(car doors slamming)
- Alright trainiacs.
Got a shipment from Shimano,
AKA Lazer Helmets,
and today, we're gonna talk about visored
versus non-visored helmets,
when it comes to your helmet selection.
I gotta say, non-visored
certainly is better lookin',
'cause you can see my pretty face.
(electronic dance music)
So alright trainiacs, this
is the Lazer Wasp Air Tri TT.
This is the Lazer Tardiz,
this is kind of a slightly less
high-end version of the Wasp Air Tri.
It's largely based on the same principle,
when you are selecting a triathlon helmet,
what you want to have, is
ideally you want your head
to basically mesh into this one piece
where your head kind of just transitions
into your shoulders, and your upper body.
And that's how you end up becoming
as aerodynamic as possible.
Back in the day, there used
to be these long-tail helmets
that were, they'd be 18 inches
in behind people's heads.
But what's been happening
with helmets lately,
is that those super long-tail
helmets have actually kind
of become less popular,
and these slightly long
but blunt rear-edge helmets
have been a lot more popular
because what happens,
actually practically speaking,
is that over the course
of a half iron man and iron man,
people tend to look down
at their power meter.
They look to the side to make
sure that nobody's coming.
They look over to the side when they go
through aid stations, and all
of those little movements,
be it down, be it to
the side, if you've got
a really long helmet, that
really long tail can actually,
over the course of the entire race,
actually be less aerodynamic
because there's more
stuff to catch the wind.
That's why you've actually
got now a lot of aero helmets
like the Lazer Bullet here,
that is kinda similar if you look at it,
to a normal road helmet.
It doesn't have that super long tail
that an aero helmet has,
and the marginal benefit
between these two, especially
for an age-group triathlete,
is not that serious, because
the age-group triathletes
don't spend enough time
in the time trial position
to sit their head in such a position
that it feels comfortable
for hours and hours on end,
and consciously train
themselves to not be doing this.
So in a lotta cases, these
helmets will be better options.
But let's say that you do put in
a lot of time in the time trial position,
and you are willing to invest
that focus to just sit down
and get your head fixated and comfortable
and build up those neck
muscles so that you can get one
of these longer, more aerodynamic helmets.
In that case, do you go
with a visor, or no visor?
Well, Cam Wurf in his Pro
Triathlon Training bike course
that you can go check out
at protriathlontraining.com,
and up until the end of April,
with the code PTTLAUNCH20,
you can get yourself 20% off any course,
he said that the aero testing
between visor, and no visor,
has actually showed no serious benefit
to having a visor.
And Cam Wurf himself has
actually gone both ways.
In 2017,
in Kona, he had
a slightly aero helmet
with a short tail because
he hadn't trained his head
to not move around, and he had sunglasses.
Fast-forward to 2018 when again he set
the bike course record, he had
more of a longer-tail helmet
where he had a visor on it.
Now personally, I like the visor
for a few different reasons.
Number one, it allows you
to be faster in transition,
so when you have the visor on,
it's just one less step
that you need to take,
especially in transition one
where you need your hands.
So what you're able to do with
a visor is, boom, put it on,
snap it in, if you hadn't,
pulled off the clasp, but you
can snap it in very quickly
and then you have your hands free
to wheel your bike through transition.
If you have to do the
opposite where you have to put
some glasses on first and
then put the helmet on.
(helmet snapping)
Oo.
(laughs)
I don't know why but that looks funny.
It's just one extra
step that you have to do
before you can wheel that
bike out of transition.
Now, the smart people out
there are going to be saying,
well, hey, Taren, if you end
up running with the glasses,
and you've got a visor on, your helmet,
you still are going to have to put
on the glasses in transition two.
That's very true.
But, what you're able
to do in transition two
really quickly is take the helmet off,
and then what I like to
do is have a hat filled
with my glasses and with all my nutrition
that I need to have for the
run portion of the race,
all together and then
I just pick up the hat,
and it's a lot easier to end up putting
on those glasses actually
while you're running,
saving yourself transition time,
because you don't need
your hands to be held
on the bars of the bike,
wheeling the bike through transition,
you've got your hands free to do things
that you would otherwise
have to do in transition
but you can instead do it on the move,
saving yourself time in transition,
and if you followed my
race times you'd know
that almost every single race,
I am in somewhere of the top 10,
if not the top three transitions
of every single athlete in the race.
So what I like to do,
I like to have a visor,
and I like to put my sunglasses
on as I'm heading out for the run.
(equipment clatters)
Final thing,
about visor versus no visor,
is visor is a lot quieter.
So what I'll often do is, even
if I'm riding my road bike
for one of the really long endurance rides
that I'm going out for, I
will bring my visor helmet
just so that I can put in a podcast,
and for the three and 1/2,
four hours that I'm out there,
I've got a really nice out of the wind,
kinda tucked-away little area for me,
and it's easier for me to listen to music
and podcasts and things like that.
So this is just a little
bit more pleasant.
But, as far as performance goes,
now you know that there's
really no serious benefit
to visor versus no visor,
and it really just comes
down to personal preference.
Do you like how it looks,
do you like how it feels?
What type of person are
you, are you a visor person
or a non-visor person?
That's up to you,
but the performance is
going to be the same,
you might just have to
take an extra few seconds
in transition if you're going no visor,
but it's not a big deal.
Get whatcha like.
Alright trainiacs, go check out Cam Wurf's
protriathlontraining.com master class,
PTTLAUNCH20 for 20% off
until the end of April.
(claps)
Later.
