What's up, Motivators Taren here.
If you've just got into cycling or
Triathlon, you've probably already got a helmet.
But did you know that upgrading to either
an aerod helmet or a time trial helmet, a TT or Triathlon lawn helmet can have as
much, if not more, of an effect on how fast you go as a $3,000 set of wheels?
Today we are going to go through what is
the best Triathlon helmet for beginners that you should consider getting.
That is going to save you money and time,
making riding a heck of a lot more fast and fun.
As fast as fun, right?
My name is Terry Gazelle.
In my 20s, I was overweight.
Unfulfilled and couldn't even run to the end of the block.
Of the following years.
I found endurance sports.
Lost £65, won age groups,
race world Championships, broke records and trained and learned
from some of the best athletes and coaches in the world.
You too can use endurance sports to change
your life and accomplish your fitness goals.
You just need a system, a system that's meant for us amateurs
who want to be our best while feeling our strongest and healthiest.
My company, Mottiv,
offers that system and I want to share some of the tips from it today.
What's up Motivators? Thank you for tuning in in our book
Triathlon Bike Foundations, which I will link to in the description below.
If you want to check it out,
we have a list of what are the most important things that you should upgrade
all the way down to the least important things that you should upgrade.
What I did with all of those upgrades
that you should consider for your Triathlon and road biking gear is I looked
at what was the dollar per time and speed improvement that you spent?
Like, how much do you have to spend to actually see a speed improvement?
And at the very end of it is like $15,000 bikes and $3000 wheels.
But at the very front of it,
some of the first few upgrades that you should make are with your helmet.
The reason for that is that upgrading
to a proper Triathlon helmet is one of the quickest ways to gain speed
on the bike without spending thousands and thousands of dollars.
Spend as little as $$150 to $200, maybe all the way up to about $400 and you
can gain more speed than if you spent $3,000 on a new set of wheels.
Before we get into all that,
let's explain all of the different options that are available to you.
First, this is probably what you've got.
This is a standard road helmet, so a standard road helmet,
this is going to be the lightest option that you've got.
This is the most common.
This is what you probably purchased when you got your bike.
This is going to be really comfortable because it's very vintage.
There's a lot of really big vents in here
to cool your head and because it's so light, it's going to be easy for you
to maneuver your head around and feel really comfortable.
But the downside to this is that it isn't very aerodynamic at all.
The next fastest helmet would be the aerode helmet,
and this is the Laser Bullet, as opposed to a standard road helmet.
This is an aerode helmet.
That is different because as you can see, the vents in it aren't nearly as big.
There are some small little vents on the side here.
This centerpiece in this Laser bullet is
currently closed, but you can in a lot of these.
You can open those vents and give a little bit of airflow, but it's still not a lot.
This is also going to be a little bit
heavier and therefore less comfortable than a traditional cycling helmet.
But the upside to this is that in theory, it's faster.
How much faster?
We'll get into that the next fastest
helmet and hopefully the fastest helmet is a Triathlon helmet.
A time trial helmet.
This is a laser wasp air tribe, I believe it's called.
It has a longer tail in behind.
It typically has an integrated visor.
Hello.
And the vents in it are minimal at best.
There's teeny tiny little vents there.
In the case of this helmet,
there's a little vent that you can put water on your head if you're getting hot.
But the idea of this is not comfort based whatsoever.
It is strictly for going fast.
So this being the heaviest, probably the least comfortable,
the least cool on your head, but in theory, the fastest.
So what helmet should you really be going for then?
Well, a lot of people will say, well, you need a road helmet for all of your
road riding, and then you need a Tri helmet for all of your Tri riding.
But for beginner triathletes saying, well, you just need to buy a whole bunch
of different helmets, I think it's not really feasible.
So let's look at what the studies actually support.
First study that I want to share with you is this one that found that when they
compared a traditional road cycling helmet to a time trial helmet,
even the slowest time trial helmet was faster than the road helmet.
So then that says, okay,
if you want to go fast, then you should really be looking at a time trial helmet.
If you're wondering how much faster, well, it's not insignificant.
People spend $3,000 to save 49 grams
of force on a traditional set of Aero deep section wheels.
But there have actually been studies
that showed that a Tri helmet saved 113 grams of force.
So those $3,000 set of wheels didn't even
save half of the aerodynamics that a Tri helmet saved huge savings.
So you might just think, well, hey,
shouldn't we all just be wearing these super aerodynamic helmets?
Well, the fact of the matter is that they're not very comfortable,
especially when you get into hot weather one study was done on looking
at the performance detriment of getting your head heated up in that Tri helmet
versus the nice cooled head in a road helmet.
And what they found was that, yes,
your head did clearly get hotter and your heart rate did marginally spike a little
bit by going with the time Triathlon helmet.
But the performance detriment wasn't really that significant.
So it's just a little bit of head sweats and head discomfort.
So the bottom line is if you want to go
fast in a Triathlon, you don't want a traditional road helmet.
You're looking at a Tri helmet or an aerode helmet.
Now which one you should choose.
Again, we'll get into that.
But what actually constitutes an Arrow road helmet or a Tri helmet?
If you're not looking at one of these models of the Laser Bullet
and the Laser Wasp, totally cool, here are some options that you can use.
