Specialized S-works Prevail Helmet Review (and thoughts on Specialized S3 Helmet)

I’ve been wearing a Specialized S-works Prevail helmet for about 5 months and thought I would share my thoughts on it, as well as the S3 helmet which shares many of the same features.  The first thing you’ll probably notice about the Prevail is the price tag. . .$229.99-$239.99 (depending on color), that’s a ton for something that a $39.99 helmet will perform the same function: protecting your head.  But if any helmet is worth that much money it’d be the Prevail.  After you get over the sticker shock and pull the helmet out of the box, you’ll probably notice there are two different adjustments for the retention system:  the first is standard dial to adjust the tightness of the helmet, the second is unique to the Prevail and S3 helmets: an adjustment (what Specialized calls “mindset”) for where the back of the retention system sits on the back of your head vertically.  I’ve found that most people like it adjusted relatively low, around 4 (it adjusts from 1-5).  Another unique feature to the Prevail and S3 helmets are the straps, instead of the typical strap configuration were the strap is all one piece and it never quite lies nicely against the side of your face.  Instead the straps are not all interconnected and lie completely flat on the side of your face (you pretty much never feel the straps against your face, which while not an earth-scattering development, it is really nice. 

In terms of fit they are different, not a great deal, but definitely noticeable, for me the Prevail fits a little more naturally, I’ve known others that the S3 was a little better fit.  I think you really just need to try both on (making sure to adjust the “mindset” on each helmet) to find out.  Another fit item is that the Prevails tend to fit a little on the big size:  I’ve worked with several people that have said they’ve always worn a large, but the large just looked too big on when they tried it, but when they tried the medium on it was great.   Again I think it just comes down to trying them on, but definitely with the Prevail try the size you typically use as well as one smaller just to be sure.

What do you get “extra” with the Prevail?  It’s a little light lighter, (215g vs 249g), more aerodynamic (Specialized look at the helmet and tried to make it more aerodynamic), and slightly more ventilated.  I’ve been extremely happy with my Prevail, the only downside I’ve seen is the price tag, but if you are looking for the best when it comes to your helmet, it’d be hard to go wrong with the Prevail.  The S3 is a great helmet, with many of the features of the Prevail, but come in costing much less:  $149.99, and really the only difference is in the shell of the helmet, which is the same shell that was on the Specialized S-works helmet from about 2 years ago, and is still a great shell (very light and very ventilated).  If you’re looking for a top of the line helmet that doesn’t cost quite as much the S3 might be just the helmet for you.

Charlotte Duathlon: Wakeup call

Let me first talk about the name of this event.  It’s definitely NOT in Charlotte, it’s in the outskirts of Waxhaw over an hour from the center of Charlotte and a good 45 minutes even to get into the outskirts of Charlotte.  That being said the even was in a very nice area at Cane Creek Park.  I did a bunch of things that I would never recommend doing right before a race:  changing my fit, swapping saddles, and not having ridden the bike I was racing on in about 6 months.  As it turned out the fit and saddle changes felt good, but not something I would recommend and something I typically try avoiding.   

Race was made up of a 2 mile run on grass and dirt (and some mud with the rain we had during the week), an 18.6 mile bike and the same 2 mile run.  Seeing who was at the race I knew there were some good athletes, but no one that would run away with the race and thought I had a good chance to be in the mix to win or place on the podium.  Run started out well (everyone went out REALLY fast, nothing new with that), was running about the pace I was trying to just under 6 minute mile pace, the leaders were pulling away some, but were certainly still within reach.  Got back to the transition area and was feeling ok, but felt like I had worked pretty hard to keep the pace I was looking to maintain, but It was an off-road run on slippery ground.  Got on the bike and after about 5 minutes knew it wasn’t going to be a great day:  I wasn’t able to maintain 250 watts, and was working hard to average 220, not that this is terrible, just not how I hoped to ride.  The rest of the bike continued like this, I was able to focus and work hard, but I just wasn’t as powerful as I thought I should be.  Something that I think there are a number of reasons for:  not training much for longer (10-20 minute intervals on the bike), not having ridden in an aero position during training much at all in almost 1.5 years, and not being used to riding outside (all of my riding has been on my Epic EVO 29er or on the trainer).  A 18 mile bike leg when you’re not really around anyone (I was barely around anyone for much of the bike ride), gave me a  lot of time to think about what was going on and it was a real wake up call.  I definitely need to work on some things for my bike training:

-Doing more longer bike intervals while training

-Riding in an aero position more, this will also help during climbs on the mountain bike (being able to generate power from a more closed hip position).

