Articles
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The Flat Earth
– January 16, 2009 It was a pretty day, a light westerly breeze blowing the hot summer air out over the waters. All along the docks there were wives and loved ones crying and holding their loved ones until the last moment. As the very last few moments came there were pleas and shouts of fear that these sailors would surely never return. These brave young men were embarking on an adventure that was surely doomed, guaranteed to fail. The wise men and the scholars had all spoken their positions and there was no real hope, everyone new this was the wrong direction to go. These adventurers were off to discover new worlds, but first they had to break over the edge, the edge of the earth because everyone new that the earth was FLAT. Technology has a way of making our lives uncomfortable, technology can seemingly complicate and confuse our lives but technology will always reveal the truths about objects, forcing the adventurers into more exploration. A few months ago I wrote an article about how Aero seat post don’t work. On the surface that’s a pretty big statement and since I had long been a proponent of all things aero and aero seat post in particular those were some hard words to type. I had been studying frame shapes and certainly if there is not a rider on the bike then a thin aero post does work well. But we have riders on our bikes and that changes things a great deal. I’ve continued to study this area and I am learning more about specialized air control around the rider and now a few others are also looking into this area. The other explorers now have a new direction to look into, it has forced them to explore the relationship of the post verses the riders positioning. As other researchers find new data and as I find new data we will hopefully publish it so that you, the consumer, can gain some incite and make better cessions. I have been going to wind tunnels for more than 15 years to study bicycle air flow, I have made every mistake possible, made most of them twice, but have continued to go and learn about how to make a rider go faster. One of the biggest ingredients that I’ve found for aero success is a willingness to admit failure, the strength to believe in something, develop it, test it, and then get your feelings hurt when it’s proven wrong. As I’ve continued to study different parts of the bike, the one area that always looms as very important are the wheels. Wheels, you got to have wheels or you’re not going very far. Wheels are so interesting yet so confusing to cyclist. There’s lot’s of shapes and configurations and there is a large ocean of difference in price between two objects that appear pretty similar. If you take the money out of the equation and just look at the technical aspects it can get overwhelming. If you throw in some marketing hype that is almost never backed up by research, then wheels can become downright intimidating. I began trying to show the difference in wheels by expressing the energy they require to spin through the air in watts. Watts are the amount of energy a human can generate over a distance and since we can’t generate very many you need to use them carefully. Originally and still to this day, we talk about wheel drag or the effort it takes for air to go over a wheel. Wheel drag can only be measured in a wind tunnel and wind tunnels are expensive and not readily available for people to use. Drag numbers are also a hard number for riders to relate to because they are so affected by everything around the object. Loose clothing, long hair, tube sizes and shapes all affect this drag number. Watts generated by wheels aren’t affected by all of this so that makes it a better way to express good, bad, or better. Over these past years I’ve continued to try and enlist the help of various manufacturers to learn about wheels and mostly pay for some of the wind tunnel time. Most of the manufacturers are very hesitant to get involved because it gives their competitors all the information for free and they can’t seem to get past that. One company, Hed wheels, did get on the band wagon early on and have continued to stay very involved in the research. Steve Hed has always been an open book to the athletes and to his competitors, trying to get out the right information. A very few other companies have spent the time or money to develop products this way, it’s the long hard road but it has led to great success for Hed wheels. As I said earlier, watts are what we need to also look at. The engineers at Texas A&M have been working with me for the last 3-4 years to develop a way to consistently measure wheel watts. On my last trip in Sept. ’02 it was like sailing off the edge of the earth only to discover that the earth was round. I believe we conqured wheel watts and how to measure them correctly. This would normally be cause for great celebration, big fireworks and much partying, except that as usual with all things in research it trashed everything I thought I new. The next step will now be to find a way to express watts/drag and steering torque, in a simple term that really means the same thing to everyone. When we get that equation working, hopefully soon, all you racers will benefit a great deal. I’m hoping to come up with an “Energy value system” that will take into account the drag / steering torque/ watts and give a value verses price that the industry will maybe adopt. Technical adventures are a lot like the old sailing adventures of Columbus and others. You make some mistakes, you run aground every now and then but you occasionally find a new world.
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