Page 10 - DLNnov2016-1012
P. 10

Shaving your legs [or other hair removal method] for speed…
 Most racing cyclists shave their legs and there are almost as many excuses,
 sorry, reasons for shaving as there are riders. It was thought that the least
 plausible reason was to improve aerodynamics. Sure, shave because it looks
 better, it's easier to get a massage, bandages and tape are easier if you
 crash, it feels nice in bed and (apparently) the opposite sex digs it.

 Shave for aerodynamics though? No. Everyone refers to a study done Chester
 Kyle’s 1987 Bicycling magazine study, that found only a 0.6 percent in
 aerodynamic drag - a few seconds over 25 miles at a typical decent TT speed.
 If you're not chasing personal bests, it's arguably not worth the hassle.

 But early in July, Specialized aerodynamicists Mark Cote and Chris Yu blew
 conventional thinking out of the water finding savings of 50 to 80 seconds
 over 40km when they tested riders in their wind tunnel before and after
 shaving their legs.

As Yu says in the video (link below): "I am shocked at how big a difference it
 was."

Cote says: "We've run about 1200 hours' worth of experiments [in the wind
 tunnel] over the last year and no question, this shaved leg data set has been
 the most surprising revelation."

Yu adds that he and Cote had wanted to test the effect of shaving legs for
 a long time, but just didn't believe it would be a measurable difference . They
 credit Specialized-sponsored triathlete Jesse Thomas for sparking the test
 when he turned up to a wind tunnel testing session with hairy legs - he'd
 simply forgotten to shave. He persuaded Yu and Cote to test him before and
 after he shaved.

“It honestly was a total joke,” he said. “None of us expected [shaving] to make

                                                      10
   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15