Boardman Air TTE video: 4% faster!

Triathlon Forum
1

Used the search function and did not find it posted, so here it is:
http://road.cc/...wind-tunnel-boardman
In short, the claim is that everything else being equal and considering the system bike+rider, the TTE will take you somewhere 4% faster than his older TT brother. That’s massive, and according to Boardman, they are being conservative in the marketing claims, the frame by itself was an even bigger improvement. Well maybe the AirTT was a dog, but could not be that bad based on the race results.

So in the absence of any direct comparisons vs other frames, what is the ST hive collective thinking on this? How does this bike range compare to other offering? I just love the thin lines of this bike, like the Canyon TT, vs the buffed up frames like the IA, P5, etc. but is it in the same ballpark?

2

Thats an impressive stem/cockpit design.

Looks very aero, but how is this supposed to accomodate different fit scenarios? Would you have to replace the entire cockpit to change your reach? Is there any way to adjust the height of the bars?

3

That bike is totally my dream bike.

4

I think they use the now classic spacers under the cups.
No idea about the reach though.

5

thinking on this?

He seems to be mixing aero drag and speed %… hard to tell what he really means. 4% in total bike+rider drag would be huge, but only about 1.5% in speed. 4% in speed would be over 10% in total drag… which is very hard to believe, considering that a decent frame alone is only ~10% to start with.

6

I did not have that impression, I thought it was a straight up conversion from drag reduction to time savings, at a fixed speed (25mph). Actually, doesn’t that means that going slower over the same distance would translate into more time savings? Even better right?

7

As always it is tough to tell if their is anything meaningful at all when the testing is kept secret and the “results” used for marketing purposes.

8

Yeah…4% increase in speed would be huge. If you’re doing 25 mph for a 40k TT, they’re claiming this frame will get you to 26 mph. That’s about a 25-30 watt savings.

9

Prolly just mean 4% less bike drag.

10

Prolly just mean 4% less bike drag.

I agree…and 4% reduction in bike drag is a lot different from 4% reduction in overall drag.

That said…the article does say this…Boardman says against a rider doing 25 mph on an AiR/TT, his or her clone on an AiR/TTE will cover 25 miles 144 seconds faster, all other things being equal.

11

I saw that too… but later he talks about drag rather than time and speed. He seems pretty consistent though in discussing the whole package, so I don’t think he is referring to frame only. In fact it appears that he really is talking about a 4% speed increase… which is insane. Surely the old one didn’t suck that bad?

12

http://boardmanbikes.com/boardman/boardman_images/Boardman_YAW.jpg

Leaves out the most important yaw angles.

When companies optimize for higher yaw angles saying these are real world conditions, this immediately tells me they have no idea what they’re talking about.

“If 4% doesn’t sound like a lot then think of it this way: 4% saving over 25 miles at 25mph average = 144 second time saving.”

LOL

13

How high should they go?

By your expert opinion, what Yaw angle range should be optimized? (what is most important)

14

It’s not my opinion, it’s science. Yaw angles should be optimized for <10deg.

15

It’s not my opinion, it’s science. Yaw angles should be optimized for <10deg.

Well that IS an opinion…but I digress…

I see an improvement from~5-10deg, so they must have worked on it

16

nm
.

17

It’s not my opinion, it’s science. Yaw angles should be optimized for <10deg.

Trek found the average degree of yaw at Kona was 13 degrees and Arizona was 3-5 degrees.

That is science, not just claims off the internet.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/reviews/trek-speed-concept-9-series

18

They are actually very clear that the 4% is for the system bike+racer. They are really specific that when tested alone, the drag reduction of the module was between 14-25% depending of the yaw angle. Against that’s compared to the older AirTT, who knows what that means compared to other brands. Also, you can see that they did not really care to make a very tidy cabling of the “old” airTT for comparison, so maybe a lot of the gains come from there.

Nevertheless, based on Boardman the man, I am not sure he would stand for BS marketing, so I am tending to believe what he claims tpo a certain extend. The new frame does look a lot different from the original, so there’s got to be significant gains. On that regard, see the modelization picture they show regarding a standalone super fast bar they designed, but they had to scrap it due to the negative interaction once the rider is on. Again, I’m not advanced enough to understand whether it truly make sense or not, but it’s convincing at least. I don’t know who decided to call it a “holistic” approach though, it’s a pretty horrible way to name it.

Edit: regarding the yaw angles, that’s considering you’re going 25mph. Only the pointy end of the field would go that fast for half or full IM distances (the market for this bike), so for me and my more reasonable speed, I’m OK with a frame optimized for higher yaw angles since that is what I am most likely to see.

19

It’s not my opinion, it’s science. Yaw angles should be optimized for <10deg.

Trek found the average degree of yaw at Kona was 13 degrees and Arizona was 3-5 degrees.

That is science, not just claims off the internet.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/...eed-concept-9-series

Did they measure in race, or on the course outside of race day?

Curious… it would make a difference.

Maurice

20

They are actually very clear that the 4% is for the system bike+racer. They are really specific that when tested alone, the drag reduction of the module was between 14-25% depending of the yaw angle. Against that’s compared to the older AirTT, who knows what that means compared to other brands. Also, you can see that they did not really care to make a very tidy cabling of the “old” airTT for comparison, so maybe a lot of the gains come from there.

Nevertheless, based on Boardman the man, I am not sure he would stand for BS marketing, so I am tending to believe what he claims tpo a certain extend. The new frame does look a lot different from the original, so there’s got to be significant gains. On that regard, see the modelization picture they show regarding a standalone super fast bar they designed, but they had to scrap it due to the negative interaction once the rider is on. Again, I’m not advanced enough to understand whether it truly make sense or not, but it’s convincing at least. I don’t know who decided to call it a “holistic” approach though, it’s a pretty horrible way to name it.

Edit: regarding the yaw angles, that’s considering you’re going 25mph. Only the pointy end of the field would go that fast for half or full IM distances (the market for this bike), so for me and my more reasonable speed, I’m OK with a frame optimized for higher yaw angles since that is what I am most likely to see.

I agree that it’s pretty clear what they are claiming. I just don’t buy it. Does a 14-24% reduction in drag from FRAME, FORK, and BARS correlate to a 4% increase in overall speed when the baseline is 25 mph? That’s what I’m trying to wrap my head around.

Pete Jacobs is a perfect example. He rode the Boardman Air/TT and now rides the Air/TTE as of Kona last year. His typical IM splits are around the 25 mph range. Boardman is basically claiming that this bike will knock off 10 minutes from his IM bike splits given the same weather conditions, power, wheels, etc. Do you buy that?

I know Chris Boardman is a cyclist who is very respected…but I can’t help but feel like there is some fudging with the numbers and claims. Maybe I’m wrong…but that’s just my first impression.

ETA: That’s not to say that this new bike isn’t an improvement over the old. It sure looks like they’ve made improvements, and it does look pretty sick.