Good article from Chrissie (Page 2)

Had Chrissie continued on she would have eventually made the switch to optimal equipment.  She would have had no choice.  The field was closing on her and she would have started to lose.  Craig Alexander had a similar level of arrogance/ignorance when it came to his equipment.  He was winning the majority of races he entered (albeit not like Chrissie) and was on a tear at Kona.  He didn't ride a super bike, he didn't use an aero helmet, he had bottles hanging all over his bike, etc.  What happened?  He was taken to school at Kona in 2010 and he realized he had to start paying attention to his equipment choices.  Ditched that POS Orbea, put on an aero lid, ditched all the bottles creating drag... and look at what happened in 2011.

Chrissie would have needed to do the same.  Get rid of that POS Cannondale, get an aero lid, and pay attention to equipment.

It's not a mutually exclusive thing here.  You can be a genetic god, train like an animal, have the will to win... and ride top notch equipment.  Especially when the top notch equipment is free.

Trying to be clear on what you believe the takeaway from that is?

You do realize it would've been even faster on a super bike while wearing an aero helmet, right?

3 (2 and 3 are kind of one in the same) and 4

Sort of like how Carfrae went from that exact same Slice Chrissie was riding...eventually to a Felt IA.  Carfrae rode 5:14 on that Slice...the same year Chrissie broke the bike course record.  Last year she rode 4:58 on her Felt IA.  Also of note was her improved choice of aero helmets.

What do you know about the differences in her training? 

What happens if I point out that it's Carfrae who has the course record?

anarchy

I don't know anything specific.  I understand I'm going into the realm of correlation equaling causation, but I think it's pretty obvious to us all that better aerodynamics will make you faster on the bike.  Crowie is another example.  4:37, 4:37, 4:38 on his Orbea with a road helmet.  Moves to a Shiv and a aero helmet...4:24, and for the first time is off the bike with the lead bike pack in Kona.  I mean...it's not like he was having a bad day those years he rode 4:37-4:38.  He won two of those years and the one year he didn't win...he still ran the fastest marathon of the day under 2:42.  Crowie's last two bike splits were 4:40, and 4:44, but he also ran 3:00 and 3:07...so you could say he wasn't on his best day.

I think the reference was to the bike course record.

Yes, no way to argue that better aero isn't better/faster.......but I would stop short of some of the stuff I see that says if you do X you will gain Y watts.  Everyone is a different animal.  I think some people get the idea, from reading some of this stuff, that they will become automatically exponentially faster with a tri bike, or with new wheels, helmet etc......quite a few are disappointed.  Helmet is one of my favorites.......how many posts do you see about the watts you can gain with this helmet or that.....then you see someone riding it and the tail is stuck straight up in the air because their head is down sucking air because they are gassed.......not faster, slower. 

"No worse" and "slightly faster" is quite a bit less than is usually quoted......and I'll stick with slower for most aero helmets with longer tails than the two you mentioned.  Wheels is another deal....same thing.  I put zipp 404's and Cosmic SR's on my daughters road bike for a TT trial this summer.....she was slower on both than her stock Bontrager RaceXL's that came on her bike.  Yeah, I'm sure there were other factors....heat, wind, etc.....but I think people get the idea that the gains will be much bigger and so worth the 2 grand or whatever they spend on them......not always enough to justify that kind of money IMO.

It was. The people being discussed were up for best ever, so brought this up as there were too many half-thoughts being said.

The critique in no way mean that what she says is being discounted or that anyone doesn't respect the heck out of what she's been able to accomplish. Just that people are thinking for themselves.

Well, he doesn't race with a PM in sprint races so I can't give you watts.  But he took the zipp disc from his cycling team to both National and World sprint and the valve seemed to be malfunctioning so he didn't have any confidence in it...so he rode his 404's.  He had the disc at Chicago when he put up the fastest bike split in the field, but he was not as fast at Nationals or Worlds......our best guess, comparing his times to quite a few people that he races regularly, is that he gave up 15-25 seconds without the disc.  For him, finishing in the top of his age group at those races and just off the overall podium, those seconds are huge.  20 seconds at Nationals was the difference between 5th place overall and 3rd place overall, at worlds he was in the range to move from 3rd to 2nd.....so it's all relative isn't it?  20 seconds for a lot of racers might make the difference between 100th place and 105th place......worth 2 grand?  I guess if that's what you want to spend your money on.  My point is that most people are led to believe there will be HUGE gains.....that's really not fair to them when that kind of money is in play.

So rules of science do not apply in your world?

Chrissie won in spite of her equipment choices.  Which is quite a testament to her but it also shows a level of ignorance and arrogance that would have eventually caught up to her.

Yes, my bike and my position are more aero than Chrissie's ever was.  I don't have her engine.  What's your point?  As I stated earlier, these things don't need to be mutually exclusive.  She could have used optimal equipment but chose not to at that time.  She got out of the game before the game caught up to her.

I wouldn't argue that an aero helmet doesn't save time.....my point was that for  lot of people, it doesn't save NEAR as much time as you are talking about because of a host of other issues.....riding position being the biggest.  Again, throwing this kind of stuff out to people who think it will give them huge time gains, at the cost of some of this equipment, is not really fair to them.