I like it! I’ve moved to the Bontrager XXX because of the concussion stuff.
I like the shield on the vanquish but I found that wind would come up under it and dry my eyes out.
Evade is solid too though.
Just got round to listening to this episode this morning on the train to work. (Needed a break from the podcast to listen other stuff).
This comment about it being a myth bugged me a little exactly for the reason you stated. Not so sure it isn’t applicable in a breakaway though as the number of bike lengths lost over a very long time could be considerable.
Take a four rider breakaway group up the road an hour away from the finish:
Each rider rides at the front for 15 seconds and then pulls over. That’s 240 bike lengths lost in the hour or 480m (for ease of calculation). If the rider at the front is always doing 40kph that’s 43 seconds lost.
If each rider pulls for a minute that’s only 60 bike lengths or 120m lost in the same time. At 40kph that’s 10 seconds lost.
From an efficiency point of view, which was really what the question was getting at, there are obviously physiological effects that may make less longer pulls (with longer breaks) slower than the shorter pulls or vice versa even although both will have the same time at power in a 1:3 ratio.
Taken to extremes, if each rider did a single 15 minute pull on the front (ignoring the fact that that would be very unfair to the last rider taking a pull) the group would only loose 8m but it would probably be much slower since the body will be more efficient doing multiple short efforts than doing less longer efforts (something along the lines of the running research done in the sixties showing that a runner’s efficiency was greater with 2:1 work to rest ratios - and which forms the basis of Ronnestad’s 30:15 intervals.
When is the break even between the potential extra speed from doing shorter pulls and the reduction in speed from the extra bike lengths lost by relaying? That is a very good question.
Mike