At this year's Tour de Georgia, Giro's senior marketing manager Toshi Corbett showed us the production version of this speedy lid that is part of the Santa Cruz, CA firm's contribution to the ongoing F-One project designed to give Lance Armstrong and his Discovery Channel teammates a competitive advantage when it comes to equipment.
Giro has taken the F-One program literally in creating a name for the aero topper, calling the sleek silver head bullet the 'Advantage.' Corbett told Cyclingnews, "over two years ago when Lance asked us to give him the best and fastest material available, the F-One Project was born. At Giro, we set a benchmark to save 13 seconds in a 56km TT in the Tour de France. Last year, the version you saw at the Dauphiné and the Tour was a 'tape on' version, not an in-mold version." That's helmet-speak for a helmet where the polycarbonate plastic shell is taped to the expanded polystyrene (EPS) liner.
"This prototype was UCI approved just before the Dauphiné last year, but then our plan was to move forward with an in-mold version of this TT helmet, as it would provide a slightly outline that provides a lower, more aerodynamic profile for the helmet. So this helmet should be even faster than the previous model."
Corbett delved deeper into the technical aspects of the Giro Advantage, telling Cyclingnews, "What is so unique about this helmet is that we were able to overcome the major manufacturing challenges of building this helmet. It's as revolutionary as when the first in-mold helmets were introduced. Since the helmet is made on a mold, incorporating the portion of the structure below the midline of the helmet was very difficult to make. But our Giro team, with Greg Marding and Dave Debus was able to implement this. Marding is the guy who has designed all of Giro's TT helmets for Lance since 1999 and our new Advantage is the fastest, best fitting and most comfortable TT helmet going."
Non-sponsored speed merchants can expect to see the new Giro Advantage, which is EC safety approved (European Community only) available in Spring 2006.
[此贴子已经被作者于2005-4-27 19:05:13编辑过] |