Aerobars on road bikes

"gds" wrote in message
m...
"Peter Cole" wrote in message
news:njJod.75870$V41.74988@attbi_s52...
"Sam Huffman" wrote in message
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Peter Cole wrote:



Perhaps there's more there than I thought, but I don't think as much as
you
see. If you look at a representative scenario, say 10 mph, 0 yaw, a 10K
TT
result is about 1750 seconds (tops), drops lower that by 175, aerobars
250
(vs. tops, diff = 75) or so, best case. That's about 4.5% additional.
In 0
mph wind, it seems like the difference between drops & aerobars is more
like 1-1.5%. I think the latter condition is more common on the routes
I
ride and therefore the advantage is probably too small to detect easily
in
a coasting test.

How is 10 mph a representative scenario? That is the speed for
seriious climbing and clearly aero bars have little value there. The
more likely scenario is 2x that speed. I can't quote the source but I
seem to remember that aero effect start to be noticible at ~16 mph so
looking at data at 10 mph is problematic for this argument.

If you take the trouble to read the cited article, you'll see that the 10
mph referred to a headwind taken on top of the relative wind from motion,
which was 18.5 mph for the base case.

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:12:09 -0500, ,
"Jacobe Hazzard" wrote:

I wasn't wondering if the aero difference was calculable, or measurable,
or theoretically existant, only if it would be noticeable to me (the way
the difference of areo bars over flat bars was clearly noticeable). Seeing
as how I don't race or ride with a computer I think it's safe to say the
answer is 'probably not'.

Even riding a flat bar into a headwind, the first thing I do is zip up
if I'm not hauling a non-aero type load and then make sure I've tucked
in my elbows before taking off after a rabbit.
--
zk