Originally Posted by
3alarmer
...yes, it is not intuitive. As I said before, this is not something I ever did for a living. So here's another teaching moment for you. How exactly does that work ? My amateur's understanding tells me that drag increases roughly with the square of speed. What major thing am I missing ? Isn't that the reason for reducing the drag coefficient through wind tunnel testing of different shapes at various speeds ? Feel free to leave out wind as a complicating factor, as I certainly have.
IOW, drag (and design of a bike to minimize it), has dramatically increased at speeds of 25 mph and up. So the faster riders are "getting more advantage" from the design. I don't honestly know how much "time saved over a course" either group is experiencing. It seems you do. What is missing in my thinking on this ?
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Watts per CDA ratio. Lower watts/slower riders benefit more, in terms of % of the power you are riding at, than a faster rider. Say for example 10w savings at 200w vs 15w savings at 400w. The faster rider saves more watts, but less in terms of % of overall.
Same for rolling resistance, drivetrain resistance... even weight.