rant -
Triathlon Life, the magazine by USATri, just arrived and on the cover is a photo which could mark the beginning of the end of triathlon’s meteoric rise and general popularity among the many. But before you throw you arms in the air and say “the end, oh no”, I will tell you I am hopeful there is a cure for our recent “sickness”. Before I suggest the cure, I suppose you might want to know what the sickness is, right? Aero helmets are the sickness.
Aero helmets are proven fast, will help you put down wicked bike splits, are better than a 404 on the front, equal the aero-ness of a disc, and are quickly becoming the most popular must own item besides saggy-one-piece-front-zip race suits (not counting p3c’s, obviously). I know everyone else is so drug and therapist well-adjusted that they DON’T care what other people think, but friends I have to tell you 90% of the aero helmets on the market are the most un-cool, space balls luvin, ridiculous lookin thing our sometimes ridiculous sport has come up with yet. I know, I know they are fast but at some point doesn’t losing to someone who is so willing to self-humiliate sort of feel like a victory?
Back to the magazine for a minute. There is a photo on the cover of the typical bright-eyed, beautiful, very fit looking example of what a triathlete is and what we all aspire to be (gender not included), yet on top of her head is a tub of plastic that would cause even a Martian pause and wonderment. Even putting looks aside, can that tumorous shape really be aero anyway? My bike looks like a stealth fighter, but I’ve never seen the aero-helmet shape on a plane before.
Technology has come so far, and it can be so dangerous, that we must caution our consumption of it (and I too am one to blame for tech greediness) because we risk losing touch with those pioneers who made triathlon sooooo cool - even while wearing speedo’s. The early kings of our sport, who got many of the current stock inspired to swim/bike/run, set a great example of cool.
Since I know aero helmets are not going away I’ve come up with an alternative solution. Starting with this email, I am asking each of you who agrees with me (and happens to like the aero-ness) to lobby the bike helmet makers with strongly worded letters (capitalism is a democracy of dollars) requesting that they start marking aero-helmets with more complementary shapes, less mushroom bulge, and more thoughtful graphics which don’t highlight the vegetation we’ve decided to plant on our heads in the name of speed but for the cause of safety.
I’ve done uncool things in my life like running red lights on the bike, wearing a speed-o, pushed the pace on easy sets, but wearing an aero helmet is just beyond the boundary of humiliation and sickness that I can’t cross. The sickness could derail our growth, and our growth is what is captivating the interest of many more young people and starting to make the sport a viable career for professional triathletes in the US. Lets not spoil the growth by letting the super uncool sickness of wearing crazy plastic space-balls safety shields on our head’s anymore. Recycle your old aero-helmet (maybe the martians will get use out of them when they arrive) and go back to your style-ly road helmet until a better solution is delivered to the market.
Just to be straight with you I will admit I bought one. I wore it around the house a few times, dreamed of the super fast bike splits it promised, but in the end decided that if th Fonz ever showed up at a race I was doing to be a motorcycle bike course marshal he would probably either a) refuse to participate or b) give me a fat lip for being so uncool, thus it is in the ebay pile of the closet.
Triathletes are looked up to by all those single sport athletes, couch sitters, down and outers as being the “how-do-you-do-it-all” sleek, healthy, super fit examples of what hard work, determination, and fun. Don’t let the masses down, dump your aero helmet, and make triathlon cool again!
Remember: the best triathlete is the one having the most fun
ps I readily admit trying to affect change in the tri community is probably not possible on ST