-Ride outside at least occasionally to be more comfortable riding on the road and the slight differences there are compared with riding on the trainer.

Got off the bike, felt ok, certainly not great and finished up the run fairly solidly, not great, but given that I struggled as much as I did on the bike pretty well.  When I got finished I was very disappointed, not in how I raced (I felt like I got about as much as I could out of the day), but in my fitness.  Fortunately after thinking about the race and talking to Sakshi about how I had done, I felt a lot better:  it wasn’t a good race but I still managed to finish 6^th overall out of about 150 and 1^st in my age group in my first race of the year.    I also learned a lot from the race as well that will help me continue to improve.  And even with a lot of room to improve on I was still able to average about 23 miles per hour for 18 miles.

Guest Post: Mark Privette as Chris Rouisse

This post was written my Mark Privette BikeSource Sales associate and swim coach extraodinaire pretending to be me:  I don't know if this says more about me or him.  For your enjoyment:

Lastly, my avid readers will remember my article on Jeremy Lin. Recently I found a granny smith apple that bears a striking resemblance to our favorite sports hero. I will now tell you about how this seemingly trivial fruit has changed not only my training but shown me the meaning of love. One thing to remember about celebrity resembling apples is they are NOT just a nutritious treat healthy for the body. When one has a deep love and respect for anyone, most especially tasty little fortune cookies like Lin… the benefits of possessing such a fruit can be life enriching for the soul, not just the body. Since finding the “Lapple” as I like to call him, every time I need a pick up, I just take a gander at the striking Asian features of Mr. Lapple. This gives me a certain resolve, and a warm feeling in my heart (not to mention one more area!). I spend probably upwards of 3 hours per day in motivation sessions with Mr. Lapple, these sessions can range from innocent eye contact to what I call our “heavy relaxation” sessions which always end with a great release for me… and I hope for him. I like to think our relationship is more than a one way street… as we’ve aged together Mr. Lapple has taken on a dignified elder patriarch look as his skin as shriveled and aged. No complains here, everyone loves a DILF! Oh how I want to crack him open, feast on him, then find my ancient Chinese prophecy future.

Progress towards my goals

About to start the race season (Charlotte Duathlon this Saturday) and thought I’d look at my goals and see how I’m progressing towards them.

Qualify for Xterra Worlds:  Haven’t done any races, so hard to really evaluate where I am.  Today I was looking to sign up for the South East Xterra Championship in May and found that there have been some major changes to the race I don’t know if this will make it easier or harder to qualify for Worlds , but it will make it certainly more complicated.  The race has also become the ITU (International Triathlon Union) Cross Tri World Championship, and so I will have to submit an e-mail with a race result to be selected for a slot in the race.  If I don’t qualify through this race I will still have the opportunity to go to Richmond and qualify at the East Championships about three weeks later.

Earn pro mountain bike license:  I’ve taken the first step (and certainly the easiest) to getting my pro license, by getting applying for and receiving my Category 1 upgrade for cross-country mountain biking.  My fitness is solid and I feel like my bike handling is getting better every time I ride.  Starting March 4^th when I go to Sumter, SC for the Killer 3 Mountain Bike Race, I’ll see where I match up with other guys.  The first race will start off with a bang. . .it’s 39 miles long (3+ hours).

Run sub 38 minute 10k:  This is looking pretty good, based on how my running is going right now (and the running chart courtesy of Daniel’s Running Formula) it looks like I’d be able to run in the low 37’s, which I’d be really happy about.

Swim under 6:40 for 500 yards:  I’m making progress with this, but I’m certainly not there yet.  A couple weeks ago I did a swim set where I did 3x150 yards with 1 minute rest, and was able to maintain my goal pace for the 500 on each of the 150’s.  I obviously need to improve and keep getting better to be able to string 3+ of those intervals together without rest, but to be able to maintain that pace for as long as I did was a big step forward.

