As soon as I saw the tail up the the aero helmet, I could guess the results. It doesn't take that much time on Slowtwitch to know that a big tail sticking up in the air isn't a wise move.

I think it’s somewhat valuable in demonstrating that for the average triathlete with an average, non-optimized position, the aero road helmet may be a better choice. But then, I don’t think that aero helmet is all that great to begin with.

Would have been better to go with the “best in class” approach, eg aerohead / evade / std road. Or whatever the current best in class is.

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Sort of a “meh” folksy and around the same level as GCN etc....infinitely and immeasurably better than Hambini.

Like others said there are problems with the tailed helmet and his position. He actually went by me at Roth last year and I could see him for 1-2 minutes up the road, his position or how he held it was 10x better than that video.

Maurice

Sir Mix-a-Lot would disagree.

Congratulations! You've won the internet for today.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
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Yeah, I was listening to it (driving, so not watching) while a friend was watching that video. I was actually impressed/ relieved that he came to the conclusions he did. Definitely expecting worse.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Awww, he even used "This shocked me!", cute :)

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Didnt listen to it, but if his review is "can I feel a difference between an aero and road helmet?" then its probably fine for a beginner triathlete thinking if they should buy a second helmet. If the difference isnt tangible and only meaurable at a decimal with laser pointers @ 40kph at certain angles in a wind tunnel to meaure it then its probably not even relevant to a beginner. The hypothesis is "will I feel a difference swapping helmets as a noob?

Kind of like a "should a beginner get racing flats?" article. Feel review from someone that has both might be enough

It’s better than “- THE TRUTH!”

QFT

How cute.

VE isn't THAT hard to do. If you've got enough time on your hands to produce a Youtube video, you've got enough time to learn to do things correctly.

I like the video. It's a lot of work to compare 4 helmets in different powers like that. At least it's something we can use as a reference, so better than nothing. He does represent just regular average Joe triathlete like myself, so that's cool too.

I thought it was interesting that the road helmet with the solid cover was faster than the aero road helmet- in reotrspect I suppose that makes sense given that there's no opening for vents, but aero helments also have shapes optimized for airflow.

As others have said, riding a long-tailed TT helmet with that tail up in the air defeats the purpose of the helmet. I suspect he's sponsored by lazer since he had 3 models of helmets from Lazer, but a short tail TT helmet like the Aerohead would've been better with a head down position. Still, for the average triathlete, he does drive home the point well that a TT helmet isn't always the fastest if it's not used in the right position.

In the correct position though, a TT helmet is the best bang for your buck in terms of speed after tubes, tires, and skinsuit. I remember on the GCN video where Ollie was getting fitted for the hour record, a TT helmet saved a ridiculous amount of watts once the speeds reached over 40kph.

If it were that hard to do I wouldn't be able to do it. VE is easier to do than what he did. You don't have to do 2 separate runs at constant power; you can do one run at variable power, cutting your testing time by half.

There's a side-view shot in that video. I wonder if that was taken from the window of a car alongside him. Maybe those were for the video and not for data collection runs.

I suspect he's sponsored by lazer since he had 3 models of helmets from Lazer


I would suspect this to be the case.

So a bit of a bias here as that is the only brand seen, but the GENERAL principals are not to far off what Taren is getting at. Also of GREAT importance is head position when riding relative to your torso and how much you can "turtle" you head.

I do get a bit of a chuckle whenever I look at see these time "gains" with all of the modern aero, equipment and gear. I saw a 10 minute gain here for helmet choice in an IRONMAN Bike split - throw in current optimal choice, wheels, frame, skin suit etc . . and are my 5 hour flat IM bike splits from the late 1980's early 1990's now equal to a sub 4:40 split?? :-)

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Not sure if he's sponsored by them, but they did send all of those helmets to him for free.

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Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.

Not sure if he's sponsored by them, but they did send all of those helmets to him for free.


I don't know exactly what Taren's business model is for monetization of what he does.

Unless you are like Ray Maker, where you GO OUT OF YOUR WAY, to state explicitly that these are samples, that Brand-X has sent to me, and I will be sending back to them after I am done with them, I have to suspect there is some kind of a promo deal going on of some kind - and that's OK. Everyone has to do their own thing and make what they can!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

GCN/GTN are pretty good about noting where there is paid promotional content as well.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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Thing is, there have been other studies that showed that the Lazer vent cover yielded almost no improvement over the base helmet. I think there is so much margin for error that Taren's results are effectively meaningless/non-repeatable.

Also worth noting that he gets different results at 150W vs. 210W and attributes all the change to the helmets (as if no other part of the bike/rider system was impacted). Just look at wheel drag graphs (ex. for Swiss Sides [below]) and it's clear that yaw has a pretty big impact (more watts=higher speed=lower absolute yaw).

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Sponsorship is a big part of his business model (along with selling training plans and merch). He even went so far as to make a video defending it, showing that even as the #3 triathlon channel on Youtube his monthly ad revshare was ~$2,000 (so he couldn't survive on pageviews).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_igchuxVXd0 (start at 9:00)

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Congrats on watching an entire video of his. I simply can’t. Too fricken annoying. I think he loves the camera and hearing himself talk, too much

We haven’t had a Triathlon Taren thread in a while

They are my favorite. This thread though is severely lacking in Taren bashing, too much intellectual discussion.

+1.

He’s probably a really decent fella, but the mugging for the camera and ‘hacks’ is very much next video please.

OT: I would pay money for a YouTube function that would ensure that I never saw content from channels that annoy me by their mere existence - Taren, Durianrider, etc.