Benefit of Aero Wheels for Road Racing?

[wacomme]

Except for my one blowout incident (and it very well might have been the tube caught around the bead, or a sidewall puncture resulting in the explosion), I've had great luck with latex tubes in my alloy clinchers.

Now for carbon clinchers this may not be true, especially on warmer days or days with downhills and a lot of braking.

[sawyer]

Hi - I suspect if you could do sufficiently high resolution testing you'd find it would matter ... with an aero bar cleaner air hitting the rider faster and therefore creating more drag on the rider, but less on the bars ...

That's a hypothesis anyway ... more testing needed

True, it is a hypothesis, and I'm pretty sure it's wrong

But let's see, if someone will be able to clear it out with hard numbers. No need to discuss it further without hard evidence.

Just the same old Tour data posted shortly after your post, which was exactly the data I anticipated being posted in my first post on this thread. LOL - WW is nothing if not predictable.

I'd like to see more testing of aero bars.

Intuitively there should be some benefit yes, but the fact that with an aero bar "cleaner / faster flowing undisturbed" air then a fraction of a second later hits the rider gives reasonable cause to believe the benefits are more limited than (say) a deep section wheel vs a box section ...

NB - this is absolutely distinct from a narrower or lower hand position ... the issue is the quantum of benefit from aero profiled top sections

[pdlpsher1]

Speaking of aero equipment, I was pleasantly surprised at my Bontrager Ballista. Not how aero it is since I cannot *feel* an advantage but how quiet it is compared to my old lightweight helmet. Wind tunnel data suggests it's faster. But the quietness is an added bonus. Keep in mind that the head is a big body part sticking up in the air flow, LOL. So an aero helmet is a cheap way to buy you some aero advantage. Although the Ballista isn't exactly cheap it's the cheapest aero helmet out there.

[Marin]

http://road.cc/content/review/196916-bbb-tithon

This one is probably cheaper. I have one, it's a decent helmet. Here's an action shot:

[nemeseri]

Surprisingly large savings from the aero bars, but I tend to believe Tour here. Last sentence is the killer though!

So based on the chart and the error bars, the aero handlebar *may or may not* be faster than the non aero bar in the same width. I DO believe that it is faster, but this test tells nothing about how much it's faster.

[bm0p700f]

if the helmet is quieter it is faster. Noise indicates turbulance and the break up of laminar flow.

[racingcondor]

+1 for the Ballista. It's one of the few helmets that fit me well (S-Works Prevail is the other) and I've been very happy with mine.

Only time it gets noisy is when you're going 40kph with a side wind. High wind speed at a significant angle can catch the front vent then but it's a pretty specific problem.