Preliminary Race Schedule through July (doesn’t include Charlotte Summer Series races)

Feb. 25th Charlotte Duathlon
March 4th Sumter Mountain Bike
April 1st Cool Breeze Triathlon
April 22nd Stumpjump Mountain Bike
May 19th Xterra South East Championship
June 10th Xterra East Championship or Troy NC Mountain Bike
June 24th Clemson Mountain Bike
July 15th Xterra Whitewater

Review: Swiftwick Aspire Twelve

Triathletes do some interesting things: a good example "Sh*tTriathletes Say" And they invariably look funny with their aero helmets, hydration belts, and tri-short (none of these are very stylish, but I race using all of these), so yes, I am "one of those". One thing that many "cool" triathletes have been using is compression socks, which look AWESOME when worn with shorts or tri-shorts. I'd never tried them, in part because of the dork factor that's associated with them. About a month ago I decided to try out a pair of the Swiftwick compression sock, just to see what if these crazy triathletes were doing. I figured they wouldn't hurt, and I'd wear them under pants so I wouldn't be "that guy".


The first thing I will say about the Aspire Twelve I bought are they are hard to put on (socks hard to put on. . .yeah right, they actually are). I’ve never been humbled by a pair of socks prior to these socks.  But I felt pretty pathetic when I was struggling to put on a pair of SOCKS.  Because they are tight they are difficult to get over your heel, after that they’re pretty easy to roll up your leg, but they are actually difficult to put on.  I was surprise how good they felt when I had put them on and that my legs felt noticeably fresher within minutes of putting them on.  Since then I’ve been wearing them after all my hard workouts and have noticed that my legs are not nearly as sore the rest of the day or the next day.


Overall I think they’re a great product, the only downsides I’ve noticed is the difficulty putting them on (but it is manageable) and that they’re not cheap, but they do seem to be holding up very well after about a month of use and show almost no sign of wear.  I haven’t tried them during exercise, so I can’t comment on how they help during exercise, but they really help my legs feel better after hard workout.

Ride at Anne Springs

Wednesday I went to Anne Springs with a couple goals: work on my front suspension set-up and get in a long (3-4 hour) mountain bike ride.  Got to the trail and checked the pressure on my fork, both the positive and negative pressures were about 10 psi higher than I wanted it, I don’t know if I looked at the chart wrong or what exactly I did.  So I took 10 psi out headed out on my ride.  About 30 minute into my ride my rear tire started to rub on something, I thought maybe a leaf or stick had gotten stuck and it was making the noise, but it continued and thought maybe I should look at it.  Unfortunately one of the zip-ties hold my brake line broke and the line was rubbing the tire.  After thinking about how I could hold the hose to the rear I tried to use one of my rubber bands from my Garmin to hold it but I couldn’t make it work.  When I finished up my lap I went to the car and used a string from a sunglasses bag to tie the hose to the chain stay, fortunately this worked pretty well for the rest of the ride and didn’t have any further problems (being not very mechanically inclined I was pretty proud of taking care of this, which I know is sad).

Ride continued uneventfully, the fork felt great after taking air out of it before the ride (got rid of all the harshness I noted earlier) I also felt pretty smooth handling the bike.  I rode the same laps as the Tree Shaker course and ended up doing 5 in 3:25 (doesn’t include time stopped for repairs), which was 49 minutes a lap, which was just a little slower than when I did the tree shaker which made me feel really good about where I was with my fitness and handling.

Don't Stop the Linsanity

I know this is off topic, but I wanted to share my thoughts on Jeremy Lin since he is about the only topic being discussed in sports media (the percentage of the media coverage is similar to the Super Bowl and Tebow-mania, while they were at their respective peaks).   Before I get into my thoughts I want to comment on some of the reasons for all of the coverage he has received:

-There’s nothing else going on in the sports world:  Football just ended so we have basketball and hockey, the popular sports media doesn’t do much at all with hockey other than show highlight goals and fights, with basketball there are games going being played, but we are past the opening couple weeks of excitement and not yet to the playoff chase.   Additionally the hysteria of following the Miami Heat and every win or loss has thankfully passed from last year.  I think this is one of the most underrated reasons why Lin has received so much attention:  there’s just not a lot to show highlights of or for the talking heads to yell about.

