Unfortunately there is no brake track.

Where are you citing from? Also note that some of the five-spoke wheels in the picture aren't Mavic but FFWD. Regardless, it's futile to just assume that things that work well in a velodrome also work for TT's/triathlon. We also don't run our tires at 180+ PSI like they do.

No brake track, tubular only, €2700

Yep - I can see how it´d be a big seller in triathlon.

Now, there was a Mavic trispoke in the 90s that made its way onto the roads, the 3G - I think Boardman used it for his TdF time trials.

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´Get the most aero and light bike you can get. With the aero advantage you can be saving minutes and with the weight advantage you can be saving seconds. In a race against the clock both matter.´

BMANX

I used the iO for some races in 2009 and I was amazed at how fast the wheel felt. A little sensitive to cross winds, but it ranks very high in my personal all-time wheel ranking...

3 reasons it gets used

1. Mavic give them to olympic teams
2. Everyone uses them
3. Stiffer (this does matter to sprinters)

Not good on translational drag, but as a low spoke wheel it may gain a bit back on the rotational drag front.

No brake track...No problem...Just adapt it for disc brakes...you know they're better!

Mavic actually pays (or at least used to pay) at least some of the leading track squads to use their wheels.

Back in 2007, I helped Colby Pearce test his Mavic and Zipp 808 wheels on the ADT track. There wasn't any difference in his CdA, but his Crr was sky high with both wheels, despite both being fitted with the same high quality track tubular. After investigating various explanations, we concluded that 200+ psi was excessive even on a wood track.

If you're using brakes, you are doing it wrong.....

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

yaw angle doesn;t mean much on an indoor track. If i remember right, the 5 spoke and tri spokes performance falls off quick if there's any sort of cross wind.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

Just because someone won with one wheel or the other doesn't mean one wheel is the fastest.
Following your analogy that same wheel is the biggest looser out of all the wheels, if 90% people ride them than means most of them will loose, so the same wheel lose the biggest # of times.

Or local crit champ rides alu frame and some alu hoops according to your logic alu frames are the fastest...
What exactly track event you had in mind? In track racing aero doesn't matter as much as skills and big legs. In Tri aero, maters much more than on track,

I doubt those track riders actually tested the wheel. There's too much tradition or superstition or bro science in cycling to take seriously the fact that 'everyone is using' a wheel or a frame or whathaveyou.

Am I imagining things, or do I see a brake track on the front wheel of the BMC TimeMachine and the Cervelo P6?

I did note the lack of a Mavic logo though on both - Does FarSports or CarbonZone or someone already sell this wheel in proper road form (meaning a brake track, clincher, quick release)? If so I bet it's pretty affordable.


.

Unfortunately the opposite is true on these wheels..they are average at low yaw and extremely awesome at high yaw.. In fact, the iO is THE fastest non-disc I've ever seen in the wind tunnel for angles greater than 20. At lower yaw, it's essentially equal to something like an 808.

Similar to Coggan's story about Colby Pearce, we did some studies with the Aussie track team a few years back, they along with GB were the only teams open to non-Mavic products because they could afford to walk away from the money..and they found the iO and 808 to be essentially equal with the 808 better in some circumstances, but the coaches felt that it would be a major mental disadvantage to the riders to be on a different product than everybody else. One coach told me, 'if a rider does a bad time on that wheel (iO) then he did a bad time, if he does a bad time on your wheel, it's because of the wheel.' For track at this level, I sort of had to agree with him!

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
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haha - very true -


whoa now - I'd say aero matters more in track racing than in triathlon - The track sprinters hit something like 50 mph and it comes down to inches in nearly every race - absolutely any tiny reduction in Cd matters.

Whoa. There's probably no more pure need for aero than individual pursuit. And all the other events aren't far behind. At 35 MPH+ aero drag is all-consuming.

As long as you are discussing testing for "back in the day" (and you don't work for Zipp anymore) could you tell us about the Zipp testing of the solid spoked wheels and the issue with the high pressure pulse that occurs as the spoke passes between the fork blades? I seem to remember hearing that this was the reason Zipp didn't continue to pursue solid spoked wheels.

So before my time at Zipp, they made a 3 spoke..actually the whole wheel progression went disc, 3 spoke, spoked deep section rim..which is surprising to people. The 3 spoke was initially looked at as more of a disc with cutouts to allow for better handling. In the mid 90's testing was done that showed the performance of these wheels was diminished in frames and forks.

