Best ways to increase biking speed (Page 4)

Fred (and everyone) just want your opinion on something tangentially related to this. Are you a proponent of the "train with crappy gear race with great gear" idea? I personally train with the best gear I can, without risking my expensive items like race wheels.

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To me it is important to be as comfortable as possible when I am going to make myself hurt.  "Better to enjoy the pain."  So I ride my Tri bike, I wear the most comfy gear I have, and I enjoy myself.  Within the financial means I have.  Same goes for running.  For example you probably don't need to carry water on a 5k run.  But why not?  Why wait til your shoes hurt to replace them?  Etc, Etc, Etc.

This is a hobby.  Enjoy it.

I don't train with "crappy" gear. It's somewhat different gear because durability becomes more important to me then. It's not as fast, but it still does what I want it to do in training as it's more about putting in the work necessary than achieving the best time there.

Actually, I believe it says that aerodynamics begins to have an effect on speed at about the time you establish velocity.  But physics can be terribly misleading.

Yes, aero has an effect any time you are trying to go forward. The crossing point on the graph is only where aero resistance and rolling resistance are equal.

LOL, go over to Fred's training log and check out the "crappy" road bike gear  

I am the same.  Use gatorskins, spoked wheels and road helmet for training.  Use HEDs, race tires and aero helmet in races.  I don't have enough $ for a full set of crappy gear and race gear 

Yet anyone who rides knows aero equipment, or even being in the aero position has little impact at that point.   This is what happens when "even when you're right, your just plain wrong".  I'm sure someone will disagree, but I'll submit they're riding with a parachute deployed behind them.

define little impact? maybe for someone who rides as hard as they can at 11mph can go 12mph with their aero equiptment. that is certainly a big impact for them. what you're saying is that when YOU ride 12 mph you can't tell the difference, that doesn't mean theres not a difference.

Nope.  You won't get 1 mph at 12 mph from aero equipment.  Something else is doing it (maybe feeling cool with that equipment on).  There just isn't enough wind force to overcome at that speed to gain an advantage of almost 10%.

Edit:  Second thought on this - the mechanicals (gearing etc.) could be a big factor.  Aero bikes often come with improved systems.

Ride your bike around at 12 mph...then ride your bike with one of those running parachutes attached to your back and let me know if you think aerodynamics don't matter at 12 mph.

ETA: Or even simpler...try riding 12 mph into a 30 mph headwind.

If you have a bad position on a road bike with no aero equiptment, and go to a good position on a tri bike with good aero equiptment, you can pick up 10%

yes, the rolling resistance would be a higher percentage of your total power requirement, however total weight would at that point be your governing factor for power requirement. BUT when you go down the hill later, your aerodynamics controls your speed again; you get all the energy back from gravity, but are fighting wind resistance. The more aero you are the more of your stored potential energy can turn into speed.

The % of mass and cross section of the bicycle relative to the human body is small.  Moreover, the % difference between an aero bike and a non-aero bike is even smaller.  So it takes quite a bit of wind to make that small component important.  Not sure you can decipher what that means, but....

Anyways I feel like I'm taking crazy pills on this thread :-) Don't you guys ride?  You should know when aero becomes relevant.  So getting faster on a bike means being fit enough to get it into the zone where it is important.  And with that, I'm going to go invent the piano key necktie.

The only crazy part is you not understanding the laws of physics.  Aero becomes relevant as soon as you decide you want to go as fast as possible.  If you don't care about that until you get up to 20mph (or whatever speed you choose), so be it.  Most of us care as soon as the gun goes off.

I would be very interested to know this as well.  It sort of makes sense in my mind.  Take the extreme example of those "world strongest man" competitions where they try to pull a bus.  The most effort they use is just to get the bus rolling...but once they've got it moving, it seems the force to keep the speed up isn't nearly as great as the force it took to get it started.