Hi everyone, I’ve been off the forum for a while due to a lot of turbulence in my professional life but I’m starting to get some more time back and pour it into triathlon and fitness!
the question at the end—what protocols have you found to be most accurate for aero testing? If you’ve used both aerotune & best bike split, which program do you prefer or have found to be the most consistent?
I’ve been doing aero testing with Aerotune as well as several 25 minute loops on a flat road, using best bike splits aero analyzer. Much to my chagrin, the only real consistent thing was that the Rudy Project Wingdream consistently performed 5 to 12 watts worse than The Wing. And the kask mistral was consistently 20 watts worse than the wing. (Roughly .02 to .05 CdA between the three) I really wanted it to work, given all the marketing around it but even with a little added “tuck” it performed equally at its best. However, I’ve had some inconsistent measurements with the EZ gains hydro vs. no rear. More often than not it’s better, but sometimes it’s faster without a rear bottle. I’ve also started messing around with the width and length of my aero bars. I’m chalking up the variance to “noise” like cars passing or changing wind conditions, but it’s still frustrating getting inconsistent results.
typically what I do is I’ll head out with my planned trials and what I want to test. I’ll get a baseline with whatever I’m wearing for the day then start changing things up one at a time. Bottle position, different helmet, etc. all I’m trying to do is say “is this faster or this?”—I don’t expect the CdA values either aerotune or BBS to spit out to be wind tunnel precise. I just want good enough. And to try and get some good enough resolution to tell whether calf sleeves are better than shaved skin or not.