Happy Mother’s Day to all the AeroGeeks moms out there! We know it’s not easy being a mom to an athlete – or being an athlete and a mom. So here’s to a very special mothers day to all!

 

The first grand tour of 2015 is upon us! This weekend marked the start of the Giro d’Italia, and while we know not all of our readers are cycling fans, the team here at AeroGeeks certainly is. And it’s not just because of the time trials (though obviously we can’t get enough of those). There is just something especially enjoyable about watching multi-day races play out.

This weekend also marks the start of one of our favorite races – the Amgen Tour of California. For us, the big question this year is which sprinter plans on showing up this year. Will it be Cavendish hoping to continue making his mark on the 2015 season, or possibly Sagan looking to make a splash in what has been a relatively quiet year? What about another sprinter looking to quash the dreams of their rivals?

For us, this past week was about bringing one of our long-term reviews to a close. We had spent the last six months with the Garmin 920xt, and it was time to say good-bye. In doing so, we found that Garmin really did better the best with the 920xt and created a new gold standard of multisport watches.

We also shared our thoughts on Rudy Project’s new Transition 46 bag and found that while the bag itself may seem on the smaller side, it easily hauls everything we need.

For those visiting for the first time—welcome! One of our favorite ways to showcase our readers is our Readers’ Rides album on Facebook. You can check it out at http://on.fb.me/12jEqE3. If you would like to have your bike featured in our album just tweet us at @AeroGeeks, Facebook message us, or email us at info@AeroGeeks.com.

This Week’s Posts

Wednesday – Rudy Project Transition 46 – Review

Thursday – Garmin 920xt – Review

Video of the Week

With the grand tours upon us, it probably comes as no surprise that this week’s video is from the Giro d’Italia. When ORICA-GreenEDGE took the win, they happened to do so with an action camera attached to Esteban Chaves’s bike. Take a few moments to see what a draft legal triathlon on TT bikes might look like!

Aero Wheel Time Savings

This week Profile Design sent us an analysis they completed in conjunction with Speed Theory on the benefits of running aero wheels.  The goal of their analysis was to determine the amount of time benefit you would see at Ironman Texas racing on TwentyFour series wheels. And would that make the difference between punching your ticket to Kona versus sitting at home and watching the stream on your laptop? What they found was that, over the past two years, the most competitive age groups have averaged a 3m 24s difference between the final Kona Qualifier in that age group and the next athlete up.

And after modeling the IM Texas course—including race day wind speeds, wind angles, temperature, and weather conditions every quarter-mile of the entire 112-mile course—Profile Design found that, compared to a standard aluminum wheel set, a deep carbon wheel set would see an increase of a minimum of 5 minutes. You can check out the full breakdown here, or just check out their results below.

The Mailroom

The mailroom was busy this past week. We received a bunch of great new products that we cannot wait to share with you. First up on the nutrition side, we received a sampler pack of ERG! Bars. The ERG! Bars are raw, non-GMO, and gluten free bars that (after sampling a few) not only taste great, but also contain a ton of nutrition and energy. So far our favorite is the Apple Ginger, but we have a few more to try, so stay tuned.

GU Energy also sent us their new Chocolate Sea Salt and Big Apple energy gels to try. We had a chance to sample the Chocolate Sea Salt this past week, and the flavor is pretty spot on. Hopefully we can try out the Big Apple next week.

Zackees sent us their new signaling gloves. We took a quick look at them in last week’s WiR, and our review pair showed up just a few days later. We love the bright signal lights and the fact that the finger pinch needed to turn them on is super-easy. Our only issue so far is the level of padding. We tend to prefer gloves with minimal padding, but of course that’s a personal preference issue and one we hope they may consider as an option in the future.

From SLS3 we received a set of butterfly compression sleeves. SLS3 specializes in compression gear made by medical-grade machines with the highest level of compression (20-30mmHg) without being true medical grade (above 30mmHg). We’ve already completed a run in them, and the quality definitely stands out. There’s more to come on the SLS3 sleeves as we put them through their paces.

The new micro-retractor from Speedfil is something we have wanted to try since Interbike. Designed for our mountain bike brethren, we see real potential for use on BTA setups mounted between the aerobars. Just this morning we got our first chance to test the micro-retractor in conjunction with a Speedfil A2 and the results are impressive. Not longer do we have to worry about clipping the straw back in place – simple let go of it and the retractor does the work for you.

Bontrager sent us a set of their new Aeolus 9 TLRs. TLR stands for “tubeless ready,” so we have quite the review plan set up for them. First up, we want to see what tubeless is all about and just how we as triathletes are going to take advantage of this feature. Secondly, we want to fit a set of Bontrager R4 Aeros back on to see how the wheels feel when we go back to using tubes. Its going to be a few more weeks until we get them mounted on our Trek Speed Concept, so until then, let us know if there is anything specific you want to see us do with the Aeolus 9s.

Finally, Perfect Fitness sent us both an Ab Carver and the Perfect Pushup. Now if you are anything like us, you have seen the infomercials on TV and wondered if these were the real deal. Well, starting in two weeks, both of these tools are going to become a major part of our core workout routines. Let’s see if they live up to the hype.