Originally Posted by
guadzilla
So interestingly, there was a study a long time ago which claimed that they found wind noise tends to reduce performance - apparently and paraphrasing, it makes your brain think you are working harder than you are, and you have a natural tendency to ease down. They claimed that shutting out the wind noise enabled a rider to put out a little more power.
Indeed. I had two teammates hat used to wear earplugs during time trials for just that reason. Don't know if it helped them. Maybe it did, or maybe they thought it did, so it did?
Anyway, that was 2004ish, so been around a while.