I’ve been using some new (to me, at least) stuff, and I thought I’d give some feedback. The items are Performance brand Rudy Project sunglasses De Soto long-sleeve tri-suit Oval Concepts A700 integrated bars Cervelo P2K “custom aero helmet” Garneau Tri Air cycling shoes
The sunglasses are, I think, no longer available. They were about $70, and included three sets of lenses. With one notable exception, these things are great for the money (at least, compared to ridiculous prices like that for Oakleys). They are very comfortable, and they stay in place. The only problem (and I had it with two pairs) is that one nose piece kept coming off. I finally found that superglue will hold it on (nothing else worked), and they’ve been great.
I had the sleeveless De Soto tri-suit, and thought that I’d get the long sleeve one for USAC TTs, which require the shoulders to be covered. I’ve only done two duathlons with it (and much training), but it’s excellent. The quality is very good (my year-old sleeveless looks new), it fits well, and it is very comfortable. I was expecting the collar to be a bit higher up my neck, though.
The A700 bars (aluminum) are excellent, with a couple of minor annoyances. The brake extensions feel like they are right where my hoods usually are, so climbing out of the saddle feels just right. They are stiff enough for hard out-of-the-saddle climbing. I don’t care about the weight. The issues I have are that a Jetstream doesn’t seem to fit between the shifters (I have to loosen one extension and rotate it out of the way to put it on/take it off); if your stem isn’t parallel to the extensions, the bridge in front of the stem gets in the way of the stem bolts (on my stem, at least) making tightening the stem hard; the pads don’t angle towards the extensions, so I replaced them with the pads from my AirStrykes (easily done).
The P2K is a nice bike, even though it might not be the right bike for me. If you don’t get really low in front or don’t have a long torso or don’t like to have a smokestack of spacers on your steerer, this bike might not work. I’ve lowered my position quite a bit since getting this bike, so maybe it’s forcing me to be more aero. The paint quality was not excellent; there were two paint chips (one was touched up, one was not), source unknown, and at least one spot where the white undercoat shows through the blue. The horizontal dropout took some getting used to, and you learn not to pick up the bike by the seat tube, lest your hand gets wedged between it and the rear wheel! The range of seat tube angles is amazing with their seatpost head, and the carbon fiber seatpost is very nice looking. Very hard to fit a frame pump anywhere, and only one bottle cage (seat tube).
It’s amazing what clear packing tape and a hair dryer can do to an old helmet. With relative ease, I now have an aero helmet that, according to John Cobb, is just as good as a Garneau Prologue. Three issues: man, I miss the cooling; I now have a helmet with a sticky inside surface (watch what you put there!); how do you clean the thing?!?
At $94 (on sale at TriSports.com), the shoes seem a deal. They’ve fixed the problem with the cheap strap fixture, using stronger metal bits. Getting into and out of them with the heel strap is a breeze. My only issue is that I need to have my cleats far inboard to move my bunion away from the crank on one side, and I couldn’t move it far enough in. This may be changing as the shoe softens up, though.
