- In this video, we're going
to test the different upgrades
you can make to your bikes or equipment
to see which of them actually
makes you the fastest.
- That's right.
We're going to see which is
the biggest bang for your buck.
We're going to test aero
helmets, deep-section wheels,
tri bars, and a whole heap more.
- To do this testing, you
may be able to see behind us,
we've come to a wind tunnel,
but this isn't any old wind tunnel.
This is the Silverstone
Sports Engineering Hub,
a cycling-specific wind tunnel.
And when aero testing gets
done in the cycling industry,
it's often done at pro speeds
and a lot of you guys
complain, rightly so,
that this isn't representative
of what us mortals can ride at.
- The goods news is not today.
No, no, we're going to be
doing all of these tests
at 25 kilometers an hour,
35 kilometers an hour,
and 45 kilometers an hour,
meaning these are actually speeds
which you're very likely to encounter
during your very own rides.
- Yes, and before we crack
on, you know the drill.
- Oh, yes.
- Subscribe and help support the channel
if you haven't already.
- Yeah, and guess what?
Guess who I saw earlier
on hanging about here?
- Who?
- Mr. Original Aero himself, Rob Hales.
- No!
- Yeah, he's going to come in
and give him some nuggets
of information, too.
And we're going to put you
through your pretty
little paces on the rig.
Come on.
Oh, you can borrow this too.
(relaxing EDM music)
(metallic whooshing)
- [Ollie] We be measuring
the power required to ride
each setup at each of those speeds.
To put this in perspective,
traveling at 30 kilometers an hour,
10 watts equates to
0.8 kilometers an hour.
At 45 kilometers an hour,
10 watts is 0.4 kilometers
per hour in speed.
Now, depending on your perspective,
that might sound like a lot or not much.
However, the goal of this video
is demonstrate the relative
aerodynamic gains in watts
that you can typically expect
from different types of equipment.
The data from the wind tunnel
is going to be presented as aerowatts.
This is the watts required
to overcome aerodynamic drag.
As cyclists, we also have to
overcome frictional forces
from the tires and drivetrain
and this is about 10%.
(hypnotic music)
- Right, as mentioned in the introduction,
we are going to be doing these experiments
underneath real-world speed because, well,
I don't think Ollie's ready
for the Olympics just yet.
Maybe doing a bit of disservice there.
But anyway, we are going to be doing them
at 25 kilometers an hour, 35, and 45.
And, of course, we've got to
have the base drag coefficient,
haven't we, so handily on
here, we've got a green outline
so you're going to have
to stay inside of that
for each and every run.
- It's really useful to have these cameras
that are actually recording my position,
a more set and standard position,
and then I can use it as a line guide
to make sure that I always replicate
that same position on the bike
so that that doesn't change,
to make it more consistent and accurate.
That's really cool.
- Yeah, we've liked playing
around with this, haven't we?
I'm going to get out of it
because I don't want
to mess on the results
or anything like that,
but good luck, mate,
and just stay inside those lines.
Just think of it like
driving on the motorway.
Don't leave your lane.
Start the fans, please!
As they used to say on Crystal Maze.
(chuckling)
(futuristic electronic music)
- First up, we wanted a base line,
so we tested myself in
the tunnel on my Pinarello
in just standard kit
in a standard position
and from this, we could
compare everything else.
- Yeah, so on the baseline
position of Ollie,
excluding friction and gravity,
for you to travel at
25 kilometers per hour,
you would need to produce just 82 watts.
Moving up then, up to
35 kilometers per hour,
you would need to produce 222,
and then at 45 kilometers an hour,
well, it jumps up to a whopping 464 watts.
- Yeah, and note that this isn't linear
because drag is proportional
to the square of speed
and therefore the power
required to overcome that drag
is proportional to the cube of speed.
- Thanks, mate.
- It's all right.
Before we do, Olympic medalist
and aero Jedi Rob Hales
is going to go through some of the things
that you can do for free.
- Right then, Rob, we've
got our guinea pig here
on the bike.
- The tunnel rat.
- Yeah, yeah. (stammering)
I'm not sure about his
cadence at the moment,
he could do with working on that.
But you are a man who
loved trying to get faster
without spending any cash.
- Faster for free if you can, yeah.
