Yes. Unless its hilly. Tadem = more power for an almost equal CdA.

Speaking of tandems...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngv7Iu3y1o0

The rider on the back hit his head really hard. Good bike handling skills though.

Sergio

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Note: English is not my first language. Please read this translated post considering that.

Ouch!

of course two daves would be faster than one

a more intersting question would be to graph speed over N where N is the number of Daves on the tandem.

Does it go up forever?

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Yeah, the rider on the back is blind.

I wouldn't think so, at some point the marginal increase in wind resistance from adding another DZ would overcome the extra power from an extra DZ. What would happen after that point would be interesting, I guess it would be a limit problem. Anyone want to graph it out assuming another DZ is 400 watts and x amount of drag area?

what if the tandem was fully faired, such that adding more riders did not produce any more drag?

snap

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

but it would as they would be going fast so drag would be alot higher

aren't longer shapes MORE aerodynamic? Of course that will hit a limit point as well

and rolling resistance will keep going up

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Theoretically wouldn't you eventually run out of gear ratio and spin out?

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http://trirochester.com

add more gears!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

If you had two of Zabriskies moustaches however... drag would probably significantly increase...

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Ummmmm. then Rolling resistance would be the next thing that would overcome the addition of another DZ, but it goes up linearly (if im not mistaken) so the speed would be way higher.

Im going to take a guess. 500 DZ's could go.... wait for it...... 456.235 km/hr

I wonder how many it would take to break the sound barrier?

what happens to drag after you break the sound barrier?!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Its still there. There is just less (actually I think none) vibration due to sound. It gets really quiet... and you go boom!

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"TRIATHLON ISN'T ACTUALLY THAT HARD OF A SPORT" -ALISTAIR

A tandem will be much faster. The WR for Paralympic Tandem 4km Pursuit is 4:18.x vs a WR (on current UCI rules) of 4:14.x.

The single bike WR is faster, BUT UCI rules state that Para-pilots cannot have raced professionally for 3 years, so the para bike is being piloted by what equates to a Cat1. with the visually impared stoker generally putting out the power of a strong Cat3 or Cat2.

All that to say that if you throw a pair of track pros (say Cam Meyer/Jack Bobridge or Wiggins/Geraint Thomas) on a tandem they will give all but the very best Team Pursuit squads a run for the money given adequate time to sync as a pair.

ok using an excel file of such questionable mathematical validity that I hesitate to even post it for peer review

if we assume 400 watts = 30mph for 1 dave zabriske
and that each dave zabriske increases the drag coefficient by 10%

we get a peak speed of 37mph at 13 dave zabriskes after which each additional zabriske begins to slow the bike down.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

what do you get for a peak SPEED?

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Tim

I think you are in the ball park. Playing around with analytic cycling I was getting answers 40mph+/-3mph depending on the assumptions I was making. Just as a point of reference it would take 1200w+ to move a single sleek (0.2m^2 frontal area) TT'er 50mph.

Who's faster, 13 Daves and a Ditka.. or, one Chuck Norris?

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz

Jens alone on a mountain bike can ride faster than 13 DZs, a Ditka, and Chuck Norris all on the same bike.

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Brian

Depends how fast they were going, and the question was 'would they be faster'.

They would obviously be faster. Sure, drag might increase due to backseat DZ but only after they were going a LOT faster than solo DZ could ever go.

Affirmative

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"Good genes are not a requirement, just the obsession to beat ones brains out daily"...the Griz