- If you're like me then you want to be able
to ride your bike faster, so we've come to a wind tunnel to test a load of common aero gains to see exactly how much
difference they can make. Now, you can buy bling
bikes and bling kit, but that's expensive. You can do it the old
fashioned way and train more, but that takes effort. So before you do either of those things, using science, we're gonna
demonstrate a load of stuff that'll hopefully make
you faster, for free. We're gonna be testing
loads of cool stuff today. Some things that you might
not have even thought about, but also things like clothing,
numbers, and even beards. Now to do this, we've come to the Boardman Performance Centre and we're gonna be
testing with the help of Dr. Xavier Disley from AeroCoach. AeroCoach being a company
that provides specialist aero testing for pro-athletes and also amateurs too. (upbeat music) Hi Xav, good to see you man. - You too. - Thanks for helping us today. Chris has kindly volunteered to do the riding in the wind tunnel. - Guinea pig. - Yep, but can you run
us through the procedure that we're gonna be doing
to test the various things? - So, what we're gonna do
is we're gonna mount Chris and his bike on the test rig. And you can see the big turbine behind us. What this is gonna do is it's
gonna pull the air past Chris, which is gonna be transferred to the force plate underneath you which allows us to measure
the aerodynamic drag that you're producing. We're gonna be running you at 45 kilometres an hour wind speed. Now we use a slightly higher wind speed just to make sure the data's
as accurate as possible. We can then convert that to
wattage savings and time savings at lower wind speeds afterwards. - What this enables us to do
is to present the data to you at two speeds, 45 and
30 kilometres an hour. And then you can simply choose the speed that's most relevant to you
and the riding that you do. So, Chris what's, which one-- - Well, on a good commute,
I can do 34 k's an hour. So, I'm gonna use that. - Cool. The first thing we're doing is getting a baseline measurement of
Chris in a standard position and then we can measure
other things against that. (upbeat music) Now many beginner cyclists
ride quite a lot on the hoods and tend to not ride in the drops as much, or in an aero hoods position. So we're gonna test those
different positions, well, Chris is, and we're gonna see how much difference they make and how much time you can save. (upbeat music) We're gonna be presenting the results from the wind tunnel testing
in terms of watts saved. So to put that into context, if you save 10 watts at
30 kilometres an hour, that's equivalent to a 0.8
kilometre per hour speed saving and at 45 kilometres an
hour, 10 watts is equivalent to 0.4 kilometres per hour in speed. - So, I mean, what we found was that, just by moving your
position around on the bike, we got some really,
really big improvements in terms of your aerodynamic drag. So if we take a 30
kilometres an hour speed, dropping your position
from a hoods position down to an aero hoods position was 33 and a half watts faster, which is absolutely loads. - That is loads, isn't it? - That is quite a lot, yeah. So what's my CDA then? I love that number. - So your CDA was 0.221, which is actually a pretty good
CDA for someone on a TT bike so it was quite an extreme
position you were holding, so I'm not surprised that it was that low. - It's the sort of position
you'd only hold from a lead out, you know, two or three
kilometres at a time when you're really, really going for it. - Exactly. We found that when you
went into the drops, it wasn't quite as fast. We often find that. That an aero hoods position, because your forearm is
parallel to the airflow, when you go down to the drops, more of your forearm
is exposed to the air, so it's a little bit slower, but it can be more maintainable. 'Cause going in an aero hoods position can hurt your triceps a little bit. - Yeah, it takes the pressure off. - Exactly. - I guess the takeout message would be whenever you're going fastest
in an event or on a ride, the most efficient position
to therefore get into at that point in time, if you can only maintain
it for a short period, is that aero hoods position. - Absolutely, absolutely. And when we were in the tops, so rather than hoods position,
when you're holding the tops, it was a little bit slower. Your elbows went out a little bit and it was about three watts slower at 30 kilometres an hour. And it's a lot related to torso angle, so the lower you get your
torso angle, in general, the faster you go. Certainly on a road bike. - So that really is the big take home, is to close that front
cavity that we create. - Yeah, exactly, Allow the wind to go over
the top of your back, rather than hitting your chest instead. - That's something we can
all do at home quite easily, isn't it? For free. - Yeah, it's just training and making sure you can
