Originally Posted by
carleton
So, to put it plainly, a Disc + Ellipse front won't make you faster.
I'm not sure where you came up with this, but holy smokes is it wrong.
Originally Posted by
carleton
Of all of the aero equipment that you choose to use (skinsuit, aero helmet, aero mass start helmet, shoe booties, aero front wheel, rear disc, aero frame, aero bike fitting, etc...), the disc has the lowest bang-for-your-buck in terms of performance. Get the disc to fine-tune things after you've invested in everything else.
Rider position is the biggest factor.
You can go backwards with the wrong skin suit or "aero" helmet. There are only a couple of booties out there that provide any advantage at all, and that's provided they fit right. Even then it's pretty tiny. "Aero" frame vs. rear disc depends on the frame, the disc, and the yaw angle of the wind. And what you're using as a baseline.
You are correct in that the front wheel has a bigger impact than the rear. Also correct on the clincher vs. tubular thing, as far as feel it's a complete non issue on a velodrome. Personally I wouldn't ride clinchers on anything beyond a soft banked 333, but's that mostly because a tubular tends not to blow out as dramatically as a clincher, and they provide a bit more margin of safety at higher pressures. For whatever reasons most of the bang/crash events I've seen on 250's have been clinchers.
Just an FYI I've got probably 60+ hours at various tunnels and aero testing facilities, along with access to a lot of unpublished data from the same, and a ton of field testing hours. And more than a few pursuit/TT records and titles, both my own and from people I coach and have helped set up. There are a few things that are pretty inarguable when it comes to aero stuff, and a lot of things where the answer is "maybe, you need to test". See above.