Drafting and Group Riding

I thought I would post a thread on the subject of drafting and riding in
groups which I think is still fairly new to unicyclists. It's been
discussed a few times but I don't think there is a specific thread for
it.

With the upcoming Ride The Lobster Race, as well as organised tours
like The Uninam Unitour, I think we need to learn how to ride more
efficiently. It's not just about going fast, it's more fun if you
don't have to work so hard .

Anyway, as a bicyclist, you gain advantage from riding in the
slipstream of the bicyclist in front. It's more noticeable at high
speeds, but even at the lower speeds that unicyclists ride at (eg
20-25km/hr) you can still gain quite an large effect.

I think we tend underestimate the effect because we're not used to
drafting. Some of the reasons that the drafting effect is actually
bigger than you realise a
1) if you have a headwind, then it effectively magnifies the speed that
you travel at. You don't need to ride at 50kmhr to get the slipsteam
effect if there is a stiff headwind.
2) unicyclists generally are less aerodynamic than bikes- your frontal
profile is much larger. Therefore the effect of the lead rider of a
unicycle is much higher than it would be if you were drafting a
bicycle.
3) unicycles have a shorter wheelbase compared to bikes. So the effect
is that you are riding closer together compared to bikes if you kept
your wheels the same distance apart.

The commonly held reasons people are put off riding in groups a
1) Risk of UPD's taking down the group. Well, this holds for bikes
also and bikes generally tend to go at much higher speeds so a crash
get's a lot more messy. And there are more things to get tangled up
in. As long as you are not riding over you limit and you look past the
cyclist in front, I think with practice most people can ride safely in
close formation.
2) It's not worth the effort. As I mentioned before, I think the
effect is much greater than most people realise (see reasons above).
From my experience it's almost as noticeable as riding in a bike
peleton.

Any thoughts?


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The only time I've ever tried slipstreaming on a unicycle was on a muni
weekend last year when a group of us were riding fast into a strong
headwind. We used the normal bike technique of taking turns at the
front then dropping to the back. We really only did it for fun, but it
did seem to make a difference even at that speed.

To do it at coker speed on the road you'd REALLY have to trust the
other riders - but having said that, I don't like riding in groups on a
bike either, that's why I was always a time-triallist

Rob


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I think you can also get a draft off a bike too, which can be useful. At
Manchester to Blackpool, where there were tons of bikes around, when
Sam and I were off the front riding flat out, I used bikes a couple of
times just to give me a tow back to where Sam was. I was on the
Schlumpf, riding low, which makes me not much higher than a biker,
which might help too.

I'm not sure about the shorter wheelbase making a difference, drafting
on bikes is usually described in terms of multiples of the length of
the vehicle in front, ie. you need to stay within 20% of the bike in
front's length to get a decent draft. I dunno if there's a physics
reason for that, or if it's just a handy calculation that happens to
work for bikes with 700c tyres?

As far as crashing goes, I think there are a lot of unicyclists who
ride way beyond their limits. I know I'm happy riding right behind some
riders like Sam, Roger, John H, who I know aren't going to fall off
whilst riding on the road at my sort of speeds, but tons of riders push
it too hard, and do have crashes. I think toeclips help a lot with this
predictability, both because they keep your feet secure when you're
riding really fast, and also as a signifier of someone's skill level
because they require a certain level of confidence before you can ride
with them without breaking yourself.

The only downside of drafting in small groups, is that you tend to do
it in single file, so don't have so much time to chat with people. If
we could get decent sized groups of fast riders, and rotate in two
lines, that's much more sociable, but I know it isn't that common to
have that big a group of similar speed riders.

I think the effect isn't quite as large generally as biking, the only
times I've felt drafting to be really advantageous is when riding with
people of similar speed, whereas on a bike, I can ride with people much
fitter than me as long as I hang on in the middle of the bunch
somewhere and don't take too many turns on the front.

Joe


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me and my friend and my little brother were messing around with it and
it works semi good to us but then again we werent exactly stream line
perfect either...


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I believe it could have a big effect, although it makes me nervous to
think about it. Especially the pressure I'd feel as the lead rider not
to fall (see sig line).

That said, I've had bikes draft of of me before. In last year's MS Bike
Tour ride, there was a particularly nasty stretch of flats with a
side-head wind coming in from about 30 degrees off center. At one
point one of the women riders pulled up in my wind shadow and hung
there for a couple of miles. I told her I wouldn't be going very fast,
but she was grateful to have what amounted to a one-wheeled wall
blocking the headwind for a while.


