Free Speed? Peak Up Vs Peak Down | The GCN Show Ep. 268

We're doing some science to work out the answer to one of cycling's biggest questions, peak up or peak down? Plus news of team rivalry, and racing round up and a brand new Cannondale at the Abu Dhabi Tour.

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Welcome to the GCN Show.
This week we settle cycling’s greatest debate once and for all… Peak up? Or Peak down? We also have a way to measure your bum... for saddle fitting... a new Cannondale in tech of the week, and among other things the defection of Tom Boonen and a bikepacking race across New Zealand in cycling shorts. This week in the world of cycling we learned that Giro champ Tom Dumoulin isn’t always Mr Cool, not when he has his second mechanical in two days anyway.

And we also learned of a new winter hack. Or possibly bodge. Pro racers were contending with such cold weather at the weekend that some put vaseline on their FACES to keep warm. That sounds…. a bit disgusting to be honest. But more of that later. The other week, Emma and I were over in Milan at the Politecnico Milano wind tunnel. You’ve seen the results of one of our extensive research projects already. The scientific paper is currently being peer reviewed by the way. Don’t get your hopes up there Si. Anyway, we also had time to squeeze in another very important test, finding an answer to one of cycling’s oldest questions…

Okay, so in a nutshell, the results are kind of inconclusive there.
No they’re not Emma, why would you say that? 10 watts is 10 watts.
No, seriously, it does illustrate very neatly just how difficult wind tunnel testing can be. Even quite significant changes in aerodynamics can be completely offset or distorted by the addition of a rider. Although we tracked Si’s position really carefully, some small shift is likely to have caused that difference of 10 watts.
Yeah, jokes aside, it doesn’t mean that aerodynamic optimisation is a myth, it’s very real and it does make a significant difference, it just brings home the fact that body position is the most important factor, and by some margin.

I have to say that even while we were running the test, I did suspect that the results might be skewed by the fact that Si had a massive grin with peak up, and was pretty stony faced with peak down…
Back to the matter of hats, I have to make a bit of a confession here in that until a few years ago I really didn’t see the point of cycling caps. To be honest I thought they looked kind of ridiculous.

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Hakan Eriksson - Sneaky Cats 5
Magnus Ringblom - Latin Quarters Jazz Band 2
Magnus Ringblom - Farmers Lunchbreak 1
Anders Bothen - Wah Wah What's Up 2

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