Long time away, first post back

Triathlon Forum
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Hi everyone,

It’s been a long time since I have been active on slowtwitch, so I thought I’d reintroduce myself.

I am Ingmar Jungnickel, and for most of the last decade I led first the aerodynamics and then the futures team at Specialized Bicycles. Just like Mark Cote and Chris Yu before me, I actually started out as a triathlete and my path into the cycling industry is closely linked to slowtwitch:

I got into triathlon at 16, living in Germany. I had bought a used 26 inch tri bike off Ebay. The bike needed major repairs and I had a lot to learn about bike components and manufacturers etc. I would shoulder the bike and get on my dutch cruiser bike to ride the bike to different shops to help me understand what parts were missing and what was the most cost effective way to get it up and running on a high school student budget. This is also were I started a low grade addiction for slowtwitch, I probably spent two hours a day on here, learning a lot about the sport. I was always a nerd and into physics and engineering, so the technical component of the sport really intrigued me. I wanted to learn more and understand the underlying physics, posts by Jordan Rapp, Tom Anhalt, MITaerobike and Robert Chung got me started. Through this I realized that the main resistance cyclists face is aerodynamic drag, while all the bike companies where talking about was the low weight of their bikes. This dissonance started an obsession about cycling aerodynamics and I decided to go to engineering school at the TU Dresden to become a cycling aerodynamicist, a job that didn’t really exist at that time, against the better advice of pretty much everyone around me. I met Mark Cote, the loudest voice for cycling aerodynamics at the time at Eurobike and told him I one day wanted to have his job.

I had read Robert Chungs paper “Estimating CdA with a power meter” and had dabbled with coast down testing, but found it not accurate enough. I knew I needed a power meter, at that time the only two options existing was PowerTap and SRM, both out of my price range. I bought a used wired SRM off the Slowtwitch classifieds. I wish I remembered who I bought it from, since I feel I owe him a beer: This power meter started my career. I got obsessed with aero testing, first using Golden Cheetah, then learning Matlab so I could make my own software, then learning Arduino so I could add additional sensors. I spent probably more time on this project than in class in my first two years of college. In my third year Alphamantis released their aero testing technology and I realized that my hobby could be a business. At that time I was working as a student research assistant at the windtunnel facility of my university where the German cycling federation and FES tests. I ended up selling the system to FES and they brought me in to run it. The gains we found got the German team from 9th to 3rd in the world, and me finally the attention of Specialized, who offered me a job. For the next 18 months I brought my software to S-Racing as a Performance Engineer, working with Specializeds sponsored WorldTour teams on aerodynamics, pacing optimization and equipment choices before moving to Morgan Hill and getting keys to the Win Tunnel, a dream come true for me. It’s been an amazing ride with Specialized, I got to lead aero RnD on the Venge, Tarmac, Shiv TT, and pretty much any other aero product and work with the best athletes in the sport. The Specialized lunch ride also did wonders for my bike fitness, and for the next years I got into bike and track racing, moving me away from triathlon.

Eventually I started setting my sights on new goals: I had loved the rush of starting my own company in college, though I didn’t pursue it further once I got the Specialized offer.

Aside from my work with Specialized I was advising US Speedskating on performance innovation and aerodynamics. We had a project work out quite well (topic for another post, this is already getting too long), which put me in the good graces of the US Olympic Committee and their Technology and Innovation department. So last year I started my own company, Inspire Gold, with a grant from the USOPC to pursue performance innovation and sports aerodynamics projects across Olympic Sports. Through my time at FES I learned about the significant competitive advantage this department provides to German Olympians, and I am honored I now get to provide similar services to Team USA

To be closer to winter sports (most speed sports are actually winter NGBs) I relocated to Salt Lake City. I am now running, skiing and swimming more again in addition to riding. This has reopened my interest in Triathlon and after a decade away its good to change things up again. I feel its going to be a while before I pursue any racing, but its nice to be a part of the endurance sport community.

Anyway, long post but I thought it might be interesting to some. Looking forward to reconnecting, and if you run, bike or ski in the SLC area, hit me up.

Ingmar

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Ingmar,

I am interested if you are doing any work with XC skiers. My view is these guys are going fast enough and often giving away a lot of aero gains (flappy hats being the biggest culprits). Speeskaters “get it”. Cyclists get it now, I think XC skiers are leaving time out there. The other speed sports are obvious…snowboard athletes baffle me. The first person to show up all slick and pulls away will really get people thinking. For ski jumpers/flyers are there things being done to minimize drag in the tuck position and then maximize lift vs drag (usually the more lift you get drag goes up anyway) in the flying position?

