Thought I'd test out whether the equipment has any effect this year and if so, by how much ?
First test I made was set on the Stage 20 TDF 2014 TT 52.9 (flat).
I played as team BMC with all 9 riders each with 70 on each attribute. Daily form and positive feelings were turned off. The only unaccounted variable was wind and it varied between 0 km/ph and 10 km/ph during the stage but I was hoping some sort of patern would form regardless especially since I had 9 riders going off at various intervals.
Oddly enough the comfort crew beat the climbing equipment and the TT equipment. However everyone did finish within 25 seconds of each other over 53km, the small differences could be down to the unnacounnted for wind.
It seems equipment didn't have a big effect at all here. But then I thought maybe it's reducing the rate at which the green bar decreases and because all the riders finished the first test with some energy remaining we didn't see a difference ? So onto my second test.
The Stage 12 2014 Giro TT 42km (hilly).
Once again I made 3 sets of equipment, red (comfort) and green (TT) are the same as test 1 but the lightness team is slightly different as this new setup was "suggested" by the game for this hilly TT, so I thought why not try it ?
This time each rider was set to effort level 70 upon leaving the starting house and all riders used up their energy with approx 6km still left to ride. Again wind varied between 0 km/ph and 10 km/ph.
Again very close results with only 21 seconds seperating all the riders over 42km. Comfort seemed to perform marginally worse despite "winning" the flat test, differences could still be wind related though.
Conclusion
I'd have to do more tests for TT's, but it seems that if equipment does effect the performance of the riders it really is quite insignificant. The fact that 3 riders with 15 comfort and 0 Aero all beat 3 riders with 14 Aero and 0 Comfort on a long flat TT is .... interesting ... to say the least ...
Edited by Rammus on 07-07-2014 21:24
Wind was light again, between 0 km/ph and 11 km/ph. Riders were all set to effort level 54 upon leaving the starthouse and all finished with energy remaining.
Wow, first signs equipment actually has a functionality ! The climbers (lightness 15) managed a convincing win on a mountain TT.
It's a small difference between TVG and Burghart (6 seconds) for 12.5 lightness difference, but between Atapuma and Gilbert it's 29 seconds which is definitely a significant margin for a GC rider.
Conclusion
The lightness attribute for equipment plays a small but not completely insignificant role in a mountain TT. Whether it works on a non TT stage is another question and the jury is still out on the "Aero" attribute.
All riders were set to effort level 60 upon leaving the starthouse and all finished with remaining energy. It was very windy though, between 34 km/pm and 49 km/ph.
Well that seems more like what you would expect, the opposite of the long TT though, maybe comfort is more important for long duartions ?
I will say though considering those are the differences between the worst possible aerodynamic equipment and the best possible I think if you are looking to improve your equipment by 0.5 or 1 star it is almost worthless ... especially in career when form/freshness/tiredness and also form of the day will have 100x more of the effect, though I guess they should have no ?
I would certainly disagree with what the dev said that you could noticeably "feel" the difference between different equipment, in career you won't notice it at all imo.
I'll try and do some more tests some other time but I'm done for today.
