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.
Hmmm, that is actually interesting. I wonder if that is true in my case.
When I got the helmet I did a "test" where I rode my "usual loop" ride twice; once with each helmet. And the only thing I noticed was that the aero one was indeed quieter (particularly on the fast downhill portions). At the time I rode the hoods all the time. I'm a bit more flexible and spend most of my time riding in the drops so I'm a bit lower than back then. I'm guessing that makes as big of a difference in aero as the helmet probably did.