-He’s of Asian dissent and he went to Harvard:  I grouped these together because I think they are factors but not as big reasons as some are saying.  He’s achievements so far  would have been the most interesting thing to talk about even if was white or black and from a not Ivy League school, because there’s nothing else as interested to talk about and what he has done is truly remarkable.

-He’s playing in New York:  Similar to the last item, yes this is a factor, but with TV, cable, the internet, social media, he could have done the same things in New Orleans, Oklahoma City, or Charlotte (home to a truly terrible team), and still gotten TONS of attention because it’s so much easier to follow sports than it was 20-30 years ago when most people followed sports only through local tv and the newspaper.

-It’s an awesome story of the underdog rising up:  This is one of the things American’s like the most: David vs Goliath with David winning.  It goes hand in hand with the American perspective that you can do anything with hard work and the opportunity.  If he was a top draft pick or had put up huge numbers the attention that he’s getting would only be a fraction of what it would be if people thought he was going to be really good, or even might be really good.  I think this is the biggest factor in why this has become such a big story.

-The stats he’s put up are truly remarkable for someone in their first few starts: They really and truly are, any time you are on top of the list for most points scored in your first four starts (in the last 40 years) that is really something, and not to mention the company he’s in:  Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson, and Shaquille O’neil where the other three guys below him on the list (not bad company).

Now on to the really interesting part:  where does Jeremy Lin go from here?

Is he going to continue to score 24 points per game like he has over the last 7 games?  NO!!, this isn’t necessarily because he couldn’t, but he’s a point guard and point guards (even scoring point guards rarely score that much, the only one that I can think in the last 20 years or so was Derrick Rose last year scoring 25).  He also doesn’t seem like someone that’s trying to score a bunch, one big factor for why he’s scoring so much now is that until Amare Stoudemire came back two games ago he probably didn’t have an above average scorer playing with him.  So scoring wasn’t as much of a choice but a necessity. 

But do I think he’s going to be REALLY good?  Yes I think he’s probably be a borderline All-Star (as long as he’s playing for Mike D’Antoni, where he’s in a very point guard friendly system and allowed to play the way he has). 

Why I think this: 

-He’s been able to score consistently, even when other teams know he’s the Knick’s primary option, he shoots a high percentage, for his career he’s a 46% shooter, and shot about 50% (which for a guard is really good, no matter what conference you’re in).

-Assists don’t grow on trees:  averaging 9 assists per game for 7 games is quite an accomplishment.  You can score a bunch of points by just jacking up shots.

-He’s not 5’10”:  he’s not a little guy who you can do certain things to and take him out of the game, or that he’s going to have a terrible time dealing with bigger point guards, he IS one of the bigger point guards.

-Guys look like they enjoy playing with him.  Maybe not the most important factor, but certainly a big deal for a point guard.

-He looks like he belongs.  His shots don’t look like they were lucky to go in, his highlights aren’t lucky:  he made a good play to get in position to take a good shot (it might not go in every time, but they’ll go in pretty regularly).

My biggest concerns:

-Turnovers:  he’s averaed over 5 turnovers a game in the last 7. . . that’s A LOT, will he cut down on that some?  Probably, but my guess is even if he does he’s still going to have a bunch, but at least as long as he’s with D’Antoni I don’t think he’ll have too big of an issue with it.

-Carmelo Anthony:  How does Carmelo react when he comes back and isn’t the number one attraction any more?  Does he sulk and be a black hole for the basketball (see Denver last year, for what thing could go wrong) or does he say. . . “Hey this is awesome, I finally have a point guard that can move the ball around and get me good quality shots, and all I’ll have to do is keep the ball moving.”  I think it’s about 50/50 how this part works out, then what happens?  Do they trade Carmelo, fire D’Antoni, or something else?