I went to the tunnel in 2002 in preparation for a USPS team test and and looked at this quite extensively. We found that of the out of production Zipp, the Hed/Dupont 3 spoke, Mavic iO and Mavic 3G, the 3G was the best performing in the bike in terms of aero. The Hed 3 was best in wattage to spin, and all 3 of them suffered 2-5 watts of translational or rotational drag when placed in a fork or frame compared to their wheel only performance. The guys at the tunnel suggested we use sound pressure equipment to look at the contribution, and we found a good 1-2 (maybe more, hard to remember..) watts of sound pressure lost to those pulses of air when the blade suddenly cuts through the fork legs. Doing the math, many of those forks had the air-space between blades diminished by a third when the blade of the wheel cut through. We ended up building a quick and dirty fork concept out of Indy Car A-Arm strut that had 100mm fork crown and parallel fork legs. It looked goofy and was terrible to ride because it wasn't stiff, but as of 2 years ago when I left Zipp, it was the fastest fork we'd ever seen in the tunnel. It also notably diminished the noise from these types of wheels AND improved aero in testing. However, by then we were on to the 808 which was way faster than anything we'd tested previously and really from then on, just never looked back at the composite spoked wheels.

I will say that composite spoked wheels really look great, and I think are loved by pros as they not only look awesome, but sound cool and feel fast as they tend to be pretty harsh vertically. We went through a whole 3 days of testing trying to convince Alberto Contador to ride the 808 as he insisted on riding the 3 spoke and it was like a scene from a Monty Python movie..he'd go out and do test loops on both wheels and every time come in saying 'see I am faster on the 3 spoke' and every time he had put out more watts on that wheel..this happened multiple times and finally he says, 'yes, but I do not trust this 'data' I know what I feel...' and that was that. Like all of us, those guys like to feel fast and feel like they look fast!

I haven't tested anything since 2013, so I have no idea where this stands today. I see many companies going to much wider fork spacings and also the composite spoked wheels are evolving..so I'm sure it's very interesting!

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
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Similar text appears on several bike retailer web sites for this wheel (R&A cycles, Chain Reaction, etc), but Olympic stats are stats - I assume those are easy to verify.

Anyway, here's another convincing photo of 5-spoke supr5macy if you aren't into numbers. Does anyone have a lead on where to get the non-branded road version?

Very interesting and thanks for sharing. This makes me think the slotted forks that Cobb and Ridley make, that are designed to reduce the pressure between the fork legs probably work ok at addressing this issue. However, any improvement the slots make likely isn't captured in typical wind tunnel data. Did you ever see this tested?

Fascinating, thanks Josh.

The picture of the BMC bike is of Morten Tilquist, he's also a user here: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/.../?username=Tillquist

I think he also makes, or has made, some custom garmin mounts so I'm sure you could reach out to him to inquire about where he got the wheel. Here's his website: http://tillquist.dk/ It says it's a Mavic iO though, so maybe he just rides the wheel without a brake track?

The slotted forks can work and I've seen that in the tunnel, but they don't work as well as just getting the legs away from the wheel. Also, there are quite a few variants of the slotted fork, some work and some don't, though I haven't seen that tested in years, so hard to say where the advancement in that space is today compared to more traditional designs. Structurally it's not easy to get that gap large enough to act as a vent and not add to the drag were air is trying to force itself into the slot-gapTrek was onto it first and seems that quite a number of the newer bikes are going toward more gap between the wheel and fork legs due to wider rims and possibly for this reason as well..hard to say.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

Great comment about the discrepancy between feeling fast and the numbers showing what is fast. I always point towards guys the swear they are faster at 120psi, when they should be at 95-100psi and RR data, and chiropractor bills (depending on the course), say otherwise.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

"yaw angle doesn't mean much on an indoor track."

don't say that to felt ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Or anyone who races at the Carson velodrome (where Felt spends a lot of time).

Racing there on an 808 or front disc I've occasionally had brief moments of panic from getting blown around. And I'm 175lb.

I think measured up to ~9 deg IIRC. But in general, on average, it isn't much, but it isn't nothing. In a 4000m pursuit, the left side of the bike travels a shorter distance than the right, no?

-SD

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Make it really wide and see 3 small elements or make it really narrow and see one larger element. Like almost all things, it's better until it isn't.

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

It's funny you keep saying that, but I've done thousands and thousands of laps there and have never felt anything like that. Even with double discs, I certainly never feel anything from the side. A large group of riders, though, does create quite a bit of air flow, so I can certainly see getting blown around a bit during a group session. It's always interesting to watch the flags hanging down from the ceiling move in the presence of a large group.

For the OP, Cyclenutz and Josh have provided the answer. We have plenty of data on the IO vs other wheels, and it's certainly not the fastest, but it's stiff and trusted so the athletes choose to use it over other, more aerodynamic, choices. Plus, there's money involved so...

