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by Melatonic
1373 days ago
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Always made me wonder if taking the swimmers route instead would provide all the same benefits without the cost and look. Shave your whole upper body and go shirtless and you would be pretty damn aero no? Would a skinsuit really improve upon that? In addition after switching to a Brooks saddle (I tried literally 10s of saddles using the "saddle swap" forum feature on some forums) I now no longer ever want to use padded bike shorts again. Of all the short types the simple padded chamois was my favorite (simple foam - no gel or any other BS) and now I just prefer wearing a pair of synthetic lightweight boxer briefs (no fly) that were designed for hiking originally. There is no padding at all and from day one the brooks was extremely comfortable. It only got more comfortable with time and applies all pressure directly to my sit bones. Every other saddle + padded short (even ones that mostly were on my sit bones) ended up forcing padding into the areas between my sit bones and outside them as my weight compressed the padding. I havent tried their new non leather seats but they seem to operate by a similar tension (a tensioned pliable surface vs a hard plastic shape with padding on top) which results in your weight creating additional space below the sit bones vs filling it with padding. |
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In Michael Huchinson's Faster[1] it mentions that they tested a rider naked in a wind tunnel to find out!
If you look at a modern TT skinsuit you can see that they try to cover as much of the arms and legs as possible. They usually stop above the elbows and knees because it's hard to cover the joints without wrinkles.
Likewise, socks are now as long as permissible (without breaking the UCI sock rules!), which I think is about halfway up the calf. It would be faster to cover all the way up to the knee joint.
It all sounds silly if you don't race but if you've put some effort into getting fit then after awhile it's hard to gain even 5 or 10 more watts. If you can reduce your drag by more than that just by wearing a better pair of socks... well why would you?
BTW I have a Brookes on my commuter Brompton too. :D
1. http://www.michaelhutchinson.co.uk/faster.html