This is a great list of aerode helmets that you can consider.
You can look at something like
the Giro Eclipse spherical, the POC ventral spin, the Rudy Project Nitron.
I've actually used that before.
The Cask Protone, the specialized SWorks evade.
I know a lot of friends who have this and we're really happy with it
and actually one who cracked his skull and managed to survive.
So we know that it works really well.
The Endura Pro SL, the Cask Utopia.
Essentially what you're looking for are
the helmets that have a lot less vents look a lot more smooth.
Time trial helmets that you'll be looking for.
You'll be looking for something that looks a lot more solid.
It looks like a Dome.
It looks like something from Star Wars.
So we got the Rudy project,
the Wing TT helmet, the Pox cerebral, the Giro arrow head.
This is one of the most popular ones out there.
This website lists the Laser Vellante,
but I would actually recommend the Laser Wasp Air Tri.
It's a lot better for actually being nice and quiet.
This doesn't cover up the ears.
Whereas the Laser Waspair Tri best helmet
around for listening to podcasts while you're doing long rides training.
The SWorks TT helmet,
the Oakley Aero Seven, and generally any helmet that has a longer
tail in the back and a real lack of vents, that's going to be very aerodynamic.
You don't necessarily have to have a visor.
I really like a visor.
It makes everything work a lot better together.
It's going to be a lot quieter for you.
Whether it comes to getting a visor or no
visor, there's been studies done on whether there's actually a performance
benefit of the visor versus sunglasses and those were pretty inconclusive.
But from my standpoint,
the visor makes the helmet a lot quieter and makes it easier to train.
There's going to be a question about do
you go with an aerod helmet or a time trial helmet?
Well, here's my take on things.
The general studies show that a Tri helmet
or an arrowroad helmet are conclusively faster than a traditional helmet.
In my experience and in the studies that I've seen, the headto head matchup
of an arrowroad helmet versus a time trial helmet isn't actually clear which one is
faster than the other, because a big part of what is actually
going to be the fastest helmet for you is based on how much your head moves around,
how your helmet sits on your head, how much you look down, look up,
look to the side, how steady your head is, how the helmet fits on your head.
Can you move that helmet around?
Personally, I feel that if you are a beginner just getting into the sport,
you should strongly be looking at an aerod helmet.
The reason for that is this is going to be
faster in the time trials, in the triathlons.
It's also not going to be so huge that you
can't show up to a group ride and feel out of place.
You're going to feel out of place
with the time trial helmet, but you won't feel at a place with an aerode helmet.
This is very common to see in pelotons and group rides.
So then you're able to buy just one helmet
and it's going to do absolutely everything for you.
The interesting thing about some of these studies is that what's more important than
the actual helmet that you get is how the helmet sits on your head.
There's a study that was done that found
that the position of your head, the angle of your helmet was actually just
as important as which helmet you actually selected.
That study that I just showed wasn't super
conclusive about exactly how everyone should adjust their head position
in relation to their helmet and their body to be as aerodynamic as possible.
So I went to Matt Botcherl who is a time trial and Triathlon bike fit specialist,
and I asked him, what is your general take on how people should look at getting
into a Triathlon helmet and the positioning of it on their head?
And what he said is, ideally you want the helmet to be touching your back.
So I always try to rotate the helmet backward.
It's not always easy when you're trying
to put it on in T one, but once you're out on the road, try and push it backwards.
Let's just demonstrate quickly what he's talking about.
What he's saying is that if the helmet is
level with your eyes and your ears and the tail is sticking directly out
in the back, that's not as aerodynamic as angling it up so that the visor is almost
up over top of your eyes and you have to look up and that is going to bring
the tail a lot closer to the top of your back.
So that's actually going to be more aerodynamic and then you can shove it back
a little bit on your head and then as you're down in the time trial position.
The helmet itself is more level
with the ground and that according to Matt Bottrell is the most aerodynamic
position for whatever time trial helmet or Aeroad helmet you get.
Practically speaking the best way to deal
with this is to go on Zwift and do all of your indoor cycling.
Actually thinking that you are getting
your head tucked very tightly in behind your handlebars you can actually do a fair
bit of riding indoors on your time trial bike on Zwift with your helmet on.
Adjusting your position as you're looking into a mirror on the side to see how you
actually need to hold your head and situate your helmet on your head so
that the tail of the helmet is as close to the top of your back as possible.
So getting yourself the proper helmet
and now understanding how to situate yourself on the bike with that proper
helmet whether it's an aerod helmet or a time trial helmet you are going to be
faster than a lot of the people out there who aren't looking at a helmet as
the freest speed that they could possibly buy.
Thank you for listening Motivator.
If you are looking for a training plan
for any Triathlon running race, duathlon cycling event or swim run race
that incorporates these methods and is as good as a one on one coach but as cheap as
doing it yourself, you can check out your customized training plan from our Motive
app for free by going to mymotive.com, that's mymottiv.com and if you want
the visuals for this information check out The Terransmotive Method YouTube channel
where we also upload these podcasts as a video with video demonstrations.
Finally, if you don't feel like doing
either of those things but found this podcast hopeful a review on itunes would
earn you a virtual high five from all of us here at later motivators.