Dylan like a statue frozen in time..

The narrow bars are all the rage on the road these days and are more aero in the tunnel, but if you watch people riding them in races, their elbows are way out there. Better idea is to go 'normal' narrow so your elbows don't chicken wing in the wind.

Thanks for sharing this, Ben, and thanks to Silca for helping make it happen. It is all quite fascinating, even for me, who typically doesn't care much about numbers and analytics! There is so much to consider, but the highlights to me are: 1) Aero is primarily of concern if folks are going 18 mph or higher. 2) when aero is of concern, bars (and resulting body position) will most likely matter more than wheel height/wheel depth. At Mid South, the elite of the elite are maintaining 23 mph average. Heck, I'll put you right up there with the elites when you can average 20 mph. But obviously the bulk of cyclists cannot maintain that speed, even if they try. So in my mind that means there are other considerations for them (let's just call it the vast group of riders that are riding 16 mph or slower) that take on the real priorities. My guess is that rider comfort becomes the most important factor for that vast group. Comfort results in the ability to maintain focus, stay on the bike for longer segments, less physical and mental strain, etc. All super fun to consider. I can imagine a 'Whats fastest for an elite rider vs what's fastest for a slower rider' test of some sort. Cheers and thanks again for sharing! -Mike

Great vid. While testing a non cycling device at the A2 wind tunnel in NC the technician gave me a freebie bit of aero TT advice. He said from what he's seen, the biggest and easiest aero gain is to simply squeeze your shoulders in as tight as you can. Reduce that frontal area and go faster. Makes perfect sense.

Also very important is comfort. Yes you can get into a very aero position and have wheels that have less rolling resistance, but it both of those are uncomfortable, it is on sustainable and therefore you will be slow.

Easily the best cycling content online: you nail it with each and every upload Ben 👍🏼 19:38 brilliant 😂

LAUF for the WIN! Who knew? I got it for the extra bit of suspension and had no idea it would be "more aero" than the standard. Your content and attention to detail are FANTASTIC Ben. Thanks for all you do.

Very interesting! One thing that confuses people often: rotating mass. It only matters if you brake. If not, then the extra energy you spent bringing the deeper wheel up to speed stays and you get it back when you slow down (intertia). But if you're braking constantly then don't get deep wheels: MTB. It's why a bike with deep wheels can feel like it's steam rolling through ondulating terrain.

Great video and info. Now the fun begins, how to convince the wife on all the upgrades I need. 😊

Excellent thanks Ben. The most interesting takeaway for me was that for a ‘normal’ gravel rider, someone who inevitably rides at below the 18mph (29kmh) aero speed / benefit threshold, headwind speed is still a major factor. Add 9mph (15kmh) riding speed to a 9mph headwind and you get to the 18mph aero benefit. …and that is not even a windy day. Clearly aero is a thing, no matter how fast someone rides. …especially relevant, not in terms of winning anything at least in my case :), is that less wattage expended might also equal more than the sum of the parts. IE: less watts expended into a headwind in the first 2hrs of a gravel event is cumulative in terms of human endurance and power and might result in say, a 3-4hr time for the event, rather than a 5hr blowout! ...The exponential increase in aero benefit at higher speeds, presumably also equates to an exponential saving in energy expended over time at lower speeds into a headwind! …so aero is not just about going fast. For the majority of gravel riders it might also be about surviving the event in reasonable shape = more enjoyment, less pain! Cheers

Super insightful. Thanks for sharing this one! 🙌🏻

Very interesting and informative Ben. Thank you.

This content is a masterpiece! Thank you Ben ❤

These videos just keep getting better and better.

Great episode Ben, thanks a lot!

Great video, love to see the improvements in drag #s between bars and wheels and both.

