Two Wheel Blogs

Experimentally speaking, Andy had a much more interesting day in the wind tunnel than I did today.

Rather than outright steal his thunder I'm just going to offer up a taste. Have a look at the photo below and see if you can figure out what kind of experiment is going on here.

A bit cool. That's an understatement. I think it took me an hour to stop shivering. That's certain to be our last aero test session of the year down at the Centaur Rd. wind tunnel. According to reports from the nearby airport's weather station the temperature at start time was 48.0 °F / 8.9 °C. Andy's hand held weather station said it was even a bit cooler in the tunnel. By the time we'd finished it had only warmed up a couple of degrees. This is definitely not weather for skinny guys in skin suits.

The engineer in me will never be able to stop thinking up new things to try that might help me go faster on a bike. This time of year that sort of "I wonder if..." thinking goes into high gear because I'm spending more time on the trainer.

Some guys I know would rather walk into a burning house than ride indoors. If for nothing else, I like it for the opportunity to experiment.

An experiment I tried recently seems to have really paid off. All the aero testing we've been doing this year has resulted in a radically changed TT position. I've been aware that this newly evolved position has affected power production, so I've been thinking of ways I might get some of that lost wattage back.

I had such high hopes for this new position tweak. It had everything going for it. I was comfortable riding in this position. It looked fast. It felt fast. My intuition said this was the best combination of power and aerodynamic profile yet.

Unfortunately it was only an illusion. Aerodynamics is tricky stuff. As the chart shows, the position I thought was so fast turned out to be a step backward from the best I've found so far.

Now that's more like it. I wasn't exactly getting discouraged with all the aero testing I've been doing, but I was starting to wonder whether I would ever experience the thrill of seeing an appreciable change (for the better, of course) in aerodynamic drag as a result some change I made.

Yesterday's testing wasn't the most productive session I've ever conducted and the data I got weren't the best in terms of how well it hangs together but the results are encouraging all the same.

I just got word about a kind of result most of us can only dream about. Over the Labor Day weekend Andy Coggan and John Verheul threw their legs over a wicked aero tandem timetrial bike and set a 40 km national record. Their time: a blazing fast 46:47.72.

Anyone who has done a 40 km TT on his/her own knows what an accomplishment it is to break an hour. These guys beat that standard by over 13 minutes!