“Castelli reckon that this design is eight watts more efficient than a standard glove.” Thoughts? A worthwhile marginal gain, or more a comment on ‘standard gloves’ being aerodynamically poor?
well who wears gloves in a triathlon?
I think we are ever inching toward the realm of the absurd.
If it would buy a legit 8 watts, probably the same folks who asked “who would wear sleeves in a triathlon,” and later bought up all the Castelli t1s!
I could see rolling them up condom-style and then putting them on, on the go, over the first few miles of the bike, if there were gains to be had.
“More efficient that a standard glove.”
Meaning, I assume, still less efficient than no gloves or possibly neutral.
I think we are ever inching toward the realm of the absurd.
Oh, we passed into that realm about 30 years ago, I recon.
Yes BUT as was the case with the Castelli T1 (I owned it and sold it after one race) you have to ask yourself if it’s worth the time putting it on and taking it off. All the extra time gained can be lost if it takes you 10 seconds to put on and 10 seconds to pull off. My transitions were longer with the Castelli T1 Stealth. I decided it would be better to just use a sleeved tri suit instead. For a time trial function, these are perfect. For a triathlon, these are ridiculous
. For a time trial function, these are perfect. For a triathlon, these are ridiculous
Dunno about that. A gain is a gain, if the ‘8 watt’ claim were true, and that improvement was over bare skin or another tt glove. As i mentioned, if you were to roll these on after you’re out and rolling (I tried this with regular gloves last weekend to gauge difficulty; it’s not), and heck, even take them off as you soft pedal into t2 or on the first mile of the run, it’s a no-cost improvement. Except for the cost of purchase, or course.
. For a time trial function, these are perfect. For a triathlon, these are ridiculous
Dunno about that. A gain is a gain, if the ‘8 watt’ claim were true, and that improvement was over bare skin or another tt glove. As i mentioned, if you were to roll these on after you’re out and rolling (I tried this with regular gloves last weekend to gauge difficulty; it’s not), and heck, even take them off as you soft pedal into t2 or on the first mile of the run, it’s a no-cost improvement. Except for the cost of purchase, or course.
If I roll these all over my body (face, fore arms, armpits, etc.), how much would I gain?
If I roll these all over my body (face, fore arms, armpits, etc.), how much would I gain?
I’m guessing you’re bring churlish, but I would hazard to guess about the same as tt riders would gain wearing a near-full skinsuit?
There comes a point though where crossing time trial gear into triathlon becomes a bad idea. We have to swim before the bike and run after the bike. Sleeved suits are the perfect compromise because we get skinsuit benefits and sun protection without having to really waste time putting anything on. Yes, you will have to put the sleeves on in a wetsuit illegal swim in Ironman but the time savings will be positive after doing that. But once off the bike, all you have to do is unzip the front and go run. Adding all this extra stuff like the T1 Stealth, TT gloves, shoe covers, etc takes away the speedy transitions in Triathlon where you can actually make up time and beat other people with no athletic effort.
Was just joking mate. I guess if there is a market for something, people will make it. I’m sure there is a market for these gloves. I think the majority of us are better served by focusing on training first before thinking about these marginal gains.
I’m assuming that the point is to smooth the airflow over the fingers? 8 watts sounds like a lot.
Normal gloves are really unaero.
Ok let’s humor Castelli and assume it actually does save someone 8 watts. In any case - saying “it saves you 8 watts” is not terribly informative by itself. Saves you 8 watts at what speed / conditions?
Suppose these gloves allow Tony Martin to maintain a given speed using 442 watts instead of 450 watts. That is a less than 2% savings in power from gloves alone.
+/- 1% is within the margin of error for most power meters, so keep that in mind.
Wearing half fingered gloves in triathlon is like a professional cyclist in the Tour De France wearing 2XU compression calf sleeves… just don’t do it.
It looks like Castelli just figured out a new way to take money from triathletes. What’s the next crazy triathlon product? Iron Man toilet paper designed to wipe off chamois butter?
Yes BUT as was the case with the Castelli T1 (I owned it and sold it after one race) you have to ask yourself if it’s worth the time putting it on and taking it off. All the extra time gained can be lost if it takes you 10 seconds to put on and 10 seconds to pull off. My transitions were longer with the Castelli T1 Stealth. I decided it would be better to just use a sleeved tri suit instead. For a time trial function, these are perfect. For a triathlon, these are ridiculous I think they would probably save more time in the swim. Be interesting to see the breakdown of savings between those features found in other aero mitts, the long fingers, and the mitten grouping of three fingers.
Hello davetallo and All,
Oh crap!
You mean I wasted my money?
But wait … if you buy now …
http://bikecalculator.com/veloUS.html
Looks like 6 minutes faster for an Ironman @ about 20 mph.
Winning …
(although for some reason I wonder if that is real world.)
But worth testing in the wind tunnel.
Cheers,
Neal
+1 mph Faster
It looks like Castelli just figured out a new way to take money from triathletes. What’s the next crazy triathlon product? Iron Man toilet paper designed to wipe off chamois butter?
Pssssst . . . I don’t think these were designed for triathletes.