maintain those, kind of, more extreme positions. But even if you just, as you say, hold the position occasionally, it's still gonna speed you up. You don't have to do it the whole time. (upbeat music) - Rain capes are great for keeping you dry when it's raining, but what is the aerodynamic
penalty of wearing one? They're a lot more loose and flappy than a tight-fitting jersey, and also many riders tend
to keep a rain cape on, just to keep themselves warm, even after it's stopped raining. So we're gonna see what
penalty comes with that. Also we're gonna partially
unzip the rain cape and see what happens if
it turns into a parachute and also fully unzip it and leave it flapping around in the wind, because many riders rather
than completely taking it off, they don't wanna stop and they can't take it off on the move, so they just kind of leave it on, but unzip it so they don't get too hot. Chris has just unzipped
his rain cape halfway and you can see that that's
causing all the air to come in and inflate it like a sort of parachute and, well, it doesn't look very aero, but I can't wait to
see what the data says. - And we found that putting a
rain cape on slowed you down. Not surprisingly because
it is a bit more baggy and it was 13 watts slower
to put the rain cape on, rather than just having
your normal jersey. When you half unzipped it, that actually was interesting. It actually wasn't any slower and it looked a little bit quicker when you half unzipped it. Aerodynamics is a funny thing and sometimes that sort of thing happens, but there was a bout 3 watts in that, when you unzipped it. It was still slower than not
having the cape on, of course. - That's incredible 'cause
I would instinctively ride with it zipped up because
I would be fearful of it slowing me down. - Normally that's what we'd see as well, so maybe related to the
position you were holding and the particular jacket that you had, but we certainly found that
when you fully unzipped it, and it was flapping around everywhere, that was 16 watts slower than
having it fully zipped up and 29 watts slower than
not having it on at all. - And I should point out, 16 watts doesn't sound like a lot, but when I sat on the bike in the wind tunnel at
45 kilometres an hour, you can feel it blowing you back. The extra drag over having
just a short sleeve jersey on. - So what happened when
Chris took the rain cape off and stuffed it up the back of his jersey? Was he faster or slower or-- - It didn't really make much difference. It looked actually about one watt faster, so not really that much difference
at 30 kilometres an hour by putting it up the back of the jersey. - So that's not much difference on not wearing a rain cape? - Exactly. Yeah, not the rain cape itself. So once you don't need
the rain cape anymore, stick it up the back of your jersey, or down, you know, one of the pockets, if you can fit it in there, and that'll definitely
be much, much faster than keeping it on, because, you know, it's
about 12 watt difference. - Even at a modest 30 kilometres. (upbeat music) - I have the inability to grow a beard, but thanks to Ollie's bag of tricks, we do have a costume
beard that I'm gonna wear. See if it's any faster or slower. - Right, so we're gonna
test Chris with a beard now. I don't know if this'll be
faster, slower, the same. I just really wanna find out if having a massive beard on your face-- - I'm just worried
about how I look, Ollie. - You look great man,
I'm gonna take a picture. - That's all that matters. (upbeat music) A beard is faster. - Aerodynamics is a funny old thing. - Wow. - So next up, well we have the beard. I mean everyone wants to know
is a beard faster or slower? - Now beards are gonna be very individual and depending on the position
you're holding and things. We've done, you know, some
testing with people with beards and we know that having a
beard doesn't necessarily make the rider massively slow. Interestingly, with you,
with your luscious beard that you had on today, it was actually a little bit quicker. - Oh, wow. Yeah I know, so but that
was in the hoods position. I wonder if it might be different
if you were in the drops or in the aero hoods position. - So if I want to go
for a ride on the hoods I should grow a beard. - Yeah, I think so. - Right, there we go. - That was saying it was,
what, four watts quicker? - At 45 kilometres an hour, yeah. - I mean, how accurate is that? Should Chris really be getting
some kind of beard graft now? 'Cause he can't grow a beard. - I think-- (laughing) I think the problem is
at 45 kilometres an hour you're not gonna be doing
that sat up like this. And so, I'd wanna do more testing with him in a bit more of an aero position. But it filled the gap
nicely around your chin. - Nice, yep. Kept my neck warm. - Yeah, exactly. - So you think a good thick
thatch is the way to go, rather than a wispy-- - Yeah, I think so. I think that'd be more aero. You could gel it down to
make it more sleek as well. - I think more testing is
required on the front of beards. (upbeat music) The next thing we're
gonna test is the effect of sticking a cardboard number
