How much does a tt bike save?
02-09-15, 03:18 PM
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I've been getting into this myself, and I can tell you that aero definitely works. However it is basically a bunch of little things together, not just the bike frame. Your position, your clothing, and other loose ends make a lot of smaller differences which all add up. The one big thing that I learned though, which is more important that all of that in my opinion, is learning how to manage your effort. That's where I've found the most improvement in my TT times.
02-09-15, 04:46 PM
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I've been getting into this myself, and I can tell you that aero definitely works. However it is basically a bunch of little things together, not just the bike frame. Your position, your clothing, and other loose ends make a lot of smaller differences which all add up. The one big thing that I learned though, which is more important that all of that in my opinion, is learning how to manage your effort. That's where I've found the most improvement in my TT times.
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02-09-15, 06:35 PM
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Power on the trainer and power outside are two different things. It gives you a guideline, but most people can push harder outside and with a number on their back than they can in the basement. Also, position on the bike makes a big difference. It's hard to push max power in the drops for an hour vs on the tops.
02-09-15, 11:52 PM
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And, to address the OP's question directly, we've measured a difference between a guy in the same TT position with the same clothing and the same wheels/tires on a pretty aero road bike frame and a dedicated TT bike frame. That is, we held his position and equipment constant, including aero bars, and only changed the frame he was on. The difference in CdA was about .02 m^2 (roughly equivalent to 2 sec/km at TT speeds). This was backed up later when he repeated a 40 km TT on the same course with the new bike. We have power meter and weather data for both TTs. He was about 2 minutes faster overall, but he put out slightly more power the second time and the wind was slightly more favorable on one of the legs. When adjusting for power and wind, we estimate that the frame was worth about 75 seconds of the 2 minutes, or just about what we had estimated.
02-10-15, 01:11 AM
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Fortunately the stack and reach for the bikes were similar, and he had been using a forward seat post, so he could replicate his "touchpoints" (saddle, bars, and pedals) relative to the BB. He swapped over the base bar, extensions, wheels, saddle, etc. It would have been more difficult if the stack and reach were way different.
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