What's not to like?
- Exactly, yeah.
It's good for someone like me.
I don't like opening up my wallet.
What can we advise Ollie then to do
to get him a little bit
faster straight away?
- One of the first things that
I do when I'm commentating,
you'll get a small break go early on
and there'll be riding at 70, 75%,
just once the break's established,
and what I will always say is, well,
"the rider's struggling a
little bit to bend his elbows."
- There we go.
- There we go.
Now, this is more of a race position
and you can always tell
at the back end of a race
when the break has started
to really have to try
because that's what they do,
they start to bend their elbows.
It's little bit for me,
it's a little bit like
drinking and eating.
If you drink when you feel you're thirsty,
it's a little bit too late.
So do this, even when you're
only riding at 70, 75%
in a break, out on a ride.
You're still saving a
percentage that you will need
potentially later on in
the race when you move.
So bend your elbows, keep your elbows in,
narrower bars slightly,
rather than going for 44s,
'cause we always say, "yeah,
yeah, you need those"--
- [Jon] I used to love 44s.
- Yeah, 44s, it helps you breathe.
- Helps your lungs when you climb.
- Well, then why don't
you put your tri bars
out here as well, 'cause
that'll help you breathe.
Get yourself tucked in nicely.
Roll the shoulders in,
if you can roll those shoulders
in and tuck your head down.
- [Jon] He already looks
faster, doesn't he?
- [Rob] He looks so good and, as we know,
looks, it's the only thing.
It's the overriding thing.
It's the looks.
- It can crack the
competitors down with that,
if someone looks good on a bike.
- It only helps you look fast.
- That's it, that's it.
And don't make it look like
you're breathing either.
(chuckling)
Your diaphragm's going up
and down and up and down,
but you hide that.
The next thing I would say is the helmet.
Lots of vents, that's great,
because it does keep you cool
but at the same time, there's more drag.
It's likely to get to you later on.
It needs an awful lot of
ratio just to keep cool.
And the trouble is the more
vents you've got there,
the more you require
because you're actually creating more heat
to push yourself forward.
So the next thing in your
armory is basically the helmet.
- So we've got one here.
It's essentially the same
sort of shape, isn't it,
but it's just filled in.
- Just a little bit filled in.
- Got a few vents there to
cool him down a little bit.
- It is, it's pretty much
the same profile, isn't it?
In fact, it's the same thing,
isn't it, but it's better!
- Now, you played around, didn't you,
with helmets during your career?
- Filled them in.
- There was a very famous
one you did, wasn't there?
- There was a quite famous one.
But if you notice, these
days all the helmets now,
they tend to be flattened off.
Now, this one has got a very slight scoop.
That one follows round.
Now, what I used to do with mine,
which obviously you can't do nowadays,
but basically, I ground that off.
- Admittedly, if I saw
someone, Ollie, not just you,
but anyone riding along
on a normal road bike
and wearing an aero helmet
like this, proper TT helmet--
- You'd be in Richmond Park.
- I'd be in shock, wouldn't I, really?
- You would, yes.
- I think I would.
But it serves a really
important purpose, doesn't it?
- Well, it helps you go faster, exactly.
Ordinarily, this helmet would go
with a completely different style of bike
and a different style of
riding, obviously the TT rig.
But if you wanted to go the whole hog,
then yeah, stick one of those on.
But the thing is, there's no good.
You see a lot of people, helmet like this,
head bolt upright.
You're getting some advantage with that,
but then you're negating a lot of it
because your head's up
in the wrong position.
So it's all about the
head and the shoulders
and the arm position.
That's the first thing that hits the wind.
Anything further back,
you'll decrease in the
advantage you can have.
So, yeah, if you've got one
of these or an aero helmet,
then you need to make
the most of those gains
by getting the body into the position.
- Now who were the classic riders then
that you can think of modern day
who get into that super aero
hood position, down low?
- One of the guys who's
just very recently retired,
Taylor Phinney was one of those guys.
He got it extremely aero.
And another guy of his ilk,
the Brit who we all know
very well, Steve Cummings.
And this is the thing, you look at it
and you say, "well, I
can't hold that position
"all day long out on the bike."
If you only do it when you
need to, then, no, you won't.