Hell yeah Lauf fork!!! People need to get on board, the bike rocks

About 7 or 8 years ago, i switched from the super light (at the time), Mavic climbing wheels, to Enve 4.5s. I then went and hammered my favorite downhill, one that I have the KOM on. Surprise, the Enve's were 4+ mph faster! Granted, my top speed was 52 mph. I never looked back. I then swapped bars a couple of years later from 44s (my shoulder width) to 40s. I was a little worried my breathing would suffer, but too my surprise, again, i could actually breathe better, i think, because i could stretch out further. Then i turned my levers inward a bit. This is a major comfort improvement, and if you haven't tried it, you should. It doesn't take a lot, maybe 5 degrees, but in addition to being more comfortable, you can, again, get even lower. All good!

Great content! Thanks for testing realistic everyday rider equipment choices. Looking forward to the other tests!

Thank you very much Ben for all your hard work to present this subject in such an insightful manner.

Awesome Ben! Tks

Great videos lots of good info. Thanks

Very informative, thank you

Excellent! Thx you sir!

Excellent video

It’s good to see normal cda numbers on a UKposts video. Most of the time they are .17 or insanely low. Good stuff.

I always wondered about that Lauf fork, that was really interesting!

Great content

Interesting to hear on the Lauf fork. Happy I ride a seigla!

Great content! Concerning bar width, you touched briefly on it, but i think what shouldn't be missed is the need to fit your bars to your stature rather than chasing a trendy number. Its unsurprising that the trend has backed off the 46cm bars of 5 years ago....simply because very few riders have that wide of shoulders. Most guys are settling somewhere between 38-42cm which is where normal shoulder wodths land. The video of you on the wider bars shows your arms flaired outward to the hoods (thus exposing your inner arm the the wind) vs. straight forearms on the 42s. For me on the other hand, with 44cm wide shoulders, anything narrower that 44 resultss in my elbows pointing outwards (and thus more forearm exposed). 44s or 46s give me the nice straight forearms...and all day comfort to boot. Keep up the great content!

Good and interesting video!

Loving the look of that Salsa Warbird with those carbon hoops!!

Excellent video, Ben! I appreciate all of this info, and look forward to more stuff in this vein. DJ is a fat tire pimp, but it seems primarily related to rolling efficiency on rough surfaces. I'm curious about where the tipping point is with increased aero drag due to the larger frontal area.

Good vid👍🏻

ALSO hope to see you at Boulder Roubaix tomorrow!

This is a great video. Awesome content again!

Thanks Ben, great content. I am kind of surprised that the deeper section wheels even saved 8 watts with the 42 mm tires, 8 watts is pretty significant!

All you have to do is add a little headwind and your effective air speed is easily 18mph or much more. And due to physics, you'll actually almost always spend more time going into the wind than with it. So aero is still technically more important than Crr. But Crr is definitely slowing a lot of people down because they are riding tires that are too narrow.

love it!

Hey Ben, Off topic but found the channel looking at your litespeed review. Wondering if you would review the flint, it has similar GEO and would be a good carbon vs ti test. Great content

Great content as always. Thanks for the videos! I've asked before but it would be nice if you gave some of the things you do to keep in "ride shape" as an "older rider". Some of us are creeping up in age! 🙂

Thanks!

Very interesting! I appreciate the effort that went into making this one. As for the wheels, it is my understanding that tires that are wider than the outer diameter of the wheel negatively affect the potential aerodynamic advantage.

Dylan Johnson on his new Felt bike!!!

Got to see Dylan crush the field at Hot Springs NC the best part was watching him assend a cracy diffcult climb as i finished the short course

Thank you for the video! You seem to be the one to ask, what bike should I get, the Lauf Seigla, Cervelo Aspero, or Canyon Grail(all lowest model)?

It's great to see this kind of content. It's worth noting that using a different tire might have changed the results. For e.g. the lug pattern is different between the two tires. The tire that tested slower appears to have squared off lugs that protrude past the edge of the tire. The disc rotors (and hubs) were also not the same b/w the setups. Things like inflation level might have also played a role (it wasn't mentioned if they were the same PSI); this could have impacted the profile exposed to the air (a more teardrop shape is likely to be more aerodynamic than a square shape even when they are both ~42mm). It is impossible to say how much, or if, these differences played a role, but we're talking about 8W. It's likely that they did.

