The general consensus is that a close fitting, aero sleeved top saves you 2-5 mins or so over the IM distance, depending on what you change from and to. Aero fabric is faster than regular fabrics and well fitted sleeves are faster than bad fitting sleeves.

The full suit is faster, but not a valid option for tri's since they are impossible to get on while wet, and too restrictive to swim in.

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Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

I just don't understand how adding sleeves can save that much time

Skin is slow.

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Instagram | Team Kiwami North America

15cm extra of exposed skin is 2-5mins.... yea right

Low end... Call it 2 minutes. That's 1.07 seconds per mile. Can your shirt make that much difference? Pretty easily I think.

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_____________________________________________________
Instagram | Team Kiwami North America

Take a sample set of 1.

Nils frommhold biked roth 2014 in 4:15 in a normal tri suit.

He biked Roth 2015 at same power (2watts diff) in an Endura QDC short sleeved suit and was nearly 6 mins faster at 4:09.

Timo Bracht biked 4:20 for both years.

Now it's not 100% due to wind variable obviously and possible changes in fit and bike but it is still reasonable backup to all the data claims made for sleeved suits.

So the data out there is that a well fitted short sleeve suit will save you 4-6mins over tri suit.

Where it gets more complicated, is deciding between the top of the range Endura (£300+) vs say CastellI, Fusion, Huub etc at (£100-£150).

Endura seems legit with backup and top athletes and wind tunnel developed etc. But at 2 or 3 times the price of other suits that are likely returning similar gains it's hard to justify or accept without an individual tunnel test comparison.


Fit seems a priority as mentioned wrinkles are slow.

I love the Endura and so wanted to see Frommholds time being endura vs other short sleeve suit, but it's not, it's vs sleeveless tri suit so questions how much faster an Endura vs Other really is.

I did some testing with the endura, but it was the top only and it didn't test well.
A friend of mine did some testing with the full suit and found the same.

That being said, I know some people who have tested it compared to say a BP 3.0 and it was 4-5w faster than an already fast suit.

As you say, is it worth the extra £100 over say the louis Garneau?
It is if it's faster, but how do you know?

Only way is to buy them all and test I guess!

cool, hope your racing in my AG.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

My thoughts, I have been to the Wind Tunnel and test 4 different pieces

My 2XU Sleeveless
MY 2XU Sleeeve
Coure S
Coure XS

Now, I do think a lot of these suits are faster, but I don't think they are as fast as they test in the wind tunnel. For one, they never stay exactly like you put them on. For instance, I have LG M2, which I really like, but it rolls up at the legs and arms. They tend to stretch in the water, with salt/sweat, etc. Take a look at some of these race kits post race and they look like an aero disaster, baggy, wrinkles everywhere etc. Now I don't get to see these people prior usually but I noticed this with pros still. I think you really have to always size down, and it needs to be tight, and being tight may affect other things like your swim. I would like to see a wind tunnel test where they make the person either put it on wet and hypoxic, or put it on dry, but go for a swim and 1 hour bike before getting in the wind tunnel. Personally, I think they are worth half their advertised benefit.

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It's not just the sleeves. Skin is slow, sleeves are typically faster than skin. Then you add some texturing to the sleeves and textured sleeves are typically faster vs smooth sleeves. Now you add some texture to the shoulder, area maybe do some other design work and presto going from sleeveless to sleeves makes you say ~ :30 faster over 40k.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Brian, if you add tight compression calf sleeves how much more savings. Since the Tibia is bit longer I would expect more, or is it a wash due to all the dirty airflow around the legs?

http://alphamantis.com/why-is-skin-slow/

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AndyF
bike geek

How about doing both instead of BS logic that the two ideas (raising FTP and aero kits) are mutually exclusive?

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

A lot of things to consider here..

1. A minute can matter a lot, depending on your objectives. I know a guy with an IM PB of 10.00.32.

2. Optimizing your aero setup doesn't mean you can't train your FTP at the same time. These things aren't mutually exclusive.

3. Was there not enough information in the subject header to tell you that this was a discussion about aero kit? If you feel so strongly averse to this field, why not just jog on?

Internet people confuse me. I might go find a discussion board about baking, then look especially for a thread with the word marzipan in the subject header so that I can go to the trouble of clicking through and writing a reply to say that I don't like marzipan.

Good points I just spoke before thinking it through my bad.

We've run a few tests with calf sleeves and I've seen 1 other test done with them.
1-2 test there was no difference
1-2 was faster
1-2 was slower.

it seems flip a coin and hope it works for you.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Or go to the thread, and say "I don't know why you're talking about Marzipan. You should raise your ftp." I would predict that same thread would take between 3-4 further posts before someone accuses you of Hating Freedom. I love the internet.

Im sure its somewhat tied to how hairy you are.

Im one of the folks brian saw sleeves be much faster on (I've always worn them).

In cda, I was 0.004 faster at 0 degrees and 0.003 faster at 7.5 degrees with sleeve (so pretty big for me)

why are some pros still not wearing sleeved kit? Ignorance, sponsorship obligations, or are they outliers in that the sleeves for whatever reason are not as fast for them?

I think Gerlach's post above is one reason - the "potential" savings from the wind tunnel (i.e. you put it on bone dry and take your time to get it fitting just right) are not likely to be the "actual" savings in a race (i.e. you either hurriedly pull it on over your wet arms/shoulders in T1, or you had it on during the swim and it's been pulled/stretched this way and that). Given that even under the ideal conditions of a wind tunnel, some sleeved suits actually test slower for some people, it seems totally reasonable that in real world race conditions you're as likely to lose time with a sleeved suit as you are to gain from it. I've heard pros give this exact reason for why they've stuck with sleeveless.

Anyone see pics from Brent McMahon's 4:12 bike split in Brasil today (overally time 7:46)? I just saw run pics and he is in sleeveless traditional top.

Yep, I came on here to post that exact thing. Figured I would re-check this post before doing so. Sure enough, good ol' Paul. Anyway, second fastest time ever and no sleeves, what gives???

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Is there a question here? Maybe he would have gone even faster with a sleeve top. Really setting a very fast time without sleeves says nothing about if sleeves are faster or not. Unless he had an exact clone racing at the same time with a sleeve top and was slower. If not it is meaningless.