Interesting that he's seeing no real difference across a range of extremes in the velodrome. Likely goes a long way to exonerate Jim from Lionel's past criticism.

Only real positive I took from this is that he's finally working with Canyon Corporate along with working with Mark for the outdoor stuff, and that he's also finally going to Germany to do wind tunnel testing. After years of being a Canyon athlete.

I can't imagine it took Jan more than a week to hop into that wind tunnel after signing with them!

Oh well, better late than never I guess.

Let's hope this newfound free speed, plus his work with Gerry makes him competitive again.

Isn't the whole premise of the latest video is that the whole team is frustrated/confused because they tried so much stuff & found nothing..........................

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Pink? Maybe. Maybe not. You decide.

found nothing.....at the velodrome.

My take on it was that without wind at a yaw, his position makes negligible difference, but that they are going to keep testing both outside and in the wind tunnel over the next few months to further refine his position. At the end of the video he said he was confident that his CDA would be sub .20 after the months of works he has planned. That’s all - the free speed comment was his anticipated free speed, not the speed he didn’t find in that video - sorry for the confusion.

.228-.232 seems quite poor. Unless they have crr set much lower than the actual crr of the velodrome. But I would imagine they have a good grasp of getting the crr pretty damn close to actual. Assuming the data is accurate, I would be asking the question why he is such a brick. That to me, is the biggest take away.

Isn't velodrome testing a bit outdated for tri? If you have to validate the testing by going outside, why duplicate the efforts with the velodrome? Seems inefficient, just go outside.

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Agree with going outside and testing as much as possible. Velodrome is not yielding much evidence one way or the other, but good for us to know its BS haha.

Going all the way to Germany to go from .215 to .210 is a true waste of time, but at least he's checking that box. (I guess)..

I'm really liking the outside real world testing the best. (We'll see if my mind changes).

The CRRs used in those calcs were quite aggressive. He talks about it at one point.

Yeah I just don’t have a feel of what crr of a velodrome actually is. I think he mentioned they were using .002.

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I am sure some fans have watched lots of his races, what’s the on bike in race position “discipline” like? Like a rock or all over place?

yes. And his tires were at 80PSI, so not an optimal track configuration. But the the argument used is it's not the absolute number but the relative change.

We actually measured that, and there may be something there but not much.

Whatever it is, he’s moving to the right direction. He’s the only person who makes that ugly helmet looking good. He’s very serious about his journey lately and I would be scared shit if I’m one of his competitors. I have a feeling that next season will be great for him.

Velodrome testing is still more controlled than outdoor testing. It's kinda halfway between wind tunnel and real world conditions. You can always get stray wind gusts, traffic, or even just small changes in wind speed that skew outdoor results. It seems like their plan is to learn and get some top candidate setups on the track then go outside and validate. If you go outside first you may end up working off incorrect assumptions straight away and chasing ghosts.

And my guess for his general brick-like aero is those flared knees. Which would be unfortunate because that's a lot harder to change than upper body position.

I agree for the most part that it’s about the relative change. But didn’t he start this journey because he’s giving up so much time to his competitors? Maybe he found that 20-30 watts during the initial session you did with him that closed the gap. But then he tests again, albeit different bike setup, conditions, scenario, sensors, protocol, etc, and the absolute number is 20-30 watts higher than the top aero guys. It’s not exactly inspiring confidence.

Data is always good but sometimes there may be too much data. It will be interesting to see the next outdoor session and wind tunnel session.

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Maybe I’m still missing something, but if the position isn’t showing differences shouldn’t you try other things? Did he only use the poc in the velodrome? Is there something else like suit or shoes or bottle cage that is influencing it? Maybe do a lap on the hoods to make sure the math is right?

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My Strava | My Instagram | Summerville, SC | 35-39 AG | 4:41 (70.3), 10:05 (140.6) | 3x70.3, 1x140.6 | Cat 2 Cyclist

Any insight as to why they went from the dual extensions that they used on the new canyon to the normal mono extension for the velodrome test? It seems to me that there's very few of the Canyon athletes using that and in my head - even a smaller round extension below the forearm would/could be more aero than just a forearm.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

It's funny because when I saw the video I pinged Lionel and asked if they tested with the other cockpit that we tested outdoors (Aerocoach) and yes they did. It's just not shown in the video.

At the end of the day what will be important is, and in order
1) his race speed to watts
2) his speed to watts on a long test course he rides on a regular basis fully instrumented
3) his speed to watts during testing

if he tests on road, velodrome and tunnel he is going to get a mishmash of numbers he will have to decide what to trust and not to trust.

But 1 and 2 are all that really count. Actually #1 is all that count, but #2 is a good proxy.

Was there any consensus on it being slower or faster? I know looks can be deceiving but...there's none of the Canyon athletes on the mono pole cockpit that have spent any time in the tunnel that I can see.

I do realize Lionel needs to finalize a position before they do anything custom - but there has to be some watts there as well.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

Watched the video today and wondering if he was correct in saying the adjustments they were making on the saddle was in centimeter increments and not millimeter increments. I found it shocking that they didn't notice any changes, because at least for me moving the saddle 4-8cm increments would totally screw up my bike fit/comfort.

I did not test 2 identical positions with the 2 styles in the outdoor tests. The reason he went with the aerocoach was to get more range of reach in the initial batch of tests.

Fair enough - will have to just scratch the head until we find out!

I assume that you didn't test flat hands (like in the velodrome) based upon the outside video (scripted lol) but maybe you did.

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

No, we went from 25+ to 15ish but not down to 0. I think he wants to try it.

I am sure - there seemed to be a lot of riding in that position in the new video. Looking forward to more from this - no matter how much my brain likes the looks of the hands being higher haha

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

3 days of testing soon. Not sure if he will be filming any. Hope not :-)