Would I benefit from aero clip-on bars for century?

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02-06-19, 12:33 PM

#51

tomato coupe

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Quote:

Originally Posted by burnthesheep

About being behind somebody on aerobars (me):
One night when the local university had their team practice laps around the coliseum I was doing TT practice laps. There's guys that show up there that'd easily steal my lunch. I caught and passed the train and they latched on for a bit, but they couldn't ever get closer than 10 yards or so for long. They'd suck wheel for about 1/2 a lap uphill and as soon as the steady uphill was over and it was flat to downhill, I'd pull a huge gap again.

I think you're fighting a lost cause. Despite your anecdotal "evidence," the benefit of drafting a rider in aerobars is not much less than the benefit of drafting a rider in the drops.

02-06-19, 12:46 PM

#52

burnthesheep

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Quote:

Originally Posted by RChung

That must be why in team pursuit the lead rider always comes out of aero position and is only in full-on aero when he/she is at the back and no teammate is behind.

I had to read this twice to get the joke.

I get the point, but in team pursuit everybody has aerobars. Ding.

I am pretty sure they do practice staggering the line and maybe even the angles/heights of the helmets down the line.

So, is it true or false that position #2 will output more watts with an aerobar guy on front of the B-group fondo folks versus a person riding the drops?

02-06-19, 03:09 PM

#53

OldTryGuy

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Aerobar use for one TdeF Team during TT given at 1:12 point but interesting beginning at 50 seconds

02-06-19, 05:21 PM

#54

RChung

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Quote:

Originally Posted by burnthesheep

Everyone understands that the main goal of team pursuit is to get the team the lowest time. That said, not all riders are the same size and sometimes the size differential can be pretty large. That was the case for one (Olympic medal-winning) pursuit team I worked with. When the shortest smallest rider was at the front, we didn't have the rider "sit up" to protect the (larger) rider behind. That would have been slower. We changed the rotation order and the length of the pulls to maximize speed and minimize time, not the drag area of each rider.