Calf Aero Sleeves?

Triathlon Forum
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It seems (despite the two winners this year… I think Solveig used on bike portion… ), that in the pro ranks these sleeves are being used less (percentage wise). Curious to why that is? Any users of the sleeves see disadvantages??? Pooling of water weight, heat/overheating, crumpling up / less aerodynamic, time to put on? Some also seem to use tape. But, most big adopters of the past (ie: Blummenfelt) seem to be ditching…

Curious to others experiences / testing… Thanks.

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In my N=1 sleeves didn’t make me more aero

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  1. In a non-wetsuit swim (Kona and Nice this year) they add T1 time. You see some athletes (LCB, Magnus, Laidlow) using tape in these cases as a tripwire.
  2. In superhot races athletes may have thermal concerns.
  3. More testing. Sleeves don’t work for everyone and many more of the pros now have personal test data to go on. Ex. Ruth Astle did testing and found that calf sleeves weren’t any faster for her.
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Also noted a significant decrease in the amount of OSPWs, have Ceramicspeed run out of sponsorship money?

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I think they struggled to get the materials to keep up with demand as all the worlds CF is being used in Wove saddles….

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I saw significant gains (45sec./40k) using the CEP ribbed compression sleeves. I’m not sure why the results seem to vary so much from person, but they clearly do.

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:rofl:

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:laughing:

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Any thoughts on them when running? Liked? Didn’t like?

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I dont mind them, but you need to be very careful they fit properly before hand. Test them, and test them when wet. If they dont fit right they can be horribly uncomfortable.

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I hated the compression sleeves for running (would take them off in T2), but the newer aero sleeves are light enough and non-compressive so that I don’t have the same issue with them. I will remove them in T2 in hot races though.

Some aero socks have issues riding down when running, but sleeves typically don’t since they go over your calf bulge.

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Indifferent. I don’t notice them

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I would never wear those dorky things.

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Do you shave your legs instead? Wondering because I’ve seen the data that shaving hairy legs saves a few watts, which I assume a calf sleeve would improve vs not shaving.

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LCB and Kat used tape on their shins instead. save a few seconds putting them on.

Laura has them or socks and Solveig.

Solveig did roll hers down on the run? maybe uncomfortable or feel hot?

It’s a personal thing , go test stuff. nothing , vs, socks, vs sleeves in a hot humid environment some feel uncomfortable.

something may save you 5 watts in a cold wind tunnel, but it might still lose you time in a hot environment or feel uncomfortable after hour 3.

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I wonder how much the shape of a persons calves make a difference. i.e. Does someone with bigger or small calves get more/less aero benefit?

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That’s what I was thinking. Intuitively, people with bigger calves should get more benefit

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lucky me. My calves are somehow bigger than my quads.

19

You should lay off the spinach.

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It is all about to initiate a drag crisis locally at the calves. The onset of a drag crisis for a bluff body depends on the Reynolds number, which itself combines several, not always well defined parameters.

I think, the drag crisis effect on human calves has more in common with alchemy than it is reproducible.