Winter Short Track Race 5 BikeSouce Team Recap and Final Standings

Juniors 13 & Under
2nd Owen Ford

Expert Men
3rd Matt Moosa
5th Bobby Bryson
8th Chris Audet
10th Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
5th Jake Arthur
17th Julius Ulanday

Clydesdale
2nd Ryan Kelley
11th Alex Hawn

Expert/Sport Women
7th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Full Results with team names
Full Results with fast laps

Final Overall Results

Juniors 13 & Under
3rd Owen Ford

Expert Men
2nd Matt Moosa
5th Bobby Bryson
8th Chris Audet
11th Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
7th Jake Arthur
37th Julius Ulanday
40th John Hennessy

Sport Men 40+
29th Wayne Holden
31st Jeff Smith

Sport Men 19-39
7th Jake Arthur
37th Julius Ulanday
40th John Hennessy

Clydesdale
2nd Ryan Kelley
20th Alex Hawn

Expert/Sport Women
9th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Congatulations to both Ryan Kelley and Matt Moosa who both finished tied for first on points for their categories but lost the tie brakers and finished second in clydesdale and expert respectively.

Overall Rankings
Team Standings

Trying to get my to Category 1 License

Friday I signed up for my USA Cycling MTB license for 2012.  After signing up I had to contact them regarding my category, because I was hoping to be categorized as a Category 1 mountain biker racer (one level below pro) for cross-country racing.  So I submitted my race results from last year to USA Cycling for evaluation.  Later in the day I received three e-mails back from someone with USA cycling, the subject lines all looked the same so I thought it was the same e-mail sent three times.  I openned up one and it was a denial for a Cat 1 downhill license, which I thought was really odd, because I didn't care about my downhill license at all since I don't have any plans to do any downhill races.  For a minute I was very confused, had they thought I was looking for a Cat 1 downhill license, or what was the deal?  I was pretty sure my results justified being moved up.  Fortunately before I got too confused I openned the second e-mail, and this one said that they had approved my upgrade to Cat 1 cross-country. . .AWESOME. . .but what was the third e-mail?  It was a denial for an observed trials, and I'm confused again.  I looked over my e-mail and relized that I hadn't specified in my e-mail what lincense I was trying to upgrade so they must have thought I was looking to upgrade all three.   But in the end I got upgraded like I was hoping to and I got a laugh thinking that they thought Iwas wanted to upgrade my trials and downhill license (I've never done either event)

Diaper Rash Cream--Treatment for Saddle Sores

Disclaimer:  I am NOT a doctor, I have NO medical training, before you use any medical treatments please consult a doctor.  This post is solely based on my experience and isn't to say you will have the same experience.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's get to what I really want to talk about.  I've been working in a shop for almost 6 years, and been cycling for 8 years and I've only heard this from two places (Diab at BikeSource and Bicycling Magazine and I've had great experience with it and wanted to pass it along so maybe others could benefit from this small tip that can make your life much better.  The take home message:  if I feel a saddle sore starting to develop I apply diaper rash cream/oinment to the area.  My experience has been that this greatly reduces the size of the sore and in a couple days it is gone.  If I feel one starting after I take my post ride shower and dry off I will apply the cream/oinment to the problem area, I will also apply before bed if it continuing.  I have used both cream and ointment and haven't really noticed a difference between the two.  

Cervelo P5 Thoughts

Cervelo recently came out with their newest Tri/TT bike the P5.  In my mind it's their first significantly different bike since the P3 (I view the P4 as a slightly modified version of the P3). With this bike you can see that they pretty much started new and looked at everything fresh.  One of the things I like about this bike and a few of the newer Tri/TT bikes is that companies are looking at the bike, rider, and accessories as a whole system.  This means they're not just designing the fastest frame, but realize that someone will have to be able to fit on it, that they will need to carry water and other accessories with them.  Having the fastest bike on the market doesn't do you anything if there's no an aerodynamic way of having water accessable to the rider.

One of the biggest innovations on this bike is the hydrolic brakes, which allow for tighter bends in cable/hydrolic line routing than cables.  Hydrolic brakes will likely also give more stopping power than many brakes on Tri/TT bikes (something that have been lacking in many).  Probably the biggest concern with this is going to be cost (they'll cost quite a bit) and servicing (are they going to be easy to work on, will there be any issues travelling with them).

Like other recent Tri/TT bikes you could clearly see that the designers and engineers were weighting integration, adjustability, and ease of use.  Designing everything for a certain bike might give you the best final product, but what about replacement parts, and being able to change specic parts if a customer doesn't like that item.  The other end of the specrum is essentilly designing just the frame and using standard parts (aerobars, seatposts, brakes, forks etc) to go with it.  This provides the greatest amount of flexability, but probably isn't going to be the lightest or most aerodynamic product. 

