At the time of Tokyo he was explaining that hideous thing with some sort of scientific analysis. Basically something along the lines of white being better in the heat. I don’t know how solid the science is on that though. There’s the conventional wisdom about black allegedly “absorbing heat” and white “repelling” it, but as far as I recall, it’s not that simple - especially for objects in motion.

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"FTP is a bit 2015, don't you think?" - Gustav Iden

Not sure this is comparable or not

I have a black as well as a white aero helmet

EDIT. They are both the same size They were both giro aerohead

I put both of them in the sun side by side. With identical thermostats under them

Outside temp was 98. Both thermometers read 100 degrees

The fabric gets more important as it gets closer to the skin, a skinsuit has a conductive surface in contact with the skin at all times. It's well established that black surfaces generally get the hottest in the sun. I've heard it argued that black skinsuits are faster because they evaporate faster, but any absorbing extra sunlight to use for evaporation is a net zero at best. At a pro triathlon level the assumption should be made that the evaporation rate is completely saturated and no further cooling through evaporation is possible, especially in places like Tokyo.

Black clothes can actually be cooler when worn not in contact with the skin as it lets less light energy pass through and gets cooled by air passing underneath. It's not uncommon in the Middle East to see people wearing all black flowy clothes in 120degF. This wouldn't apply to skinsuits tho since they are in such direct contact.

A helmet has such a thick layer of insulation (it's basically a styrofoam beer cooler) that the shell color doesn't matter. The same is not true of clothing that is tight against the skin. Black skinsuits will be hotter due to a higher level of IR spectrum absorption than a white suit....but they also look better and don't get transparent when wet.

Blu is willing to wear a suit that looks cringy in return for the marginal cooling gain. Part of this may be his scientific approach, and part may be that as a more compact athlete he has more cooling issues that lankier competitors.

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

Interesting! I wonder then why black is the most common colour found among trisuits sold to consumers.
We AGs are more interested in looking cool?

Yes

Most fabrics that don’t allow you to see through them, come in dark colors. That’s why some trisuits are colorful in the top but no in the lower part.

Not just AG’s! When Filippo Ganna was preparing for the world hour record Dan Bigham was trying to persuade him to wear a white skinsuit as it was measurably faster due to keeping core body temperature fractionally lower. If I remember rightly Bigham implied it was in the 20-50m further range, but Ganna wasn’t prepared to wear a white skinsuit for that small of a margin.

Except that ONE finish line photo of Thunderbear that we all wish to forget ... remember??

At least someone is pulling up some history. I am surprised Yvonne Van Vlerken and her shower video hasn’t been brought up.

Let's hope his belly bug doesn't lead to "code brown" in is bright white trisuit ;)

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Are they black and white versions of the exact same helmet?

Vents must be the key, like a venturi vent on your forehead like the met helmets

Then airflow through the helmet....can air flow through unimpeded over your head to the tail?

And is there a well positioned port where you can squirt a bottle of water into?

And is cooling effectively compromised by the visor?

Sorry

They were both giro aerohead

Fashion

Black will also make you look slimmer.
Age Groupers are far too concerned about how they look

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Andrew Garwood
http://www.2xu.com
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Ok so if white is faster it brings two further questions.
Is there any difference between black and non-black (white excluded)?
If I wanted a white trisuit, which brands offer one without getting a custom design?
Trimtex offers a white replica but it's really pricey!

Yes, every color on the spectrum absorbs and reflects different amounts of light. The red end of the spectrum contains slightly more energy than the violet end, so choosing a color that reflects ROY as opposed to BIV would be slightly better, but this is probably not as important as the specific shade (dark red is likely still worse than light purple).

If you really wanted to go down a rabbit hole you could get one of those infrared thermometers and measure different colored skinsuits laying out in the sun.

All of that being said, this really only applies in hot and sunny races but is a pretty big marginal gain. Napkin math: Direct sunlight is ~500w/m^2 visible light, a skinsuit is at best 1m^2, with only the shoulders receiving direct sunlight, the rest indirect. I'm calling it 100w total sunlight energy maximum hitting the skinsuit (indirect is just sin(angle)*area). Say an all black skinsuit absorbs 75% and all white absorbs 25%, that's a 50w difference in cooling. I'm not aware of exact numbers on cooling, but we know when running only ~25% of energy burn goes into movement. So 250w gauge output=1000w actual output, for ease of numbers. In theory, going from a black to white would free up 50w of energy that would otherwise be spent on cooling, of which 25% can be spent on running, so about 10w max when in direct overhead sunlight, less at any time other than noon. It's not nothing.

I'd say if you're already in the market for a new skinsuit buy a lighter color, but don't drop $300 on a special white skinsuit just to stay cooler.