wheel covers?
 

I can't use wheel covers in TT's because those are now illegal in USCF sanctioned races.

What's the scoop in triathlon? I'm going to do some sanctioned ones in the fall and have no
idea if wheel covers are legal or not in Tri's.

Has anyone here tried them before? How much of an effect do they have compared to a disk wheel
other than not lightening my wallet? :)

I don't know why you say that. It's not true. For cycling, wheel covers are only illegal in races run under UCI equipment regulations.

Really? I thought I read somewhere that USCF was going to ban them as well. Do you have some reference
to verify this?

The USCF rulebook might be one place to start.

1J(b) There may be no protective shield, fairing, or other device on any part of the bicycle, which has the effect of reducing air resistance except that spoke covers may be used

So why has the UCI made these illegal? Why do they care whether the wheel has a cover that's an integral part of the assembly or not?

Do you know anyone who has tried wheel covers?

I'm curious too...

"How much of an effect do they have compared to a disk wheel other than not lightening my wallet?"

Anyone?

There's one set of published data comparing wheel covers to a disk. The data can be purchased from biketechreview.com, and I'm not going to give it away here. Let's just say the consensus is the data shows there is no significant penalty (in the context of the time differences in TT placings) to covers over a disk. On the other hand Zipp has reported that those results were skewed in favor of covers over disks for several reasons and their data show a significant benefit to disks over covers. Before dismissing this as just self-serving by Zipp, it should be noted that no one disputes the factors Zipp brings up as being true and Zipp's data has repeatedly been confirmed by independent tests. As with many things in TT's, it comes down to how fast do you want to go and how much can you spend.

That's a good point. When the top placings in some of these races are as small as they are at times, I imagine people will go to all lengths to gain an advantage.

I wonder about cover vs. no cover for the same wheel. Do you have an idea about that?

One advantage to a cover that hasn't been mentioned yet is that so far as I know, you can't get a `real' disc with a Powertap hub, which limits your choices to the much more expensive Ergomo or SRM.

As far as a regular wheel (say my rear training wheel, an American Classic 420) with and without a cover, it will be faster with a cover if the cover is put on correctly. Josh from Zipp had a lengthy post on this on Slowtwitch. If I remember right, two of the things this included were taping over the valve stem hole and sealing / smoothing the edge between the cover and the rim.

do you happen to have a link to that post you refer to? I'm interested in the wheel covers since I use the powertap SL and don't want to buy more gadgets on top of a full disc wheel.