There are no absolutes in aero helmet/clothing/bottle testing.

The Evade/Synthe/Course are going to be better than a cheese grater. By how much? Depends.

Sorry, we didn't leave out the speed as an attempt to hoodwink. We're actually consciously choosing to used time saved over a fixed distance (e.g. sec/40km) as our metric because it's relatively insensitive to average rider speed. We did a quick explanation video a while back here. Also, we've now had the opportunity to test that helmet on a large population of riders and have found the middle of the bell curve to be at about that value (46 sec over 40km).

We usually run the tunnel wind speed at 50 km/h to increase signal to noise in the data measurements while staying in an appropriate flow regime. There are times where we will run a few different speeds to verify flow regime.

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Chris Yu
Applied Technology
Specialized Bicycle Components
@chrisyuinc

Specialized has a nice post on Facebook comparing road, to aero road, to aero helmet on there. Check it out.

Had a quick watch cheers for that heads up..... Interesting at the end chris says the evade tested just as fast as a tt helmet in certain positions. I wonder what positions they are

Before this video came out I called Specialized and asked the same questions the video commented on. The person I spoke with said the TT will be faster than the Evade only if you are able to stay in aero position almost the entire time. When you start coming up or looking left or right you will slow down and thats where the Evade wins is that its aero in more positions.

Hi Chris,

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but quite a few people on here have been wondering if you guys over at the win tunnel are going to do any testing on single chainring systems (with front derailleur and hanger removed).
Is that something that is on your radar for an upcoming video?
We love the work that you're doing over there.

Liam

Thanks for all the responses.


I understand it from a marketing perspective as most won't bother understanding how speed affects energy savings, it's just that it's a lot clearer to make the assessment when you have the watts/drag savings at a certain speed.

also, it was never mentioned with respect to which helmet does the Evade save 46 seconds.

Thanks for chiming in. By saying it depends, are you saying that it would largely depend on the angle of the helmet with respect to the ground?

It's good to know that the latter two are on par with the Evade as i can have special discounts for those two. Out of curiosity, do you happen to know how the Bell Star would compare.

@echappist: Noted. We're always taking input on how to present the info better. The 46 sec/40km was specifically to the Prevail.

@Liaman: On it. That's on the list for a video.

@coates_hbk: I think it's really more dependent on rider morphology than on the position. There's likely clothing and hair effects too. For the vast majority of athletes we've tested though, the TT is still the faster helmet. But with a few the two test virtually the same. I don't recall anyone where the Evade actually tested reliably faster than the TT. So far we haven't noted anything systematic about morphology (or position) that causes the helmets to converge.

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Chris Yu
Applied Technology
Specialized Bicycle Components
@chrisyuinc