to the front of your bike. Now, many of us have to do
this if we do a sportive or another such event for
the purposes of timing and things like that, but what is the
aerodynamic effect of this? Is it faster, is it slower? If you've got a fancy aero
bike, or a handle bar, does it completely ruin the aerodynamics? We're gonna find out. - It's ruined the style of my bike, Ollie. That's for sure. - Yeah, it doesn't look great. So, I'm just sticking the number now in a more aerodynamic way, by folding it around the
head tube of the bike to see if this results
in a significant saving. - It does look better I'll give you that. (upbeat music) - Next up we're gonna test a race number and how much it slows you down, if at all. But, we're gonna test it twice. We're gonna test it first well pinned and nice and flat. And then we're gonna test it not so well pinned on and kind of flapping around and seeing if that makes a difference. - If this is your idea of a
well pinned number on here. - (laughing) - I'm a little bit worried. - Wait, hang on, no I'm gonna, I'm rectifying it, I'm rectifying it. Apparently they weren't
happy with the proficiency of my number pinning, so Xavier is insisting
on pinning the number on the AeroCoach way, whatever that means. - A little fin, as in like
a spine on the number? - Yeah. - And finally, we'll look at the effect of badly pinning a number. It's a kind of common
held myth among cyclists that it can really slow you down if you pin your number on like a noob. But let's see if it's actually true. Then we went for the numbers, right. So first up, yeah, the
number, the sportive number on the front of the bike. - Now that's always gonna
be a really tricky one for people doing sportives because you have to have
a number on your bike and so you need to know the
best way to place it one there. Having the big square number
right on the front of the bike obviously was slower, but in this case it was
absolutely loads slower and at 30 kilometres
an hour, it was costing around eight watts,
eight and a half watts. - That's at 30? - At 30 kilometres an hour, yeah. - That's, I mean that's basically, well, if you've got a fancy
aero cock pit on your bike, that's completely
cancelled out the benefit of that aero cock pit, hasn't it? - Absolutely. If you think about the frontal
area of the number like that, it's way more than the
head tube of the bike, or most of the handle bar as well, 'cause it's, you know,
quite a big surface area. So, I'm not surprised at that, but hopefully it'll highlight to people that maybe placing a
number in a better position is gonna be a better thing to do. And the next thing that we did-- - Yeah, my hack, my cheeky hack of wrapping it around the head tube. Is that faster or slower? - So wrapping around the head tube, actually was pretty much no difference to having nothing on the bike at all. Maybe marginally faster, because-- - Faster? - Yeah, because it helps to aero off the back of the head tube, but certainly it's much, much better than having the number just
front on to the airflow. - You should leave your
number on after a sportive, because it is faster, only if you've wrapped it. - Only if you've wrapped it
around the head tube, yeah. - The next things we
did were pinning numbers on the back of the bike,
on the back of the rider. And we found that having
just a pinned number with a few pins on the back was a little bit slower, about half a watt slower, which is what we'd expect. Now, this was in a hoods position when you were quite upright. I think that if you were
more crouched over the bike there'd be more airflow
going over your back and then the influence of having a number would be a bit more exaggerated. So that half a watt might
double, or maybe treble to a watt and a half. We did a little trick,
a little AeroCoach hack, where we pulled the edge of the number in, to create a little fin off the back and that actually sped you
up by a watt and a half. - Oh, wow. - It's something that
we've done for a while and yeah, it basically
extends the attachment of the airflow off your back. - So a pinned number,
that's done well, is faster. - Can be faster, yeah. - I never knew that before
today, that's pretty cool. - And then, unpinning the number, actually in your case simulated that little hack that we did. So, having two pins at
the very top of the number and then the back of it flapping was a little bit quicker
than nothing at all, because it looked like that
little fin at the back. But I think if you'd unpinned
the top of the number and it'd been flapping from the top down, it would be loads slower and
that's what we needed to see. - Well, thanks, Xav. That's been fascinating. So much like cool stuff
we've learned today. I hope you found this video
useful and informative. And if you've got any
mates that have big beards or ride with their rain capes unzipped, then share this video with
them and tag them in it. And if you'd like to watch another video with some aero testing in a wind tunnel, then click on Xav.
