AGE GROUP NEWS WRITE UP

Hi Age Group News,

We spent another day at the wind tunnel for EZ Gains at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub. Some of it testing EZ Gains and VeloToze kit, some of it’s fun stuff like comparing GB age group short sleeve and vest triathlon suits.

First up we tested with Professional Triathlete James Teagle. He tested various things, starting with an EZ Gains cover on an MVR wheel v’s a Prime disc wheel. As expected, yet again the results were very, very close, with the EZ Gains disc faster at some speeds / yaws, and the Prime faster at others, but all within a remarkably small range of variance; across the whole range they were within 0.5 watts (testing at 45 and 50 kmph).

The most unexpected thing was the GB tri suit test. On the current kit, there is the option for a short sleeved, or a vested triathlon suit. The above shows that the vest tri suit (brown) is slower than the short sleeved tri suit (purple), but only by 1.7 watts, which is much closer than anticipated! It’s certainly nowhere near the difference compared to the best short sleeved tri suit we tested. The Huub Anemoi was 9.53 watts faster than the vest tri suit. I think it’s relatively poor performance is probably partially to do with how short the sleeves are.

So, for the GB tri suit, if it’s a hot race, I’ll almost certainly go for the vest version as I think I’d lose much more time on the run due to overheating. I will just need to make sure I use some decent sun-cream on my shoulders.

The previous tests we did using a sleeveless V’s a Huub suit came out at 9.53 watts which is a massive saving over 90k, it would be as much as a two-minute saving, and a 7.7 watt saving against the sleeved!

We also tested against some other leading brands and the Huub Anemoi always came out on top.

Please take a look at the aero data, the first Baseline test we did across all Yaw angle hence the large blue line referring to the Huub suit, the other suits we tested at 0 +5 Yaw which the gives us the calculation of 5- 0 5+ we do this like this due to cost and run time, most of the time in a race the wind hits directly on or slightly to each side, and this gives us enough information to see what suit is faster.

This is my personal option and the opinion and our other director Ben Redman, both pretty high level GB athletes that we would really like to go with a Huub design GBR suit, I believe this would be given the case with most other athletes wanting to get their best performance.

Below tests were conducted at 40kph and the watts required to obtain 40kph in the wind tunnel are as below.

Double rear bottles tested 2 watts slower than no rear bottles, a single rear bottle was a tiny amount faster than no rear bottle – 0.5 a watt.

Other tests we did showed a bottle between the arms was faster than without, and same for a bottle behind.

Another test showed a big win (5 watts) for having a bottle down the top. Since doing this test, this has now been banned by the latest incarnation of Ironman rules – a set rules that we’ve spent a lot of time examining and talking to Ironman about at EZ Gains. Fortunately, EZ Gains disc wheel covers are still allowed and we believe all EZ Gains products are.

Just to confirm that, the first Ironman races with the new rules – San Juan, Puerto Rico and Campeche Mexico – have taken place with over 20 EZ Gains customers using a variety of products including the Chainring Guard 3-5 Watts saving and Front derailleur guard 2-5.8 Watts saving, and we have not received any negative feedback from any athletes competing and no issues with the officials. We have since been in talks with a head official at Ironman and he does not have an issue with the chainring guard after talking with World of Triathlon. The front derailleur guard will have to go to committee and the worst case scenario is they ask for a 3 year phase out period, as the products we offer follow ISO accreditations and have already been on the market prior to new rules and are deemed as a safe product and commercially available from a reputable company.

The discussion I had with the head official, lead me to believe they are trying to eradicate unsafe home-made products and unsafe cheaply made products by non ISO accredited companies please see…

 (g) All aspects of the bicycle must be safe to the rider and to other athletes in the Race. Minimum safety standards include, but are not limited to, meeting or exceeding the standards of a reputable safety standards organization (such as CPSC, ISO, or other equally reputable safety standards organizations), properly glued and sealed tires, tight headset and handlebars, and true wheels; and (h) Non-traditional or unusual bikes or equipment are illegal unless, prior to the start of the Race, approval has been granted from the Event-specific Head Referee. (DSQ)

The only other thing showing such a big gain was putting VeloToze calf guards on – 5.5 watts for those! These can be handy for triathlons as you can wear them under the wetsuit if it’s a wetsuit legal swim.

For pure cycling, we had another athlete Max, testing across lots of the VeloToze products – the XT and XXT socks (XT and XXT meaning tall, rather than big footed…) also came out well at about a 2 watt gain at 40 kmph.

Blue is normal socks, yellow XT, green XXT.

My testing was done at a speed suitable for my triathlons – 40kmph, and 0 and 5 degrees yaw. One test was with a bottle between my arms (2.5 watts faster with the bottle on).