But like Steve does in a lot
of lower-grade training rides,
hold that position so that
your body gets used it.
That's the thing, you've
got to do it in training.
Steve and Taylor, those
were two of the guys
who really did get it.
A lot more do so nowadays,
but there's still a lot out
there who ride straight arms--
- Bolt upright.
- [Rob] Yeah, bolt upright.
- [Jon] It's like wind
cell, isn't it really?
You ride like that, you're not
going to get anywhere very fast.
- Feels nice.
You're opening up your hip angle,
so that you're nice and
powerful, especially on a drag.
Yeah, you get that, you're
going a little bit slower.
But the longer you can
hold that aero position.
Always think, "I'm trying to go
"not necessarily as fast as I can,
"but I'm trying to be
as efficient as I can."
That's the thing.
It's not necessarily about
going faster than anyone else.
It's going for the same
speed as the guy next to you
but for less energy.
So would I ride like this in a TT?
If the answer's no,
then just have a long
hard look in the mirror.
- Yeah.
- [Ollie] The savings for the aero helmet
was two watts at 25 kilometers an hour,
seven watts at 35, and 16 watts at 45.
Now, if we divide the price of the upgrade
by the maximum watts saved,
we can calculate a pounds-per-watt value,
or whatever your respective
currency happens to be.
This will hopefully make
the bang for your buck
of the different upgrades clear.
Now, for the aero helmet,
this works out roughly as £13 per watt.
- We then switched Ollie
into a time trial helmet.
Now, admittedly, there aren't many people
who are going to wear one of
those all day out on a bike
because they're not
necessarily the best thing
for vision and everything,
quite obscuring.
But the savings there
are actually very
interesting, aren't they?
At 25 kilometers an hour,
the saving is just six watts,
but then you go up to
35 kilometers an hour
and you save 18 watts,
which is pretty huge,
and then at 45 kilometers an hour,
you're saving 41 watts, massive,
which works out at £4 per watt saving.
- Yeah but as Rob pointed out,
the time trial helmet
kind of comes into its own
when you get into an aerodynamic position.
And position makes a huge
amount of difference,
so we tested it again
but in a kind of aero hoods position
with it tucked into the back.
- Now, this is where it gets
mega interesting, I reckon.
19 watts saving over the baseline
at 25 kilometers an hour,
which is pretty big
because at those speeds,
you don't really generally
see massive savings,
but that is quite a lot.
53 watts at 35 kilometers an hour.
And then, I'm just going to
have to double check this,
116 watts at 45 kilometers an hour.
- [Ollie] That is ridiculous.
- Absolutely mad.
It shows exactly how important
the position of a rider is
and that basically you
are the biggest obstacle
when it comes to getting through the air
a little bit faster.
- Yeah and if we sort
of split the difference,
compared to the TT helmet
in the standard position,
the saving is 13 watts
at 25 kilometers an hour,
35 at 35, and 75 at 45.
So changing your position
is likely to give
way more difference than
any helmet you can buy
and, bonus, it's free!
- That's always good news.
- Costs per watt, £0.
- (chuckling) I like that.
- Yeah, (chuckling) nice.
(electronic music)
- We then chucked Ollie into
a skinsuit back on the F12
and also we're using an aero road helmet
and, well, you only saved three watts
at 25 kilometers an hour.
But then things started to, again,
get a little bit interesting
because at 35 kilometers an
hour, we saw 30 watts saving
and at 45 kilometers an hour,
a whopping 50 watts saved,
which is a hell of a lot, really.
- Yeah, that is loads.
I mean, a skinsuit is typically
going to cost £200-300,
so if we say for the
sake of argument £300,
that's £6 per watt, which is pretty good.
- Yeah, not too bad.
(tranquil electronic music)
- Deep-section wheels then.
So we tried some shallower
wheels in the bike
and then compared the difference
and it came out as being two
watts at 25 kilometers an hour,
just five watts at 35 kilometers an hour,
and just 10 watts at 45, so not much.
- No, not a huge amount
then for the wheels,
really, let's face it,
considering deep wheels
are one of the first things
that would probably spring
to most people's minds
when it comes to an upgrade on a bike.
I mean, there's two reasons for it.
Firstly, they look good.