This is also the first Tri/TT bike that I've seen specifically designed to have a water bottle mounted between the riders arms, I'm not sure this is necessarily better or worse than the Specialized Shiv integrated water bladder, but I'm really glad to see companies looking at different methods to keep hydration easy available and aerodynamic.

Cervelo took a different approach to making the bike work for triathlons and time trials.  Recently Trek designed their Speed Concept as a bike that would work well for both and that accessories could be attached to it for triatlons (storage primarily).  Specialized created to completely separate bikes the Shiv TT for time trial and the Shiv for triathlons.  Cervelo signed one frame that uses different fork/brake fairing set ups, one that's legal for UCI and one that's not for Triathlons.  Again I don't think this is necessarily better or worse than what Trek or Specialized has done, but it does illustrate that more and more things are being thought about with the design of these bikes.

For a very in depth review check out TriRig.

Winter Short Track Race 4 BikeSouce Team Recap

Expert Men
3rd Matt Moosa
5th Bobby Bryson
8th Chris Audet
DNF Chad Hollingsworth

Sport Men 19-39
1st Jake Arthur

Clydesdale
1st Ryan Kelley

Expert/Sport Women
10th Rebecca Bubp

Single Speed
6th Daniel Lenis

Congratulations to Ryan Kelley and Jake Arthur for winning their races, great job guys.

Full Results with team names
Full Results with lap times

Cyclocross World Championships

While I didn't do any cyclocross racing this year (I needed a break from racing, and some time to concentrate on training) I think it is probably the most fun style of bike racing out there and I still followed the top European races. About a week ago the Cyclocross World Championships were held in Belgium (the epicenter of cyclocross). The Belgian team had seven riders and went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 . . . every Belgian finished before anyone else, an incredibly dominating performance, and from reading the race reviews it didn't even seem like they worked together (which would have been hard with how sandy that course was), they just rode faster than everyone else.  Neils Albert who hadn't had a good season so far made his season by winning the World Championships. For anyone that enjoys cyclocross and what's really not to like: both beer and yelling are ENCOURAGED, the World Championships in 2013 will be in Louisville Kentucky.

Here's a few links that I thought were good:

Video Highlights (see how many spectators there are)

Pictures and Recap/Results

Neils Albert's Manager saying he shouldn't have to split his price money. The Belgian agree to split the price money equally between all the racers. Albert's manager said that since his team didn't help him (Albert rode off the front on lap one and was never challenged) that he shouldn't have to split the price money. I agree that his team didn't do much (if anything to help him), but it looks really bad to split the price money like it had been agreed upon before hand, especially when the price money pales in comparison to the sponsorship oportunies Albert will get as a result of winning. 

Review: Specialized XC Light Weight Grip

Specialized XC Light Weight Grip

Let me first say I've never been happy with any of the grips I've ever used on my mountain bike, I've used soft, hard, thin, thick, ergo, round, textured and smooth, and never said "I'm happy with these grips."  Some have been better, some worse, but nothing I thought was good.  As a result I'd be ok with something that was just passable, and what works for me might not work for others.

I tried these grips because they're light (really f--ing light, claimed weight 12 grams), when I weighed them they came up at 9 or 10 on our scale and cheap . . . $10.  How often in cycling can you get light and inexpensive in the same product. . . not often, and usually with bad results.

I couldn't be happier with grips: 
-they're more comfortable than anything I've ever used (which isn't necessarily saying much in my case as earlier mentioned)
-they don't slip
-they're plenty grippy with gloves (haven't tried without glove, but I think they'd be fine)
-they're light
-they're cheap
-did I mention they're light AND cheap

The only small issues I can see/have seen with the grips are:
-they're relatively hard to put on (if you don't have an air compressor, pay your local shop the $5 or $10 to put them on for you, it'll be money well spent; I promise.
-they probably won't last too long. . . they're light and made out of foam, but hey they're only $10

If you are a weight weenie about your mountain bike or a competive racer I think you HAVE to try these out, you might not like them but even if they are just ok, you'll be hard pressed to find a less expensive way to make your bike lighter.

They come in two sizes: small and medium (I'm using the mediums and would recommend those unless you like your grips really thin).