In that case, what did you learn that can be shared with us? Are you part of the team going forward?

Scott

i am not part of the team. but there are certainly some thoughts i can share with you. just, at the moment i'm going to cash in my chips and hit the sack. got to stay fresh for the 100/100!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The answer is really depends on the day. The collection of wind data over time can provide some useful information on the statistical distribution of wind yaw for a given geographic locations (some locations make for fantastic wind resource, aka wind farms, while other locations are quite calm). Much of this information is readily available with meteorological tower data, but does not perfectly correlate with what a rider sees within 1m of the ground.
For instance, two plots are shown below (obtained from AeroLab sensors) where I have backed out the wind magnitude and direction of wind experienced by a rider in the same location and on the same day (just earlier in the day vs later in the day when things calmed down). The wind yaw experienced by the rider is completely dependent on the riders ground speed and heading relative to the wind. Nevertheless, earlier in the day the wind yaw (average) was about 12 degrees, while later in the day it was about 2 degrees.



(hopefully the above plots come through okay). The wind magnitude data is in the ground frame of reference and direction of the wind is relative to the riders heading which is 0 [deg] as a reference. Thus, if you see wind at 90 or 270 [deg], the rider experienced a direct cross wind, 0 [deg] is headwind, and 180 [deg] is tailwind.

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Chris Morton, PhD
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
co-Founder and inventor of AeroLab Tech
For updates see Instagram

Great videos, but I wonder why not to share actual CdA data as Lionel shares his power output.

There are no relationship between sharing data and and show weakness in competition (see 0.214’s Cameron Wurf in Boeing Tunnel). In the other hand Rohan Dennis never publish his data, but I do not understand why. (Respect the decision )

You can also check out my post here:



One can do some vector math, add in a bit of statistical probability, and then back out "on average" what % of time you will spend above 10 degrees yaw. I even posted some pseudo code if anyone wanted to run it.

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Chris Morton, PhD
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
co-Founder and inventor of AeroLab Tech
For updates see Instagram

Hope you had a good rest and made progress on your 100/100.

Whatcha got for us from your day with Lionel’s Crew?

Scott

i never understand the decision not to make that stuff public. if i know the watts you ride, or your CdA, how does that help me? oh, lionel rides 350 watts in a 70.3. that's the secret. now that i know the secret, i'll just go right out and do that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I don't understand the CdA and Watts thing but I do understand not releasing data on which piece of equipment tested faster and by how much.
If I'm going to pay thousands of dollars to find out if this wheel and that tire saves X watts or this type of bottle placed at Z angle yields Y watts then for sure I'm not going to let my competition get that info for free.
A lot of this stuff is individual but you can make some informed decisions based on someone else's data.
I guess there's the psychological component as well...e.g. Sebastian goes to the wind tunnel and gets some special piece of equipment installed in his rectum by his fitter that saves him <beep> watts and now Lionel can't sleep at night at the thought that Sebastian one-up-ed him again.

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What's your CdA?

Not about secret recipes, just a number that everybody knows (the higher the power and the lower the cda, the better) .



Most of the time that someone doesn’t share data is for 3 main reasons.*

Never share nothing
Bad data
Bad autoconfidence
*bonus; Never share knowledge (as triathlon coach, sports scientist, AG triathlete and Bike fitter I try to share knowledge as I consider there are no shortcuts to the success)

When you watch Chasing the Lion w/ Lionel, when he was at the Velodrome on his LG, they got his CdA to 2.34

If the data is released, i'm curious to see if they got it under 2.34

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Inside The Big Ring: Podcast & Coaching

That’s the point. Lionel has worked in the past with similar technologies (Andy Froncioni, Marc Graveline, Geoff Fansworth) and reached a 0.234.

Cameron Wurf reached 0.214 and both averaged same power output in Kona, being Wurf 7’ faster (from 0.234 to 0.214 we can expect “more or less” 6’ although Wurf rode alone)

Expected CdA differences just because of the frames and handlebar shouldn’t be higher than 0.01 or 0.02 (for instance, from 0.234 to 0.220 keeping the same position), so to reach that “magical”* streamlined 0.220 shouldn’t be so difficult.

*magical because the 0.220 from 2015 is now 0.200 as there are many aerodynamists working, learning and most important, SHARING, people like Bike Valley (Belgium), Aerocoach (GBR) or Huub Wattbike. Chris Yu too, but he has interests in this market (obviously)