If you’re reading the myWindsock blog, or came across this from our friends over at NoPinz it’s likely you already know what a skinsuit is and you might even be sold on the virtues of their number pocket that saves you watts. If you attend a local time trial, it’s likely the pointy end of the field will be in a skinsuit and these days, most people wear one for all forms of racing. The uninitiated, or even those of you that only take part in the skinsuit wearing because everyone else does, might be left wondering why people wear these? Surely a jersey and shorts is more comfortable? It certainly makes using the bathroom a little easier. We know a skinsuit is faster, but how much difference will it really make on race day? 

With great partners like NoPinz, we are able to get a hold of some data that tells us how many watts a skinsuit saves a rider and this can be converted into a change in cda. That’s all fine and good – but still doesn’t mean much on race day. What we really want to know is how much time will this save us today, or on the day of our race? During his hour record attempt, GCN’s Ollie Bridgewood used a NoPinz skinsuit to save himself a whopping 20W. These numbers are seen across the board and a ten percent reduction in drag due to a well fitted skinsuit is commonly seen.

Here at myWindsock, we specialize in turning data into information giving you confidence on race morning. Cycling is an uncertain sport and anything that can reduce the noise in the information that drives your decision making is valuable. By making use of our physics engine, we can calculate how much time a skinsuit will save you on a particular course.

A worked example – the Perfs TT

For our simulation, we will use two runs of myWindsock on Sunday’s open time trial which is being held on the Portsdown Hill circuit. We have fixed the cda at 0.220 for the first run and, while keeping all other variables fixed, we will reduce the cda to 0.198 for the second run. This is roughly the proportion of savings a skinsuit will achieve – worth around the 20W that Ollie was able to save with his Flow skinsuit from NoPinz. For this, our test rider is pretty handy – being able to maintain 325W for the duration of the TT with a system weight (bike, rider and equipment) of 80kg.

Test run 1: cda = 0.220

Our rider is coming in at a shade under 39 minutes with an average speed of 41.1kph – not bad! Let’s improve his wardrobe choice slightly and pop him in a NoPinz skinsuit and drop that cda.

Test run 2: cda = 0.198

The savings are huge, more than a minute! This is just the skinsuit too, imagine the cumulative savings from pacing, optimised position and other equipment choices. Slower riders will also achieve greater time savings for the same proportional saving in aerodynamics. As we can see, a skinsuit is worth it.

If you want to see how the watt savings touted by brands turn into time savings on your local TT course, they’re all available in myWindsock pre-loaded. Just hit Activities & Routes, UK Time Trials, and then scroll until you find your open TT! Or simply go here UK Open & Club Time Trials. On top of this, you’ll be able to see what kind of power is required for whatever performance level you are targeting.