Triathlon - Wheel advice for a TRI newbie..

I am a clyde and entering my 1st Sprint Tri in May. I ride a stock Giant OCR Limited (carbon) with aerobars and I'm considering using "Wheel Covers" instead of dropping big bucks on a true disk wheel.
Options:
http://www.wheelbuilder.com/closeup.asp?cid=25&pid=185&offset=0
or
http://www.excelsports.com/new.asp?page=8&description=Wheel+Cover&vendorCode=CHAERO&major=1&minor=24

Does anyone have any experience with these wheel covers?
As a newbie, should I even consider the wheel cover?
How much will it help without an aero front wheel?

Any other information, advice or thoughts will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If you are a Clyde in your first sprint, my advice is to forget the aero wheel thing altogether unless you have big inherited wealth and are a technonut. Any advantage is completely insignificant in a newbie's first few tri's.

Practice transitions and gain ten seconds and use the wheel cover money for a post-race round of beers with your friends. You'll be money ahead and just as fast.

When you've eked out speed everwhere else, and have gotten use to looking like a dork in your aero helmet, and you are doing an Oly distance race or better, wheel covers or wheels can be justified.

I'm not being snarky. I can't stress too strongly, though, that the first few tri's should be entered for fun and to see the lay of the land. The fewer distractions caused by technology or special race/training strategies, the better.

Have fun.

TysonB

If you want to be aero, then go ahead and spend the bucks if it makes you feel happy! In fact, the slower you go the more aero benefits you'll see (assuming you're traveling over a fixed distance).

Wheel covers are great. They have 99% of the aero advantage of a solid disc and 1/10 of the cost. Get one.

Bone Head, I have to agree with try a few sprints first before you decide on what things you "need"...

My first sprint, I spent over 10 minutes total in T1/T2!!! I down played the whole "practice your transitions" suggestions. I am in and out now and guess what: I don't need all that crap in transition that I thought that I had to have a first time around. My goal was just to finish then, and since I have moved to Olympic distance this year and I hope to do my first 70.3 next year...

Thanks for the inputs