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tomblackwood

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The drafting benefit for unicyclists would probably be similar to the
drafting benefit for marathon runners. The speed is about the same and
the body position and exposure to the wind is about the same for each.

I'm not a runner. How much of a benefit do marathon runners get in
drafting off of other runners? You'd also have to run very close to
the person in front of you to get in any draft, almost stepping on the
heels of the person in front. If someone has experience with drafting
while running that would be useful info for this discussion.

In my experience in road bicycling it wasn't worth it to try to draft
at speeds less than 17ish mph. At the slower speeds the draft effect
isn't very strong. You also have to factor in the mental effort
(attention) and risk of drafting behind another cyclist very closely.
Add in a headwind, however, and drafting at slower speeds can become
much more beneficial.

At slower speeds the advantage to riding in a group or a small pack is
pacing. The person in front sets the pace and everyone else just
follows and keeps the same pace. It is easier to follow than to
constantly think about the pace. The person in front has to stay alert
to keeping a steady pace. They have to worry about what the people
behind them are doing strategy-wise. It is not easy to keep a steady
pace. It is easy to gradually slow down a bit and not realize it. So
the person in front has to keep more aware to set the proper pace. The
people behind just get to follow and bide their time. The advantage of
being paced by other riders is more psychological and not so much
physical.

In bicycling the drafting effect gets stronger the longer the paceline
is. The person 5 riders back gets more of a draft effect than the
person right behind the lead rider. The person 5 riders back can still
get a good draft effect farther back from the rider in front of them
because the size and strength of the air pocket is bigger. You don't
have to worry about following as closely. If you fall back a foot or
two you are still in the draft and can easily catch up with the wheel
in front of you. That's my experience with bicycling. I'm going to
assume you get a similar advantage with longer or larger pacelines
while unicycling.

I've never drafted while unicycling. For one, it's not my style of
Coker riding (speed isn't my thing). But I'm also not confident in my
riding sills at the higher Coker speeds (and the riding skills of
others) to ride closely enough to draft.

At Coker speeds for most Coker riders I think the biggest advantage to
"drafting" would be the pacesetting aspect. You get the benefit of
someone else concentrating on pace. You just get to follow as long as
you have the endurance to do so. To be paced you don't have to follow
as closely as you need to in drafting. Less danger. Less risk.
Minimal actual drafting benefit.


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in running you only really notice it in a head wind. but you are right
about it being mental. if someone is setting the pace you can allow
your mind to go blank and just run. or um i mean unicycle


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rab2009

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ok, to answer (VERY GENERALLY) the physics of it question, think of the
person in front of you as a boat, you are the skier, where are you in
their wake? i don't know the specifics, so correct me if im wrong, but
the optimum point can be found with physics. i think it would be about
1 ft behind the rider...lol, or you could be something like 5 feet i
don't know that much about aerodynamics, but i do know that it leaves
cyclones,if you could get in the right part of one of those it would
make a big difference


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I have drafted my coker behind a bike recently and I definately notice
that in a headwind it helps a lot when i unicycled the San Juan Islands
this last week (well I unicycled everyone else biked) I would draft
with a few of them on flats but noticed such a difference that I really
didn't want to attempt it on a downhill, the only time I took the lead
position was when the other guys wanted to go a bit slower....


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GizmoDuck wrote:
With the upcoming Ride The Lobster Race, as well as organised tours like
The Uninam Unitour, I think we need to learn how to ride more
efficiently. It's not just about going fast, it's more fun if you
don't have to work so hard

I'm keen to enter the Ride The Lobster Race. I have a Nimbus 36" now,
and I have a sponsor to help me get to Canada. I don't have much Coker
fitness yet but I will work on it. In the context of the Ride the
Lobster race, would we really want to let people draft us? We want to
WIN!!! Haha. And since the race is in teams of three, with one rider
riding at a time, you would be drafting your competitors. We plan to be
in the front, so we will have to try and get as far out ahead as
possible to prevent the slow laggers trying to get a free ride drafting
behind us.

I've had very little experience drafting, not enough to have noticed
anything. But when riding into a strong headwind it is always nice to
be passed closely by a big truck going fast cos you feel a pull
forwards before slogging into the wind again. We might be able to get
our support vehicles to provide some wind breaks if it is not against
the rules.


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