@TheRidewithBenDelaney Slight correction at 18:40. Drag does not go up with the cube of the speed. Drag goes up with the square of the speed/velocity. It's "power required"' that goes up with the cube of the velocity.

A lot of gravel rides end up into a pretty good headwind at some point. All of the sudden, even us slow folks benefit from aero tweaks. 👌🏻

I would like to see someone wear a giant shark fin in a wind tunnel test

Regarding the bar width how does comfort and handling affect the equation? 🚴‍♀️✨✨

the pack brings up some interesting dynamics, does it test slower that's it job done or tweet the placement or look at a lumbar solution? front load etc? good to have but the comfort of racing goes out the window when you don't have water.

Tom Boonen raced with a Prevail helmet in 2012. Was the Evade not out yet? I always thought he lost some watts and could have won by even more.

I like to ride all surfaces, trail riding on my mountain bike being my favorite. I can say, getting your air pressure wrong is much more noticeable trail riding. For road, I ride 28mm in the middle to upper fifties for my weight of 185lbs. My gravel air pressure on 45mm Ramblers is around 40 as I mostly ride paved, but will go down to the low 30's on chunky gravel. All my bikes are setup tubeless. I do have one question about wind tunnel testing, do they change the wind angle around to see what effect this has on the aerodynamics, like between 90 deg to 0 deg and see how this effects rider time. If you are being blown off a straight line, this will effect your finishing time, as you will travel a longer distance. I believe, all else being the same, wind drag increases by a factor of 4 every time you double the wind speed, definitely not linear.

22:50 Ben, I was curious when you swapped the stock Grail cockpit for the 40cm width Pro cockpit what you thought of the stability change? The 46cm wide stock bars on my Grail feel way too wide (I'm used to 42 or 44), and if and when the Pro cockpit is available I'd like input on what it feels like. Thx!

would have been nice to see how much more you could save with a 42mm aero bar... thx for the video

thank you for the excellent content! Helps me unwind after a hard day at work to think about bicycles and how I can improve when I do get to ride. Also thanks for the Silca discount code. I used it to buy the chain waxing system and wow, it makes everything super easy. I just took my chain off, degreased it a bit, then hit it with boiling water to get the old wax and dirt off and then put it into the melted wax. When it came out, the chain was perfectly waxed. Smooth coat of wax over the whole chain without clumps or lumps anywhere. This makes it so easy. I was topping off with the Silca drip wax but I may just go to more frequent hot waxes.

Ben great video. Wondering when you do MidSouth or Unbound, are you riding mtb shoes/cleats (2 hole) or road shoes/cleats? Or does it depend on the course? Thanks in advance!

Cool, Ben, thanks. And you might get even faster with a Skycycle X-2. 😀

The differences were much bigger than I expected given the test speed.

Nice t-shirt! VW

Why not both? May seem simple but both options are going ro be a benefit so why choose?

The gains from narrower bars are much larger than what the GCN folks saw in the wind tunnel. Makes you wonder.

i got a new bike. it has a narrower cockpit and its also a little deeper. makes me way more compact on the bike. the difference is truely huge.

I only got into gravel and road riding a couple of years ago . I've gone from 440 mm to 420 mm and I'm now on 400mm flared bars. These equate to 38cm on the hoods and 45cm on the drops. I'm faster now but thats probably more due to my improved fitness. The 400mm flared bars are certainly more comfortable than 440mm straight bars.

Wait what? @3:00 "the lauf fork is 5W faster"? The true grit suspension fork?!

How do you make sure your upper body is in the exact same position for each test?

A point not noted in your video is that rolling resistance of the whole system (bike + rider) is greatly impacted by tire pressure. On a smooth surface, rolling resistance decreases with increased tire pressure. However, on rough and bumpy gravel surfaces, rolling resistance increases with higher tire pressures due to vibrations transferring up from the road surface that are absorbed by your body. I use the Silca tire pressure calculator to determine the optimum tire pressure for my rides and races.

