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Once upon a time, down a long long lonely road...

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Aerodynamics

http://www.trainright.com/uploads/galleries/windtunneldelay032.jpg
Aerodynamics you ask? Yep that's exactly what I mean. How does it relate to cycling? Here's how:

Nowadays racing bicycles are built for speed. Before it used to be just about the rider, now its still about the biker but with the added advantage of an aerodynamically designed bike.

The bike is put through a wind tunnel (Yes I said a wind tunnel, like the ones used with cars and air crafts) and the rider is positioned on the bike to test what can be improved in the design of the bike as well as with the position of the rider all in order to make him go faster (were talking seconds here). For example, the crouching position vs. the upright position. For Lance Armstrong's ride in the Tour De France they took every component on bicycle into consideration and every position of Lance, taking into consideration such minute details as to how much time an extended finger would cost him during his time trial stages. His clothing was specially made to improve air flow and the entire shape of the bicycle frame was aerodynamically designed.

But without getting too carried away lets apply this to commuting. Bicycle commuters can face every weather condition imaginable with wind being one of the most important of them. Headwinds cause us to fight to pedal at our normal speed (Which, in most cases, is practically impossible), side winds can blow us off course if we're not prepared, and tail winds can give us an extra burst of speed which helps us go faster with less effort. Tailwinds are a pretty exhilarating experience while headwinds and side winds are pretty demoralizing.

Aerodynamic positions help commuters most in situations where there are heavy headwinds. It helps greatly to know how to crouch properly while maintaining a decent speed. The positioning is like an aeroplane cutting through the air compared to a sail catching the air. Standing on the pedals and stomping doesn't help much either and in fact causes us commuters to waste energy (though it could help in some circumstances).

Why would someone go through all this pain on a bicycle you ask? Well for one thing it's better than driving and you don't get that feeling of being cut off from the rest of the world. So to put this in a nutshell, we go with the wind which ever direction it tries to take us. Head winds give us more stamina while tail and side winds help us learn bike control. Either way its all good because we get fitter and fitter with every ride.

To put it in a nutshell, for the commuter its not about the bike, but the engine...

3 Comments:

Blogger jannah said...

hmmm... very interesting... but about lance's team doing all that testing and finaggling... don't you feel that's unsportsmanlike? he's winning cause his clothes have holes in them to make them more aerodynamic and not because he's the better cyclist!! shouldn't u be offended on the behalf of ur bicyling kind everywhere ;P

1:15 PM  
Blogger Ed W said...

Adversity makes us stronger! Riding home into a 25 mph headwind when it's raining and cold in the winter makes those spring rides that much easier. "What? It's 55F with a 15mph wind and threatens to rain? No problem."

As for the professionals - a seemingly tiny difference in drag has an almost unmeasurable effect on performance when you look at it objectively. But from a rider's perspective, when he's facing a long stage race, or a climb that would stop the rest of us, those tiny differences have a positive psychological effect. Objectively, you could put Lance or George Hincapie on an old Huffy and they'd still beat the crap out of the rest of us.

4:14 PM  
Blogger ashiraz said...

@ Jannah: All the pros use similer bikes and try to squeeze the aerodynamical advantage out of the design of the bikes (most effective in time trials), but in the end the winner usually has the better psychological mindset and skill as well as physical advantage to to be able to rise above the others and win. I used the pros as an example of Aerodynamics :p

@ Ed W: Pros could not win the tour de france on Huffys, but they could still beat us using Huffys.
What I wrote in the post was to show the effects of aerodynamics and how it relates to Bicycles.
In the mountains Aerodynamics mean nothing since thats where the will and strength of the real champion shows.

For commuters, you can really know for sure thats its the engine that counts because you can see them in the ugliest days riding in the (reasonably) roughest weather. So bikes mean less to us than it does to pro racers. The more tough the engine is the less we wimp out.

For me it's great to be without a drivers license as it forces me to ride to work no matter how bad the weather is. Not that I'm complaining...

5:12 PM  

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