Endurance Innovation 44 – Go Faster on your Bike pt 3

19 Mar Endurance Innovation 44 – Go Faster on your Bike pt 3

In the third installment of our ‘Go Faster’ series, Andrew and Michael revisit aerobars and crank length, look at ceramic bearing upgrades, 1x vs 2x drivetrains, and tires.

• 3:00 custom, 3D printed aerobars
• 4:00 off-the-shelf, long-pad options
• 8:30 Morf bars
• 11:15 the advantages of shorter crank arms
• 13:15 crank length is part of your drive train
• 17:00 into the weeds we go about crank arm length!
• 20:00 Andrew’s thoughts on ceramic bearing upgrades: a lot of money for minor gains
• 21:30 where do you find bearings on a bike and how upgrading them to ceramic may be beneficial
• 23:15 the benefit of oversized jockey wheels
• 26:00 the benefit of a clean and lubricated chain
• 27:00 what does a squeaky drivetrain mean
• 28:00 pros and cons of dry lube
• 29:30 1x vs 2x drivetrains: 1x is simpler and a little more aerodynamic, but at the cost of higher friction drag
• 39:00 rewind to the cost of a full Ceramic Speed upgrade
• 41:00 on tires, tire pressure, and rolling resistance
  • Continental Gatorskin @ 29kph & 100PSI has a rolling resistance of 20.2W / tire (40.4W per pair)
  • Continental GP5000 @ 29kph & 100PSI has a rolling resistance of 10.7W / tire (21.4W per pair)
• 48:00 tire pressure: hysteresis losses vs vibrational losses
• 51:45 max tire pressure: tire max vs rim max
• 54:15 wider tires will have a lower rolling resistance at the same air pressure as narrower tires
• 55:15 get a pump with a reliable pressure gauge
• 56:00 butyl tubes vs latex tubes: latex tubes must be inflated more frequently, but come with a savings of ~2W per tire (4W total) when compared with butyl
• 58:15 the cost of poor cornering in a course with a 90deg turn every 1km
  • If baseline for a confident bike handler, cornering at 0.8g is 240W
  • Then someone who is overly cautious and can only corner at 0.3g is 247W
• 1:04:00 revisiting rim vs disk brakes

Check out part 1 and part 2 of our series. The resources we sited in the episode were the 1x v 2x article, the excellent Bicycle Rolling Resistance site, and the FLO tire pressure article.