They do perform better aerodynamically.
And also, I suppose it's
three things, isn't it,
because you can also say
it improves the ride feel,
the quality of the ride.
But, importantly, and we're looking
at the geeky stats today, aren't we,
so you're going to probably
save about 30 seconds
over a 40 kilometer time trial.
- Yeah, even with just 10 watts like that,
and that is still significant,
although it's much less than the helmet,
as we've demonstrated.
But it should also be pointed out
that we only tested the wheels
head-on, it was zero yaw,
and the experts in the tunnel
and other aerodynamicists have told us
that deep-section wheels
tend to perform better
as the yaw angles increase,
so if you angled the bike
relative to direction of the wind.
And this is because wheels
have the ability to sail
in the wind, something
called a sail effect.
And we didn't have time
to do it unfortunately
but it is something we'd like
to test more in the future.
Now, if we think about the price-per-watt,
well, let's say for the sake of argument
deep section wheels
typically around £1,500.
Works out to about £150 per watt.
- Yes, it's not the best
payment-per-watts saving.
- Yeah, but they look awesome though.
- They do, yeah, I agree with you on that.
We should do something,
pounds-per-bling-point or something.
It's an idea for another video.
(dreamy electronic music)
For the tri bars, we saved nine watts
at 25 kilometers per hour,
40 watts at 35 kilometers per hour,
and 81 watts at 45 kilometers per hour.
(dreamy electronic music)
Right, Rob, you gave me my instructions
and I've raised the bars up, but, well,
what's the thinking behind that?
- Well, this is what we call
the preying mantis position.
Now, this is the original
position we used to adopt
on tri bars.
The theory was that the
wind would go around you.
You're trying to get the
air to pass around the body.
Then we had the aero bike come in,
so we went from the round-tubed
to the carbon fiber monocoque,
and so what we thought was
we'd actually channel the air.
So we would go more of the flat arms
that we've got used to that position
and it would channel
the air around the bike.
But now we've gone back pretty much
to adopting this preying mantis position.
And it's not just the arm position.
What it does, it helps to hide the face
and the body behind your hands,
so you're breaking the air
early, but also in doing this,
what happens is you tend
to roll your shoulders in
and your head comes down.
So rather than being open to the wind,
as your arms come up, your head tucks in,
and then your shoulders roll in.
So it's not just the one thing.
It's a chain of events that
works down through the body
that gives you an overall package.
So hopefully what we'll see
now from the previous test
is this should be much more aero
and you might be able
to break half an hour
for your next 10.
(laughing)
- On that note, we'll leave--
- One can dream.
- Oh that's right, a boy can dream.
On that note, we'll
leave you to it, Ollie.
Right, don't pass out.
(Jon chuckling)
With the tri bars angled angled
into the preying mantis-style position,
we saved 19 watts at
25 kilometers per hour,
54 watts at 35 kilometers per hour,
and 104 watts at 45 kilometers per hour.
That is mind-blowing.
- [Ollie] But the best thing
about clip-on tri bars is,
although they can vary in price,
they can often be picked
up for around £40,
making a cost per watt saving
of just 38 pence per watt.
(calm electronic music)
- Right then, Rob, this
is more like it, isn't it?
Ollie's obviously been saving
up his paper run money.
He's got himself a new bike.
He hasn't got himself new wheels yet,
a disc wheel and a tri-spoke
or anything fancy like that.
But what sort of gains do you reckon
we could expect to find here?
- It's designed basically for speed,
for longevity, over a
fast time, over distance.
And so hopefully we should
see some sort of gain.
Okay, we've kept the helmet the
same and the wheels the same
'cause we want to see
the different, really,
in the setup of the
position and the frame,
isolate those changes, just
to see what we can find there.
- So I reckon we'll put him
through a few more tests
like we have done.
He must be knackered by now
but he's doing all right
though, isn't he, still?
- He's doing all right but if
he can't go quicker on this,
then I think what we're going to do,
we're fill his Optic up with rum
and make him drink it on the way home.
(chuckling)
- Bit of Captain Morgan.
What we might do as well is give him,
I reckon we'll let him do this
and then we'll kit him out
with some fancy kit as well.
- 'Cause there's
certainly more to be done.
