Originally Posted by
big john
You might remember the story where RacerEx forgot his shoes and raced in penny loafers and still got third or so.
The RacerEx story is total optimization of weigh, equipment and aerodynamics including tunnel testing and testing at Velo Sports Center where he and I did a session together. He is all about minimizing the power required to generate speed under various conditions. And he got into many debates here at BF with racers about how much power it took to generate X speed. He made a lot of power but also generated a lot of speed for not much power - a considerable competitive advantage.
But yes, he forgot his cycling shoes, raced in loafers and did quite well in an NRC stage race.