Perhaps the shoes behaved unexpectedly because you’re a heel-dropper?

I did test the MORF bars on my Shiv against my Alpha X but I'm going to withhold the results for now until I can get the data to Frank. Even thought I tested his product on my time and my dime, it's his product so I'll let him handle the data accordingly.

nice one thanks for sharing.

would have been nice if you had just cut the flap at the bont shoes after testing them and see what happens. cut have been the cheapest 1 watt save of the day ;-)

Perhaps the shoes behaved unexpectedly because you’re a heel-dropper?

First, thanks for sharing!

I assume that although the pics are static, tests were while you were pedaling? Did you check test-retest reproducibility, and if so, how far/what aspects? (I occasionally get asked for tunnel recommendations.)

Introduction
Starting about three years ago I began doing my own field testing using the Chung Virtual Elevation Method (technical stuff here, user experiences, tips, and tricks here on the world-famous ST Platypus Thread). Over that time I'm going to guess I logged perhaps 20-25 hours worth of "testing time" in the field and got what I thought were decent results: I felt fairly comfortable with A/B testing helmets and felt confident in the results because they were repeatable but I never felt very confident in anything other than ordinal values because when testing other things, such as clothing or equipment changes, I seemed to get a lot of noise (e.g. item A tests faster than item B one weekend but the next weekend there was either no difference or the order was reversed).

Around the beginning of this year, I became involved with a couple of early-stage triathlon related products in the capacity of "enthusiastic guinea-pig" and it was clear that some of these would have to go to the wind tunnel eventually. When I saw a mention of "Aero Camp 2017" I thought to myself "it's high time I go to the tunnel and do some testing." Due to a scheduling change for Aero Camp, I ended up testing on my own today.

My primary goal for today's trip was to validate my own field testing and equipment choices.

Equipment Tested
Trek Speed Concept size large with Ultegra Di2, HED+ rear disc wheel, Zipp 404 NSW front wheel, Continental GP4000S II tires 23mm front/rear, Bontrager XXX brake levers, Bontrager bento box, Bontrager plug-in extension, Zipp Vuka aluminum s-bend extensions, Zipp arm cups, trimmed arm cup "bridge", TriSports BTA Mount, X-lab Torpedo (backwards), Garmin 920 XT, Speedplay Pedals, and a Selle SMP saddle. I left my "Draft Box" flat kit at home on accident :(

I get a lot of questions about the Selle SMP saddle. I like it. The only other saddle I use is my ISM PN 1.1. For short, hard efforts I prefer the Selle because I really feel like it locks my body into place... which is also exactly what you want for aero testing. In all seriousness, it actually made a noticeable improvement in the quality of my field testing data which I'll elaborate on in a separate post in the next couple of weeks.


Let's Detour and Talk Position for a Minute....
One thing you'll notice in the following recap is that I didn't make any position changes. Why? It took me a long time to get my position to where it's at and I'm happy with it. I'm very comfortable and it takes surprisingly little to piss off my shoulders. Also, for the racing I do (short-course), it's really not practical for me to ride any lower up front.

Why did I bring this up? For those of you who have not gone to a wind tunnel but have contemplated it, the less position work you do the more equipment testing you can do for a given time budget. Most bikes require a few minutes of wrenching for each change to arm pad width, stack, reach, tilt, etc. Helmet swaps are super fast. I think I got through six helmets in about 30 minutes of testing. Not bad. Clothing went at the same rate. The limiting factor was literally how long it took the fans to slow down.

