first to call BS. No way this dude gains 30w over his baseline in the real world. No way. That's 9mins over an IM.

EricMPro will have a conniption fit over the wrinkling in the new suit shoulder area.

Just out of curiosity, why BS? They did the work using a pretty comprehensive approach and have data. Maybe the absolute # is off a bit, but what data would allow you to believe the article?

Silly things like water bottles are pretty big, as are the suit and body position. Not knowing Andreas, has he ever really sought that free speed? Seems a little harsh, since folks are finding this level of improvement pretty routinely now that they (a) know it's there and (b) care enough to find it.

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Life is tough. But it's tougher when you're stupid. -John Wayne

I'm being a little over the top, admittedly (surprise!).

I agree with this the article just screamed buy a new fe suit now available!!! Ooooo super duper prototype suit even faster!!! Available soon!!!

Gimme a break, even the helmet looks terrible.

as mentioned, this may just be marketing bs, but those numbers by themselves are achievable if one has chosen poor clothing and non-optimized position.

When I aero tested, we didn't mess with position, but I did try a bunch of different clothing and there was a 10-15w difference between the fastest and the slowest. I imagine it's pretty easy to find 15w position wise depending on starting position.

I guess you just have to test... maybe sometimes wrinkles are faster

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

30 watts is a lot, but not all that uncommon depending on what they did with position and where you're starting from. 10-15 via suits is certainly possible. If you look at my instagram right now my most recent post shows a position change that added up to 12 watts, though I didn't test the slight forearm angle position so that might be another 2-3 watts (just an educated guess by how little we tilted). It's why I'm planning to offer an add-on to fits that tests pre and post-fit CdA. Just two quick tests at a reasonable price (trying to figure out what that price will be).

You must always ask:

1. Were the results repeatable? When I see large changes in CdA, I need to see repeatable runs. If you can't repeat it, it's not valid.
2. Did they actually have a test where they saw a 30 watt savings, or are they adding up the sum of several tests to come to that number? Big difference. If they did have a test 30 watts better than baseline, refer to point #1.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

i don't know. i kind of like your first response. to me it looked more like a christmas buyers guide. plus, i clicked on 2 ads (by mistake) by clicking on the wrong arrow, and i saw no data. zero. and i don't think his position was lifted higher in the air (as was claimed). i'd like to see data, including fit data.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The wrinkles thing is interesting.
In my old sleeved suit with no ribbed texturing on the shoulders the wrinkles were a huge problem, as cost 5-10w in testing.

The new suit with ribbed sleeves and shoulders the wrinkles made zero difference. So maybe that’s the key,
The ribbing creates localised turbulence, it’s meant to and that’s how it works, create localised turbulence so the laminar air flows over, therefore a few wrinkles on the inside don’t matter too much.

I found the same with my dimple LG helmet. It seemed to be resistant to small changes in head position, but the smooth one (bell javelin) was awful with head up.

I remember John Cobb talking about this, yonks ago. He said that a human can create a big plume of air on a bike, like an invisible ball. Trying to smooth the human made not much difference, but if you could flow the air around the human you were on to something.
I don’t think he knew it then, but that’s how so much of this clothing works, accept a small increase in virtual frontal area, but creating localised turbulence, so the laminar air flows over rather than creating a plume.

Also, FWIW a leading aero expert that I have spoken to has done a lot of testing on hip wrinkles, which he found were absolutely critical on the sides. Especially in the ribbed suits, as this is where the air flows off the body. Also flappy numbers were huge! Despite a poorly done test in the specialised tunnel showing no difference.