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Good questions. I feel I ever get to choose from one of two challenges:
Either people “get it” which means the low hanging fruit are already picked, or there are large gains left but a lot of resistance. For what its worth it is starting to arrive in XC, both in terms of skinsuit design, and for the downhill recovery position.
Snowboarding will be interesting, I expect it to go similarly to DH MTB. There the athletes got together and pushed the governing body for minimum bagginess standards, since they didn’t want to look like geeky roadies (or triathletes?). Until the first guy decided that winning was just a little bit more important to him than maximum style. Now we have flappy-skinsuit-aerodynamics as a field of science to make the fastest apparel within the rules.

For the US I haven’t done any ski jump work yet, but at FES I sat across the guy who did the engineering for that. Its a cool optimization problem. I asked how much ski jump is flying (maximizing lift), vs ballistics (minimizing drag), and apparently its somewhere in the middle. For the downhill section of course its all about low drag.

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Thanks for sharing your story which i found interesting.

Do you have 3-5 top tips for amateur aero enthusiasts?

Any funny stories you could share?

Which aero results you observed surprised you most?

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I have friends on the Canadian National ski jump team in the 80’s on the transition between big guys with max velocity on take off “jumping” versus smaller guys coming with less max velocity on take off but being lighter for “more lift”. So the design of the suits is an ultimate optimization problem between minimizing drag in the tuck position and maximizing lift in the flying position and defeating gravity and landing just before the hill flattens out.

In terms of XC, now with florocarbon waxes banned (coefficient of kinetic friction goes up), aero gains on dowhhills or flat sections or even when leading in a group can add up. In the long races, these guys are racing 50km over 2 hrs and the aero drag adds up to more kilojoules of energy used. Road cyclist “got it” and all race in skinsuits now (thus the higher speeds in the peloton), but XC skiers are not exactly getting it (at least eyeballing what they are wearing).

As for baggy clothed winter sport, it should just take one guy to go clean up and win. I think you just need to find that guy who is willing to be ridiculed by peers but who takes all their medals!

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I’d really like to see some CDA work done with women hundred meter sprinters some who have long weaves always wondered if that could be good for one or 2/100 of the second

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Top 5 performance gains:

  1. Body position. It is absolutely the biggest thing you can do for speed on the bike (other than getting power output up). When I started testing world tour athletes a decade ago the average CdA on a TT bike was 0.22m^2, and the top people were cracking 0.2m^2. Now nobody is above 0.2m^2, 0.18m^2 is normal for a good TT people and 0.16m^2 is the current sound barrier. That is an 18% reduction in drag. If you look at how the 4k inidividual pursuit record has changed over that same time frame, aero savings account for most of the gains, power numbers are nowhere near 20% higher.
  2. Large improvements in drag and therefore performance will come from treating TT cycling more like swimming: A sport with a large technique component that takes consistent attention. Technique in cycling is not how you turn the pedals, but largely what you do above the hips: Head position, shoulderblades, working on flexibility and range of motion. If you are a competitive athlete, you should always work on that when riding, just like you always focus on proper technique when swimming.
  3. Skinsuits. From the things you can buy its the biggest improvement. (You can see a theme: The body is 70-80% of your total resistance). Calf sleeves, aero socks, and textured upper arms all work. A good skinsuit can reduce the drag of your upper arms by 50%. The challenge is that those effects are speed dependent, and fabric stretch changes the aerodynamic properties, so this requires some level of testing to get right.
  4. Tires. Not an aero gain, but another great ROI purchase. Plus this one is easy to get right. Go on bicyclerollingresistance.com and look up the top tires. It matches the testing I have done in the past.
  5. TT Helmets. They work. But especially the newer designs can be highly dependent on your head position and shoulder width, so testing to find the right helmet is also worth it.

Most surprising results:

  1. This one has been beaten to death when it came out but it was also just that surprising to me was leg hair. I was not at Specialized yet but was doing testing for the German federation, so we replicated the tests for fun and got the same result. Did not expect it to make that much of a difference.