Onward to Testing
First, I should note that A2 has a very healthy selection of helmets and other equipment to choose from. However, I brought my own helmets as the strap were already adjusted. I started wearing a Kiwami Spider WS1 and a Giro A2. 201 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 186 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)


My Scott Split which I once thought was my fastest helmet (raising my front end has dinged it). 203 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 188 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)

Specialized McLaren lens on. 203 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 186 Aero Watts (-10 yaw)

Giro Aerohead. This helmet consistently tested faster in field testing for me than anything else in my collection. 200 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 184 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)


POC Cerebal. 203 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 189 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)


Now let's get to some clothing. First up is my Kiwami Spider LD-Aero and my Giro Aerohead. I'd like to detour for a second because my tunnel experience is an interesting learning experience for all of those out there who are aero obsessed. If one were to look at trends in wind tunnel reports, one would assume that going from sleeveless to a sleeved suit should net a nice gain for a guy with my build. Right? Not so much. 199 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 183 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw) I'll revisit this point in my closing summary.


What about a different sleeved kit? Here's my Virklon which doesn't have a wrinkle anywhere. 203 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 184 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)


Ok so I'm not making any headway with clothing. Maybe it's time to address my shoes? After all, look at those flaps! In all seriousness, let's take a moment here to discuss those flaps. Geoff and Heath poked some good fun at me when they first saw my ungainly Bont tri shoes and early on they thought the delta between them and my Simmons monocoque carbon fiber shoes would be quite large. Geoff thought there would be a 15 watt difference and was rather confident in his assertion. Heath thought that was overly optimistic but was quite confident in his guess of 8 watts. I was more conservative still guessing I'd see a 5 watt difference. In reality? Drumroll please.... 198 Aero Watts (Zero Yaw) 184 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw). Everyone was so slack-jawed that we actually took five minutes off from testing in the tunnel to compare photos of my positions between runs. As best as we could see, I was doing quite well when it came to the Mannequin Challenge.


The only position change I wanted to try was a Mantis position. Hallelujah a change in drag! 193 Aero Watts (0 yaw) 179 Aero Watts (-10 yaw)


Now let's try to emulate TJ Tollakson and run a bottle under the aero extensions. 198 Aero Watts (0 Yaw) 179 Aero Watts (-10 Yaw)


I did test the MORF bars on my Shiv against my Alpha X but I'm going to withhold the results for now until I can get the data to Frank. Even thought I tested his product on my time and my dime, it's his product so I'll let him handle the data accordingly. To those who have keen eyes, yes, the position is quite different from my Speed Concept. Also, to go back to my whole notion of "my position is comfortable" the position below was killing me! Seriously, it took a ton of concentration on each run for me to hold that position. One more note: I know the two photos below look a bit different but that's because one was at yaw and the other was not. I promise you, we went to great pains between each run to ensure that I was in as close to the same position as possible between the two bars.



Summary and Closing Thoughts
At the end of the day, I largely validated much of my recent field testing. Prior to going to A2, my Giro Aerohead consistently tested faster than every other helmet in my arsenal. Also, I had previously tested a mantis position and on several occasions found it to be considerably faster than having my arms titled ~10 degrees (I can't ride comfortably with my arms level) but also found no change on some occasions (hence the question mark in my mind). In previous field testing I had never seen any sort of consistent difference in clothing for myself. Turns out sleeves don't do much for me!

It turns out I'm one of those folks who is sort of equipment agnostic: changes in equipment just don't result in big changes for me. This isn't unprecedented. IIRC James Haycraft is sort of like this. That's ok though. I'm very happy I was able to validate my equipment selections for this season and all in all, I was able to find 8 watts between my baseline and my fastest configuration. I really enjoyed my time at A2 and found both Geoff and Heath to be very helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions below.

Nice write-up.

First, thanks for sharing!

I assume that although the pics are static, tests were while you were pedaling? Did you check test-retest reproducibility, and if so, how far/what aspects? (I occasionally get asked for tunnel recommendations.)

Dr. Coggan,

I'm not GreenPlease but when I tested at A2 the tests were done at 30mph and pedaling. There are various ways to do pic over pic and/or in test projection to manage position changes.

due to some interesting results in the workflow, I repeated a few runs both at the beginning, mid-test, and then again at the end and the data came back very close. I'm not a scientist but to me that feels "repeatable". N=1 obviously.