A Chance Meeting

This afternoon I was in the park with my son, who was playing with a neighbour's daughter and I met another dad who was there with his daughter. He had a Blackwell Composites T shirt on and that slightly hungry look that indicates a cyclist or runner, so I introduced myself. It turned out that he was not just another recreational cyclist, the likes of which flourish in Melbourne's leafy suburbs, but had his own company that fabricates carbon parts for cycling, rowing and other sports, as well as consulting on aerodynamics, and doing testing at the Monash wind tunnel. He had preeviously been employed by the AIS doing a lot of their technical work with SRMs and other technical issues. I, of course, was very interested by all the things he did, and fortunately he seemed more than happy to talk about his work.

Some of the highlights were talking about the powertesting he had been involved in with the Australian track cyclists, such as Brad McGee and in the new generation, Jack Bobridge, who reportedly can do 470watts for the duration of a pursuit, and has done 4.18 recently. We also talked about aspects of the different powermeters that were about, and his experiences with them. Apparently some of the AIS ones that they still use on the track are from early 90s when they were first brought out. They need recalibrating every so often but if they are installed and maintained well, can last for a long time.

We also talked about aerodynamics, and how important it was. He had a fairly low opinion of Zipp's dimples and also of ceramic bearings, having not been able to demonstrate any difference at 600watts, down to a resolution of 0.5watts, between normal and ceramic bearings. His experience was that the leading edge- hands, aerobar position, forks and front wheel were overwhelmingly the important factors. Apparently Bridie O'Donnell was able to gain 20watts by changing her aero position in the tunnel, a gain of 7%! He also was impressed by Edge composites wheels- thought they handled beautifully, largely due to the materials. 

I asked about front disc wheels, and he thought they were far and away better than trispokes and the like, if you could use them. He thought even outside on a still day was worth considering. The other thing was that an aero helmet was of even more benefit.

Oh, I could go on...

The people that you meet...