Which aero bike is fastest and which pro has the fastest aero bike?
Is it Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan or John Degenkolb? We wanted to find out so we've come to Derby
velodrome and assembled five of the leading models available on the market
to perform some aero testing in a scientific controlled environment
Our lineup for the test is the Giant Propel SL 0 which is ridden by Giant Sunweb and Tom Dumoulin
Next we've got the Canyon Aeroad CF SLX which is ridden by
the likes of Tony Martin and Alexander Kristoff
You've also got the Cervelo S5 which is Cav's bike and needs little introduction
You've then got the Specialized Venge Vias which is written by Peter Sagan and Marcel Kittel, Cav's biggest sprint rivals
Finally we've got the Trek Emonda which is written by Trek Factory Racing and Jon Degenkolg
Now inevitably some of you are going to ask why have
you picked these five bikes and not say the Bianchi Altre or Pinarello F10
The short answer is we only have so much time and we can only do so much with
that time but if this video is popular and you like what you see then there's a
good chance we'll be able to come back in the future and test some of the other
bikes against the data we've get here today. To help us perform the aero
testing we've actually got Dan Bigham, national pursuit champion from Wattshop
who is going to help us interpret the power data and record the power data as
well by riding very smoothly around Derby track. So what are we going to do, Dan?
We're going to assess each bike in three different positions so we're going to
be on the hoods, we're going to be on the drops, and in an aero position on the
hoods with dropped elbows. We're also going to test each bike with a bottle on
the down tube. Obviously it's pretty important, you got to ride with a bottle
Yeah it can be quite significant as well. It can be pretty huge
Each one's gonna be ridden at around 45 kilometres an hour aiming for
on the same power. The software accounts for any variations in power
or acceleration so if your power's slightly higher on one bike compared to
the other it doesn't matter as long as we're reasonably consistent that's what
matters, keep around the same velocity and yeah, we can account for the rest
So we're going to record some other variables as well such as temperature and air
pressure and humidity so from that we can
calculate the air density prior to each test run and we also weigh the whole
system mass before each test run as well
Dan's also riding on the rollers so that we can calculate the rolling resistance
for the tires on our Fast Forward test wheels and he's actually going to record
the power and we're going to be able to calculate the rolling resistance that way
This is going to be useful because it will be factored into the calculation
when we're measuring how aerodynamic the bikes are. So I guess that means you've
got to get into your skinsuit and you've got to get on the track and we're going to find out
which is fastest. Do some watts, let's do it
What I'm doing now is just putting a bottle cage on the bike. I'm going to put
the same bottle and bottle cage on each bike. Different brands when they make
their aero claims about how fast the bike is, some base it on a bottle being
there and some base it without, so this will tell us hopefully which is the
fastest and if the aerodynamics are at all by putting a bottle on
so now we're just setting up the specialized bench bias and the next one
to go is the Madone and we'd expect this one and the Madone see fastest just
because logically the brakes are hidden and the cables are all hidden as well
and there are more modern design and they came out in the last couple years
so you would think that these would be faster but I guess we'll find out
I so Dan the results who has the fastest
bike well first let's do it in the position so great so the slowest bike is
the don't propel noticeably in all four positions or are three positions armed
with the bottle it was slower from anywhere from grab a quick look at a
data from 30 what's even on the hood first of the faster by oh not good news
for Tom Dumoulin of he's in a breakaway not at all fortunately okay so how did
it perform in the different positions and with a bottle and without a lot so
in the different positions it was it was improving just like all the other bikes
were so religious two drops is a good improvement in the CDA and then from the
drops to the arrow position was again a good game to is sort of saving 10 to 20
Watts from each progression the bottle itself was to what's worse but then if
you look at the propel it's not quite designed around it with the down tube
where there is a bit of a flat profile on the trailing edge it's still not a
perfect shape so with the bottle it was a little bit little oh yeah so just
riding on the hood one number what are the arrow watts required to travel 45
kilometres now on the giant propel John propel was 343 watts on the hoods okay
on the drops was three engine 13 on the oil in the arrow position was 298
so a good good gain there from the drops on the hoods but then with the bottle
was 300 okay so just to what's lower the bottle
so next what is the next slowest or the next fastest bike so next up was the s5s
willow s5 so cap spike how it's like yeah it's really nice bike to ride I did
it feel quite like that and felt quick the numbers are a lot better than the
propel so on the hood so you're around 310 watts going to the drops is 308
going to the arrow position was 281 so it's a good game there and you can note
start riding around not in the bottle on saved path what so within about
the abilities as well neutral for bottle which is quite a good thing I mean
you're always going to receive one yeah and Civello or have actually said
when the fight came as a few years old now that design compared to some of the
others we've got but Civello did make a point of when the bike came out saying
that frame had been designed with a bottle in mind because it doesn't get
wider doesn't it yeah it's got that flared profile on the down tube okay so
what's next yeah so between the the canyon arrowed the Venge vs and the trek
Madone when you're on the the hoods the canyon was slower than the other two so
at 307 watts there that was the slowest we went down to 295 being on the drops
and 281 being in that area position and I actually saved four watts put in the
bottle on which is a little bit of a surprise the profile didn't seem to be
all that well designed around the downs ears aren't you bottle but servings to
work worth knowing though you've got a canyon a road you're doing the TT put a
bottle on it cluster yep that was good then yeah the closest part was seen the
the trek meadow in the various flash of the title indeed yeah they were
significantly different bike on a bike the segment called spike yeah who's got
the fastest five very very close to in fact on the hoods identical rather
injured one wats nothing between them spot on yep on the
drops through various 300 watts trek Madone 299 oh very very very close there
however the difference is it when I got into the arrow position where on the vs
was tuned in 86 watts but on the track mode ohm was 279 so good 7 watt saving
there I personally would put that down to the ability to get in hold our
position the bar shape was quite interesting the different on the vs vs
the Madone was very flat and easy to gain stuff yeah because the special life
has it's it's arrow fly sort of riser bar which is a little bit strange if
you've never ridden a bar like that before it's quite a lot different to the
others on tests so yeah any wrist position just felt not natural and as
bikes a row very very differently just by quite an interesting one I love
to ride on them Bodoni but then yeah the bottles is there the big discrepancy
actually so putting one on the vir saved nearly three watts okay but then on the
meadow unit lost 4 Watts right which is very very surprising yeah I think we
should point out a few of the little things such as the specialized Venge
wires that was designed aerodynamically as a system to work with specialized own
brand wheels and we fare the trek was probably designed with the Bontrager
wheels as well so it can mean that when you swap out wheels for a different
brand that they're not it's not an Optima often yeah especially the
revolves much much wider wheel I think there yeah 13 millimeters wide is crazy
in comparison to most so yeah it's been designed around those wheels and finally
we've got to be be consistent yeah yeah we can only test so much and the other
thing is is that the canyon arrowed did cheat slightly yeah okay so we tried to
get the bikes in a similar position as possible to each other but the canyon
air road handlebars are actually 41 centimeters wide whereas all the other
bikes on tests with 42 so that's slight narrowing you think that mate yeah grand
yeah something I've seen in testing the a narrow narrow handlebar can definitely
help it's good good things which issue frontal area so yeah that one centimeter
or so can make a notice other thing to make it yeah a couple of what's
difference so yeah so that's just worth considering just in there and we the
thing is just to be transparent about later so right to conclude which rider
and team have got the fastest bike just about done dagger coal truck Factory
Racing they have it they have if you're on the fastest bike get the track Madone