What should a TT Newbie wear?

[pinkpedalpusher]

I don't have a skin suit, so what should I wear on my body and appendages?!

Can you give me a list of most to least important?

Weather is 85-90's.

Thanks

[Eden]

Wear your normal cycling clothing. Of coursed pick your closest fitting gear, but until you are worrying about shaving seconds off its not going to matter too much.

There are some free things you can do-

Don't wear gloves - this is free and cuts drag as much as a deep section front wheel....

If you don't have a frame with aero tubing, keep a water bottle in the seat tube cage (it can be empty) - also free

There are some inexpensive ones too -

Aerobars - this should be the first thing you invest in - they don't have to be fancy or expensive. Clip on's from Performance will do fine to get you started.

After this, if you find yourself loving TT'ing then think more about your equipment. Get a TT helmet (more bang for your buck than a super fancy expensive wheel set) and a skin suit. Think about a dedicated TT bike maybe, but to start out you don't have to do anything but ride.

[Jiffer]

If you don't have a frame with aero tubing, keep a water bottle in the seat tube cage (it can be empty) - also free

Can you explain this? I guess don't know what aero tubing is, so start there. I assume it means the most aerodynamic tubing, which might be kind of flat to cut through the wind? Yet putting a bottle in the seat tub would do the opposite, so ... confused.

[Eden]

You'd have to ask the MIT crew for the details.... a bunch of them who were also cyclists did a number of wind tunnel tests.

One thing that they found was that if you don't have a aero seat tube (yes, one that is specifically shaped to cut through the wind - most new TT specific bikes have them these days, but many road bikes or an older TT bike will likely have a round seat tube) that having a bottle on the seat tube was more aerodynamic than having no bottle or a bottle on the downtube.

The article I read didn't go into specifics, but there are lots of things that are counter to what you might think when dealing with aerodynamics - like dimpled things are more aero - think of a golf ball. That's why the newest high end wheels you'll see are dimpled rather than smooth. I'm surprised no one has done it with a helmet yet. Maybe it would just be too much to try to convince people to wear it... But anyway, often its a bigger picture thing about creating smooth air flow and even though it seems like having a bottle in the way would create a larger area to cut through the wind, it must have some other effects on the way the air flows around the rear wheel of the bike that make it better.

[Mr. SR500]

Snug cycling clothes, Eden is right - no gloves, but I wear them anyway. Aerobars would be the most bang for the buck, after that aero helmet, TT bike, wheels, etc...