  2. How big of a CdA change you can make on the bike without changing the fit coordinates. On my road bike I can adjust my CdA from 0.3 to 0.22 without taking the hands of the hoods, just by what I do with my body.

  4. How continuous the improvements have been over the last decades. We will absolutely see sub 0.15m^2 CdAs in the near future, and extrapolating it seems sub 0.1m^2 will happen in my lifetime. I find it very helpful to think in long timelines since it widens the perspective. I have no idea how we will get to sub 0.1m^2, but just considering that it will probably be done in the next 50 years, makes getting to sub 0.15m^2 a lot less daunting.

Ill think of some funny stories and share them.

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Around the Paris Games, Bert Blocken came out with a paper on the effect of hair styles on the long jump and showed it mattered:

Innovation culture and how to get buy in is something I spend almost 50% of my time thinking about. The science is the easy part.

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Thanks for sharing these insights

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You and me both. I was one of the very few who refused to shave their legs and damn was I the idiot. I lost the 45-49 AG title at IMC in 2011 by ~30secs as I was passed in the last 200-300 meters. It honestly still haunts me to this day - especially since I never won an IM AG title but was top 10 six times.

Also, did IMC 6x and never broke 10hrs but was within a few minutes 4x and one of those years (2007) I was only 16secs from doing it. Again, all I had to do was shave my damn legs.

Btw, this is also my first post in probably 6 years. I can’t believe Dev is still here. :wink: Has to be going on something like 20+ years for him.

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What’s your take on the dual bottle front setups? I have seen all type of setups with the bottle closest to the front higher and backwards vs the bottle in the rear higher.

Is there a dependency on the arm angle for these setups?

Are there any general recommendations on which tests best in most situations?

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For the last years I have mostly worked in time trial and pursuiting, where the opportunities to use bottles to improve CdA don’t exist so I havent tested it yet. (Other than the bottle in the front of the jersey which tested really well)

But: I do a lot of CFD these days and I’ve been wondering myself, so I’ll see if I can whip something up next week.

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Any chance we will see you coach Lionel?

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hi ingmar since this is something i looked into last week
venge vs tamrac sl7 i would like to understand the thought process a bit more why the venge was stopped and not the aethos .

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The brief for the Tarmac SL7 was written a few months before the Venge was released. The goal for the Tarmac was to become the „complete race bike“: In climbing trim it should weigh the UCI minimum and in aero trim it should be just marginally slower than the Venge. The prior model Venge was not selling well, which was interpreted as low demand for pure aero bikes and the feeling was that the specs of the SL7 didn’t leave enough room for the Venge to be a dedicated platform.

The Aethos is s a completely different bike. It’s not a race bike it’s a „nice“ bike. If you care about beating others or your past self you shouldn’t buy an Aethos. If you don’t care and you like the low weight, ride feel and aesthetic look of a more classic bike shape the Aethos is great.

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As an age group triathlete with a limited budget, what is my best option for aero testing? I have dual power pedals. I’ve experimented with Chung testing in an empty parking lot. I’ve had some success and other times the numbers are not consistent. I’m not looking for my absolute CDA. I’m just trying to figure out if position A is faster than B, are aero socks faster than skin, etc. Thanks!

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The “Platypus Tread” (Platypus Thread: Aero Virtual Elevation Testing Protocol - #808 by pk) on slowtwitch is a great resource to learn about aero testing. Its been around since the last time I was active here and it seems it still gets posts.

The first part in aero testing is learning about repeatability. Its great that you are already that far that you know not to blindly trust the numbers. That used to be a big issue, people getting into aero testing (amateurs, bike companies, or journalists alike) not running any repeats and then making questionable claims that hurt credibility of the industry. Aero testing, whether it is in the tunnel or field testing is an acquired skill and your repeatability will get better as you do it more and hone your protocols. It also is good to know what your current repeatability is, so you know what makes sense to test.

  • Best in the world test riders can get sub ±0.001m2 (One SD)
  • Good test riders can get ±0.001-0.0015m2
  • Experienced time trialists and triathletes but new to aero testing often are ±0.002m2
  • I have had people in the tunnel with repeatability of ±0.005m2. With a repeatability like this there is almost nothing you can test that wouldn’t be obvious beforehand, which can be frustrating for someone spending a lot of money on a tunnel session.

I’d recommend to keep going with Chung testing, happy to answer any detailed questions you might have. I am not a fan of any of the aero stick devices personally.

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