SRM Powermeters

I can't think of much on the swim side. I can think of things that are mostly useless, but they're generally not rated very highly to begin with.

Maybe $1000+ wetsuits?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

In for the unintentional comedy

Sounds like the heading should be "overpriced" instead of "overrated."

Few if any people rate the Rudy helmets highly, and many of the products you're listing are great, just too expensive for most.

Yeah.

Also, Ultegra has always been as good as DA, just slightly heavier.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Yeah, I kind of treated those terms synonymously in this context. That’s why I had both words in the into. In theory, an overrated product is also overpriced, and there would be a lower price point at which it pivots from overrated to massive value.

not necessarily. Sometimes things are overrated because they are ineffective at any price.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I won't disagree that the value proposition on the P3 has become increasingly difficult to comprehend. Nor would I disagree that some of the finishing bits on the P2 are a little low-rent for a nearly-$3k bike, specifically the wheelset and crankset. That said, I'm struggling to come up with alternatives in the sub $3k price range that are demonstrably better performers than the P2, despite it's age. Maybe the Canyon Speedmax CF 7.0? I haven't seen any data that suggests its actually faster than a P2, though. Nor are there any real contenders that undercut the P2's price by so much that you can forgive a tinge of performance deficit.

FWIW, I don't and never have owned a P2, or any Cervelo, so I'm not working from a "confirmation bias" perspective.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

There are a few things on the swim side, and you've even commented on those. Specifically, most goggles that cost more than $10.

I saw a post from a friend who did 70.3 St George over the weekend. This friend mentioned using the new QR wetsuit, which I promptly checked out on google. OMG! $800 for a wetsuit??! And then there's the whole problem of using a full suit for water that was mentioned to be 62 degrees. Wow. You CANNOT tell me that the extra $300-400 paid for this suit translated into serious gains, unless it's an expensive placebo.

My feeling about this topic is that companies really know how to separate people from their money, for the "latest and greatest." I think overrated is really also the same thing as overpriced, because what the comments are going to be all about is the absolute marginal gains of a product and the costs to achieve these marginal gains.

I'd like to see the QR PR3 and P2 have a baby... with the narrow BB (might as well thread it too) and direct mount rear brake from the PR3, and the tube shapes of the P2. The PR3 is damn close, but the head tube isn't deep enough, and there is more airfoil truncation than I'd like.

I own P2 white/blue bike with upgraded parts. Personally, It's an ugly looking bike.
Seriously, I could have designed better. I got it cheap on Craigslist, so I'm ok with it, but I won't pay that much for the brand new one.
I would get something else for sure if I have to buy a new one.

Goggles are so personal that it's hard to say that a particular type is overrated though. Some are simply crap, but no-one rates the crap ones very highly to begin with. Similarly, there are some swim toys that aren't very good, but they aren't rated all that highly.

Actually, I have thought of one thing. (wait a sec while I go put on my flame-retardant speedo) … Sim shorts. flame away..

ETA - also any kind of watch in the pool..

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

What problem is that?

Any running shoe over $100.

Drag suits are 10x worse. Great for screwing up your entire kinesthetic sense of good streamline positioning.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Depends on how they're used. I don't have one now (it got swiped from my bag when I was at nationals a couple of years ago), but I like them for occasional sprint sets. A little bit like how you would incorporate cords or parachutes.

None of that stuff is particularly popular in the triathlon swimming community though, so I'm not sure that I would call them overrated. And they're pretty cheap. SIM shorts, on the other hand, are not cheap and I can't think of any way that they actually facilitate improvement as a swimmer.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I kind of thought that too until TYR came out with the beast mode wetsuit. It has been downhill ever since.

Others off the top of my head, flame me all you want
- Wind tunnel testing
- Beam bikes
- Anything compression
- Short cranks
- Any "recovery" product

Duck!

Gotta agree with 140 on the wetsuit. I've had two wetsuits, both full-sleeved, both under $200. Neither has a hole. The one outgrew me, and the new one is doing great. Couldn't fathom paying 8 bones for a wetsuit unless it has a motor.

Super-light carbon water bottle cages.. seriously? Do I want to spend $160 or $40 on 2 bottle cages?

Road ID. I'll show myself out.

The wristwatches 99.99% of triathletes use? I agree. I find the $25 SportCount finger Stopwatch indispensable for self-timing race pace sets, though.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

I agree that the P2 isn’t what it used to be as far as being ahead of the other bikes and not sure what a P3 really offers above that for the price tag. I am in a fortunate situation, but I wouldn’t expect to pay more than ~75% of msrp on the p2/p3 at my lbs. I don’t know that there is that opportunity with other manufacturers like QR as I have no idea who even sells them and I am in a decent sized US city. From recent inquiries there isn’t that wiggle room on felts or treks either so the price point, at least for me, makes the P2 still very attractive.

Yeah, I'm not including that or the Finis tempo trainer as a "watch".

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

i'll say the same thing here that i said in my OpEd about the ROAM bashing. you're focusing on the tiny picture. and if i may say so, you're too old, to knowledgable, too experienced, to fall into this trap. there's more efficacy focusing on brands and systems.

because i know what you don't know, you'll find out that you and i are both right. that if you focus on a brand, and on a system deployed by that brand, what you think is "overrated" is either at the end of its product cycle, or part of a bigger picture you just don't see yet.

this is why investors often place their wagers on management and not a company's transitory metrics.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I agree, this is definitely a tiny picture post. I was thinking in terms of specific products from a retail consumer point of view. Some of these I would buy if I had the extra discretionary cash to drop. For example, I would buy a Ceramic Speed OSP cage, because I think they look awesome and I do believe some of the claims (but not all that CS promises). Same for the Dura Ace and some of the uber-priced wheels. But, I would probably not buy a Neo 2 again. I like the Wahoo KICKR better. OTOH, I doubt that I would ever buy the Vector 3 at any price. But, I would wait to see what the Vector 4 holds, if it is priced competatively.

Now, if some of these brands come out with a bigger picture that influences me, then I might be more attracted to them from an individual product point-of-view.

it's really not though.