Mart.S wrote:
When you say it didn't matter how many towels you put on top, do you mean on top of each other, or how many you use? Haven't ever had an issue with corrosion.
I try not to let any specific part get completely saturated as anything additional will drip through. Have a towel specifically just to cover the bars and have another on the top tube for wiping excess sweat from arms and face. Once one part is soaked then move it across to a dryer spot until the whole thing gets saturated, then change.
A 5/6 hour session for me will require usually 2/3 t-shirts/jerseys, 4-6 towels, 2/3 headbands.
A big help was using sweat bands pulled up just below the elbow, which reduces the amount of sweat that gets to the towel over the bars in the first place. This is a great spot also for when in TT position. Headbands are fantastic but also need to be squeezed out every 10 minutes or so.
Oh....and using fans is just cheating :-)
I swap towels. I can saturate right through an entire standard bath towel laid across my aerobars in <45 minutes, probably <30 mins if I'm going hard. Sure, not the entire thing is saturated, but at the weight-contact points of my elbows and all around it where the towel is flattening out on the aerobars, it gets soaked right through pretty quickly. Even when I think I've been changing the towel ahead of time, AND have saran wrapped the headset it gets in. I even stuck a neoprene yoga mat under the towel at one point, not sure if it helped though.
Part of my problem might also be the design of my headset and cover. It's not the standard small round top tube cover of a road bike - mine is. a big flat plate so lots more area for sweat to seep in through the sides and get stuck. Still, I'm amazed at how few people here complain about rusted headsets after all that indoor bike training - I've rusted headsets on my older Cervelo and now my Premier Tactical on pretty much an annual basis when they were on my Kickr, and this is with towels, etc.
It's gotten to the point I cringe when I see pros doing regular training on their race bike on a trainer with only a small towel under them!