot should try actually spending a lot of money on fast shit and then still getting spanked :)

What’s the go to choice for rim brake pads for carbon wheel please? ShimaNO brakes if that helps.
Moderately hilly course and heavy rider so they actually need to work a bit!

The answer always used to be Lifeline blue from Wiggle, but they don't seem to be available any more.

I've always used Zipp pads for Zipp wheels.

There's also some chatter here:
https://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=171605&start=15

For the first time this year I entered into the land of aero testing and understanding truly the difference in equipment choices and position.

I am fully convinced the difference between £10k of new gear and tunnel time and well thought out 2nd hand equipment is so so much smaller than you think.

For example, in my specific frame (noting I didn't personally pay for this tunnel testing), the difference between front wheels from a £3.7k Princeton and a 'standard' Roval which can be had 2nd hand for a couple of hundred quid is............ <3w. Everything else tested in between. The fastest wheel was a slightly more expensive Roval but still a fraction of the Princeton.

That's an extreme example but it carries through to so many facets of equipment choice. Helmet testing for me was all within 4-5 watts. The fastest helmet tested, I subsequently bought 2nd hand for £150.

Tl;dr yes it's frustrating that some can just buy watts, but unless they are really well informed, I bet they aren't buying as much as you think and in some cases they may even be making themselves slower.

If you have cash you buy watts AND testing time though.

Referring the helmet change, my old Girohead is now redundant - black colour and visor in good nick (recently replaced). Would like to get £100 for it but open to offers.

No I would spend on buying knowledge and then figure out if you need tunnel time and only last, buy new shit

What knowledge are you going to buy?

If I've got £10k to spend it'll be spent testing as well as on some obvious kit choices. The whole point of the aero testing is to find out if the new position and the new kit would be faster or not.

Also, if you're changing your position, it might be impacted by kit choice so you still have to do it all at once anyway, unless it's a zero interaction part like aero skewers or something.

Testing a new position, for example, might dictate you need new bars. That new position then should then be tested with a new helmet and skinsuit. I don't see how you can buy "knowledge" to "know" these results.

One of the usual suspects, most of them do consultancy.

Yes they will probably want to try to sell you products/tunnel time but you might narrow down that actually you are only worth focusing on. It's like buying a load of stems and saddles, trying them out, then going to get a bike fit.

EDIT. Ah you added more to your post. Yes position and kit are interlinked but unelss you want to spend 30 hours in the tunnel, you should probably just accept getting close enough on both sides.

You do both though. You go to a testing place with a set of tests in mind and you find out if they have all the helmets you want to test in advance and/or you borrow them. Then, pending results of the test, you buy your own 'fastest' lid.

Then maybe you get some more cash, you do the same thing for position and then you find bars that let you ride that position.

If you have loads to blow at once, you can do it all at once. But most people do it iteratively and that's why lids and stuff come up for sale often. Someone tested again, found a new position and a new lid that worked better.

Consultancy doesn't tell you that x is definitely faster than y for most things on you or your bike - there's too many interactions and where there's not, most people already know the answers.

Like when I went to see Xav and every one of my ideas was the fastest. I gained nothing, other than the knowledge that some of my 'slightly annoying' choices were faster.

On the flipside, when I rode the Nat 12 last, I did just buy the newest NoPinz skinsuit and assumed it was faster because they said so. I didn't have the time nor inclination to test it.

The point you keep missing is everything prior to a tunnel or velodrome test. You or I thinking up a set of tests to do in a tunnel is an incredibly expensive way to piss money down the drain, you'd get through that £10k pretty quickly.

Maybe helmets is the only thing you want to test then fine, but spending time and money on someone who, based on your specific aims, budget, current equipment setup, performance data etc etc etc will work through whether testing helmets is even worth doing let alone a starting point.

Consultancy doesn't tell you that x is definitely faster than y for
most things on you or your bike - there's too many interactions and
where there's not, most people already know the answers.

Of course it can't, that would be ridiculous. Unless you find someone who can 'see' aero...

Sorry, what? How is me -thinking up a set of tests- expensive?

I have certain things I don't want to or can't change, like saddle height, frame, etc which leaves me some things I can change - hand position, clothes, etc. I then work out options I can afford to replace these with and then go and test them.

It's expensive if you go into the tunnel and say, "I want to test changing the height of my front end" and then it turns out that it takes 20 minutes to change that front end for each 10mm increment you want to test and you end up with 2-3 positional changes in an hour.

You thinking up wanting to change your front end was free. The very limited results you get from that in a tunnel were definitely not free.

You seem to be assuming that people with money to spend on aero testing are also idiots.

Anyway this is now a pointless TTF kinda argument. Have you done any aero testing? I've done tunnel testing, indoor track testing, outdoor track testing and I've done some DIY Chung testing for other bits and pieces... and I haven't touched a TT bike in 2.5 years.

I do know what I would change/test next though, because that's what people like me think about.

From my post above

That's an extreme example but it carries through to so many facets of equipment choice. Helmet testing for me was all within 4-5 watts. The fastest helmet tested, I subsequently bought 2nd hand for £150.

Checks out.

Good point. Well made.

So the point you are making is that you tested and then bought the faster thing?

I rest my case.

Nope, wrong again, you just asked if I'd done any testing. But as you said, this is a pointless TTF argument - and you have spent way more money than I have on testing so you should continue to feel you are right about everything.

you are right about everything.

I'm glad we reached a consensus.

If the claims for gains made by equipment manufacturers and aero consultants are to be believed, it will soon be possible to finish a '10' before you start.

Church halls across the land will be full of rich middle aged men boasting how they achieved a -00.32 in the Wobbly Wheelers 10, there will be very few juniors, no unsponsored ones.

No great change, then.

the difference between front wheels .... <3w.. Helmet testing for me was all within 4-5 watts.

Yeah, guessing on frames, wheels, tyres, helmets, skinsuits by just reading forums gets you within an aggregate 20W of what you could achieve with six hours of tunnel time. You're still out £5-10k just buying what you guess will be fastest if you're starting from scratch and buying new. If you just hazard a guess on position, you can easily be throwing away another 20W, and if you can't see air the only way around that is money or time (which is the same thing as money if you're not minted). Now, for anybody who doesn't care about winning, that's neither here nor there, but if medals matter, 40W is a lot to be giving away to competitors who are prepared to throw almost unlimited resources at the problem.

Testers have always obsessed over gear, and now they obsess over more of it and its correct application than ever, but they rarely consider the thing which absorbs greater resources and affects the outcome more in favour of the well resourced competitors - training. Whenever somebody says its a more or less level playing field because you can scrounge up something close enough for £1k by scouring the classified section, they don't explain where a single parent with a minimum wage job is supposed to find the time.

The win is bought, but not in the way people obsess over. It was always the case, in this and every other sport.