And, yeah, the kit is the biggest thing
but we want to see the
difference in the bike
and then we'll go the full-hog
to see exactly what he's made of.
- The Full Monty, his favorite film.
Right, good luck, mate.
Don't let us down.
- [Ollie] For the time trial bike,
we saved 20 watts at
25 kilometers an hour,
60 watts at 35, and a whopping 130 watts
at 45 kilometers an hour, which is huge.
But when you consider we
used the same clothing
on this run as we did
with the clip-on tri bars,
if we compared that
to the preying mantis tri bars position,
at 25 kilometers an hour,
there's just one watt difference
and at 35, there's just
six watts difference
and at 45 kilometers an hour,
there was 25 watts difference.
So the TT bike is faster but not by much,
especially when you consider
that a TT bike like this
typically costs around £6,500,
equating to £50 per watt.
- Right, we're back in here
and I think I'm just going
to check Ollie's all right.
Okay, don't speak if you can't.
Blink once for yes, twice for no.
Are you okay?
I don't know what he did.
I think we'll just run with it.
You just stay there, Ollie.
Right, we've him kitted out now.
He's in a skinsuit.
He's got a teardrop helmet on.
He's looking like a
time trialist, isn't he?
- He's suited in boots though, isn't he?
- Yeah, he looks good.
- There's not a lot else
that we could do, really,
other than maybe some aero socks
and obviously get you halfway up
between your knee and your ankle bone.
I know that otherwise the UCI
will be getting their protractors out.
But other than that, this
is about as good as it gets
with the biggest stuff,
obviously the body, the suit.
Okay, yeah, he's a little bit tired now
but the helmet all looks
good and it all looks great
and generally if it looks good,
it should be good.
- Exactly, I mean, in a wind tunnel,
it's going to show up
everything, isn't it,
but a lot of it actually,
when you're out on the road,
it comes down to that
mental thought of it.
If you feel fast--
- If you feel good,
when you ride past those shop windows
and you look and you look good,
then yes, definitely,
it's all in the mind.
And ultimately, what's left in the body
has got to propel you forward
when you're out on the road,
but ultimately, all this will help.
The other thing you could potentially do,
a slightly deeper front rim
and obviously a disk wheel,
but we're nitpicking now.
We're looking for the biggest differences
comparing with previous tests.
So this is not a bad endpoint
for the end of a very long day.
- Or is it the end?
- We'll see.
- Yeah, I think we've
got a couple more tricks
up our sleeve, haven't we?
Yeah, he's looking all right.
He's looking all right still.
So go on, mate.
We then put Ollie into a more,
well, recognizable setup,
so a TT bike with a TT
helmet and the skinsuit
and the savings are as follows.
24 watts at 25 kilometers an hour,
75 watts at 35 kilometers an hour,
and 167 watts at 45 kilometers an hour.
The crazy thing here was that to travel
at 45 kilometers per hour,
Ollie only needed to overcome
297 watts of aero drag,
compared with 464 on the baseline run.
Crazy!
Also the difference the
suit and helmet made
over just the bike was huge.
(futuristic synth music)
- So, there you have it.
In terms of bang for your buck,
the best thing you can do to
get faster is learn to ride
in a more aerodynamic position.
It's free speed.
- Yeah, but you can buy it too.
It can be easier, let's face it.
- Yeah, but if you're
going to splash the cash
and spend money on getting faster,
then based on this video,
we suggest you prioritize
things like tri bars,
a helmet, and then clothing
and skinsuits and things like that.
- Yeah, wheels and fancy time trial bikes,
they do make a difference
but in comparison,
they're relatively expensive
for the savings you get.
- Yeah, now we hope
you've enjoyed this video
and found it informative and useful
and if you have, then
please give it a thumbs up.
Share it with your friends.
We should also point out
that whenever we visit a wind tunnel,
there's always more things we want to test
than we have time for, so if
we haven't tested something
that you'd like to see
us test in the future,
then let us know in the comments
and we'll endeavor to do it
next time we visit the tunnel.
- Yeah and if you've enjoyed this
and want to see even
more wind tunnel content,
then why not click just down here
to see the difference between
a retro and a modern bike?
I enjoyed dressing you up that day.
- Thanks.
- See you next time.