I made a few small adjustments to my bike fit and slammed my handlebars… it’s stupid how much of a difference it’s made in my average speed doing long flat solo rides. I’d love to go to 38cm bars from my 41cm

Hey hope you can help me, i'm on a giant contend 3, rim brake claris grupo, and want to retire that bike for the strava set up, and buy a new bike. Now, the question. For a 5k€ budget, what bike should i get? i'm thinking of a bike like the new rose backroad ff with rival and one pair of wheels for road and gravel, or, a winspace agile or the new Van Rysel rcr, with a higher spec grupo and wheels. What is your opinion, what bike should i go for?

@bendelaney I see there was a photographer. Did anyone check your arm bend angle and torso angle to ensure they were the same when testing different parts? Obviously you're very aware of how it would affect things, you even mentioned it! But still, perception n reality n all that. And it at least LOOKS like you were a bit more upright in the first test.

Quite revealing, about bar width!

Does speed of wind have effect. Say your going 15 mph into a 10 mph headwind are you effectively needing aero for 25 mphs then?

Being longer underway on a certain course with low speed still makes lower aero drag substancial.

Ben asks: “at what speed does total resistance become aero dominated?” First of all it depends on road service and grade. But more importantly, the first question to ask is: which changes have an aero benefit, but a rolling resistance (or other) penalty?” After all, if you find a change that has an aero benefit but no penalty anywhere, like a faster jersey, there is no question, you just use it.

How many watts do you save by having an exceptionally beautiful garage?

This one always seems weird to me. Im 6'3" and not small, and I run 46s (Cowbell). Anything narrower may or may not be more aero, but I find I can't breathe right with narrower bars, so any potential aero impacts are wiped out by the inability to breathe and keep putting out power.

Take away number 4 all day......seems it's always windy lately, at least where I live....

46 to 42 will help much more than going from 42 to 38. keep that in mind for roadies.

I’d love to see the aerodynamic difference of the same person at different body weights. As a friend of mine said “fat is not aero”.

In skydiving, the difference in a relaxed body compared to a stiff body makes an extreme difference in how a body will fly. Granted cycling is at much lower speeds but I can't help but think about how a stiff body on a bike in the tunnel differs from a relaxed one.

Handlebar width should match your suit jacket size.

there becomes a limit to aerodynamic benefit on micro sized handlebars versus handling as well…… average joe rocking out on 30cm bars better have some serious handling skills. 😊

I wonder if narrower bars not only mean more aerodynamic but also more power.

Great video, are new gravelkings working for you?

Why do they spin the wheels but not spin the legs?

Someone needs to test number plate positions. I want to know if it’s worth it to make race promoters mad by bending it around the head tube or whatever spot seems faster.

So, like… AERO IS EVERYTHING ?

From the footage, it looks like you weren’t testing with your eyes down the road. I hope you did actually test with your eyes up

Km/h

Ben you're so tall are you sure your head wasn't above the wind channel? LOL

Bloke in the background 😂

Just witnessed a VNR, a very nice (wind tunnel) run

Love your work, but 'taller wheels' is an out-of-character odd way to put it

23 mph on gravel while I’m legitimately proud if I can average 18 on the road.

Is dylan really testing 19cm bars!? Looks like a meme lol

both🙄

Why are you quoting speeds in mph? All cyclist should configure their bike computers to metric (ie distances in km and speeds in kph). You will feel your motivation inrcrease. You can directly compare with the euro pros. The incremental speed difference between a 1 kpm change vs a 1 mph change is more accurate - especially if you are talking about slower speeds when climbing ie 9 mph to 10 mph vs 15 kph to 17 kph. Metric simply makes more sense. Just ask Lance Armstrong - one of the most American guys we know.

What about a CamelFRONT? Will gravel racers start wearing those "trout-head" helmets too? Gravel started out being the anti establishment thing...only to follow the rest of the sport down the "You are what you ride." and "Speed costs money. How fast can you afford to go?" rabbit hole. Same s__t, different day.

ben please leave the quotes up a little longer, i'm only halfway done reading before the text disappears