We laugh but the work these guys are doing is amazing. Let me explain
Yesterday I went out and did some aero testing. I'm in Quebec, about 1hour North of Ottawa. There is a section of road roughly 1 mile of typical brutal Quebec roads, 1 mile of more recently paved.
Here is the map. The west section is the smooth part.
So I start between the two sections, go west, turn around, go east all the way, encountering rough roads half way back, turn around, repeat 3x
Here is the CDA with uncorrected rolling resistance, ie assuming the rolling resistance is constant. I use CDA for the lap, separating laps on smooth and rough sections.
You see, quite clearly and with good repeatability that my CDA took a hit. A BIG hit. 0.253 to 0.264 is HUGE
Smooth road is 0.253, 0.253, 0.251, rough 0.264, 0.263., 0.262.
(FYI, that is over 10watts at 30mph)
In green is barometric altitude (uncorrected). In blue is wind, I had a good head wind/tail wind going on.
In Orange is an indicator" or road roughness.
It is this road roughness that helps me to correct and recompute a new CRR. In theory those CDAs should all be the same, the CRRs should vary.
The problem is this orange indicator is not clearly defined. I have all kinds of vibration data but what I am trying to do is model, quantify, parametrize, describe......not sure what to call it....vibration and rough surface.
The nerds are trying (I think) to do this. This is the next frontier.
Long live the nerds !!