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

Yeah, I think your experiences can be trusted more than mine. But I'm talking mostly about IP with a front disc, only one other person on the track. And only a couple of times. Maybe it was some situation where certain doors were open that usually aren't or something. And a lot of the times in IP my upper body will very relaxed on the straights once in steady-state so it doesn't take a lot of disruption to notice it. I guess I keep bringing it up because it was surprising to me indoors.

Reminds me I need to go get tested by you! If just to validate my own outdoor velodrome testing.

Well I hope they have that Olympic velodrome finished by now then, they will need to make some extra room in the schedule to fit that event in ;)

Well that test distance was used to tare out other variables, they'll only go 1/1000th that distance in Rio ;)
-SD

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

Awesome - now I know what to buy after my C50 wheels.
Thanks!

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Jens Ã…gesen
http://bookanaut.com

So is it correct to say that the wide forks have proved to have an advantage with the 3/5 spoke wheels but are of no advantage with a regular wire spoke wheel?

http://www.planetx.co.uk/...bon-aero-front-wheel

WD :-)

We've done extensive work for front wheels on track specific bikes. A tub that's too big kills the IO, a 19mm Pista Evo CL (or CS, 1-1.5w slower) is ideal for it and will allow it to beat some discs too.

We've got a prototype disc that's similar to a Comete that's very fast, incredibly wide and too wide to be used on the back in a bike like the Cervelo T4 (same as the Comete, rubs on the chainstays unless you have a super long chain).

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AeroCoach UK
http://www.aero-coach.co.uk

Love this story, thanks for sharing! Do. You recall what tire was on the H3?

First, Xavier is right, all of these composite spoked wheels are incredibly sensitive to tire..I'd like to see the new H3+ and see if that helps, but for the H3 or iO, you have to have a tire that caliper's out below 20mm to get what you want. If you have a CS or one of the special national team track tires that Vittoria supplies for critical events, then you are in good shape..

For my story about Contador, he was using special FMB tires that were supplied for him. They measured at 22mm wide with calipers which Alberto and his mechanic Faustino felt was the 'sweet spot' as it was wider than 21 for better rolling resistance and grip, yet narrower than a 23mm for better aero. The combination of the 22mm casing and the post-applied construction of the FMB tires are a bad combination for narrow wheels like this.

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http://www.SILCA.cc
Check out my podcast, inside stories from more than 20 years of product and tech innovation from inside the Pro Peloton and Pro Triathlon worlds!
http://www.marginalgainspodcast.cc

Would you say that holds true for any front wheel on track, going with a narrower tire (19mm CL in your example) is faster, or just going narrower with specific wheels, based on the width at the tire interface?

On road, the tire widths have been trending wider (making a round as opposed to oblong contact patch), so I'm curious about how track application differs? (Realizing that track has far fewer variables, smooth, consistent surface, regulated temperatures, etc.)

I'm researching front wheels/tires for track right now, trying to understand the substantive differences between options with wheels first.

Here are my wheel candidates (not in order of expected performance):

Hed Jet Plus 6 or 9 tubeless clincher
Zipp 808 tubular
Mavic IO
FFWD tri-spoke
FFWD 5-spoke

Based on wheel selection, then optimal tire model and width must be selected based on some rationale.

Interesting discussion..

News to me

For my story about Contador, he was using special FMB tires that were supplied for him. They measured at 22mm wide with calipers which Alberto and his mechanic Faustino felt was the 'sweet spot' as it was wider than 21 for better rolling resistance and grip, yet narrower than a 23mm for better aero.

Wow, that baffles me that someone can obsess over 1 mm of difference in their tire and yet, when provided with actual data, they choose to stick their head in the sand like an idiot. Unbelievable. If you are going to bother doing any testing, the first thing you have to toss out is your preconceived notions about what is going to work. The truth (of the power meter or wind tunnel) shall set you free.

Not that I am saying a small difference in tire size does not matter. I ditched some 20mm Bontrager Aerowing tires that had a higher crr (according to Tom A.) and tried a plan ol' Conti GP4000 with a better crr and they tested exactly the same. I would presume the 2-2.5 mm extra width of the Conti cancelled out the crr advantage.

No definitely not - just for the IO and some others but always relating to rim width.

On the track the best discs will always beat out five spokes/deep sections etc., but the application of them depends on the event and skill of the rider. Doing a standing lap for start of the TS for example you might be better off with a superlight (and still pretty aero) front rather than a front disc, especially if it's stiffer/tracks better round turn 1

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AeroCoach UK
http://www.aero-coach.co.uk

That's a good consideration. In IP and TP, the same standing start carries important need for quickly ramping up to speed. Given that an IO is priced beyond what most mortals can afford, what would you consider a lightweight front wheel with good aero qualities for dual-purpose Track and TT/Tri use?