- If you want to improve your sprinting
and get more aerodynamic,
you could do far worse than copy
some of the world's best sprinters.
However, many of them have very different positions
so which one is best?
- We're going to take a look back
at the top sprinters of the last 10 years
and try and emulate their positions,
from Mark Cavendish, who pioneered that aero position,
to Greipel's mega-powerful hulking great position
that he adopts.
And then, if I can get into Caleb Ewan's torpedo position,
we're going to try that as well.
- Brace yourselves.
It's time for GCN Does Science.
- Quite excited about this, aren't we?
- Yeah.
(whooshing)
To test out the different positions
is GCN's best sprinter--
- Hang on, I'm going to stop you there.
I'm pretty sure at GCN, I'm the only sprinter.
- Yeah.
Well, anyway, Chris is going to jump in the wind tunnel
and test the different positions and to do this,
we've come to the Boardman Performance Centre,
where Dr. Xavier Disley of AeroCoach
is going to help us perform the testing
and analyze the results.
AeroCoach are a company that specialize in
optimizing the aerodynamics of amateur and pro athletes.
- We're quite excited about this but the only fear I have
is I'm going to find out how much better I could have done
when I was actually racing.
- Probably quite a lot.
- I think so, too.
(laid back hiphop music)
Good to see you, Xav.
- Nice to see you, Ollie.
- Thanks for helping us with the testing today.
So what is the procedure that we're going to do
to measure Chris in the different positions?
- So in a wind tunnel,
what we do is we pull the air past the rider.
Most people think that you might be
blowing air at a rider in a tunnel but in actual fact,
the fan is on the right-hand side over here
and there's an inlet, which is a big open expansion,
which allows us to pull the air past the rider.
There's a round section,
where the rider's placed on a platform,
which is effectively a measuring platform.
So as the air hits the rider,
it transfers force into the platform.
We measure that force and encapsulate an aerodynamic drag.
- So how accurate is this test going to be?
- So a wind tunnel is one of the most accurate ways
you can measure aerodynamic drag.
Chris isn't going to be going full bore
when he's doing his sprinting
because it is a precision piece of equipment.
But normally, you'd look at something like half a percent
so it is a very, very accurate way of measuring.
- So because Chris can't go full bore, it's alright.
What we're going to do
is actually do a second part of the experiment
out on the road, where you do get to go full bore.
- Test out the positions in real life.
- But also I think in addition to doing
the three sprinter's positions,
we should also do the Chris Opie and see how that compares.
- The flailing around everywhere, hoping for the best.
- Alright, let's get in the tunnel.
(hypnotic R&B music)
- I'm genuinely, seriously excited
because I've never been in a wind tunnel before
and I've always felt like I paid attention
to trying to be really aero and really fast on my bike
so I'm now finally going to get the chance
to see if I was wasting my time
or if those efforts really did pay off.
It's kind of like being in a Formula One environment.
I'm quite excited about it.
First up is my own sprint position,
which is kind of the position I would have adopted
as I was dying towards the finish line.
So in the final 100 meters of a bike race,
after I've stood up, I'd end up sitting back down,
elbows out, ready to lunge.
- So the Opie sprint position,
which was seated but with elbows out,
the elbows out was costing you 32 watts
at 65 kilometers an hour,
which is a fair amount.
As a percentage of the wattage you'd be putting out,
to be 1,000 watts, 1,200 watts,
it's 3%-odd of your power.
- It's quite a lot actually when you say 3%.
(hypnotic R&B music)
Alright, next up is the aerodynamic position
of Mark Cavendish.
Kind of brought onto the scene 2007.
Here we go.
(hypnotic R&B music)
- When we did the Cavendish position,
so that was the one where you were slightly further forward
but not massively over but looking straight at the stem,
128 watts faster than seated in the drops.
So that suddenly is someone who's
done their sprint training over the winter
and someone who hasn't done their sprint training.
- That'll be why he always beat you, mate.
- Yeah, I actually remember quite clearly
pulling out to overtake him in a race
like 150 meters from the line
and then the surface changed on the road
and he went forwards and I was like (buzzing),
like I had an air brake on.
(laid back hiphop music)
Giving my triceps a little bit of a rest now
and I'm going to get myself right down far
into the Caleb Ewan position
right over the front of the bike.
Here we go.
(laid back hiphop music)
So that was the Caleb Ewan position
and I can honestly say I have no idea how he does that.
My arms, my shoulders are killing me.
- The Caleb Ewan position, 248 watts more aerodynamic.
- That's huge.
- Yeah, absolutely massive. - That's insane.
- You can afford to lose 10% of your power
and still gain 10%, even more,
depending on what power you're doing.
- I might even be able to sprint
if I do the Caleb Ewan position.
(laughing)
(laid back hiphop music)
- We're going to adopt the position
of the most powerful sprinter of the last 10 years
and that's Andre Greipel.
Big, powerful position for him.
(laid back hiphop music)
- The Greipel position was a little bit,
it was basically the same as the Opie position.
- But Greipel had 600 watts more than I did.
- He did, yeah.
That was 28 watts, 27.5 watts slower
than being seated in the drops,
which is kind of a good position,
like a base position to work from.
You had to go a bit more extreme to go faster.
But it just goes to show the massive percentage improvements
you can get just from changing your sprinting position.
- Sadly, it's come two years too late for me.
(laughing)
- Just think how good you could've been.
- I think about that every morning, Ollie.
(laughing)
- Well it's all good and well
seeing that and doing it like that
but we need to go and test it out on the road.
- How much faster can I actually go?
- And see how easy it is to do these positions in real life.
- Let's go somewhere warm and sunny though
because it's wet outside.
- Well, I think the GCN teleportation budget is back
so we could just teleport somewhere.
So as we've said, it's all well and good
doing these sprint positions
in the safety of the wind tunnel
but it's a completely different thing
doing them for real out on the road.
- Yeah, for a start,
you're going to try and control the bike at speed
whilst delivering a max effort.
It's going to be difficult, Ollie.
- Yeah, well we thought what a better reason
than to come out to these beautiful flat roads in Mallorca
and give it a go?
And by us, I mean you.
'Kay.
(laid back hiphop music)
- So we're up to 50Ks an hour.
I'm just going to do my own thing,
my own sprint that I've done
thousands of times over the years.
Go for a max effort and see how many watts
and how many kilometers an hour I can produce.
(laid back hiphop music)
Next up is one of the most effective positions
over recent years.
It's Mark Cavendish, the very aero but still very powerful
and you cannot argue how quick he's been over the years.
(laid back hiphop music)
Okay, we had mentioned before
we've got a bit of a tailwind here
and the reason I'm kind of smiling through the pain
is I got 76Ks an hour,
which, well, I don't do in training.
I think the most I've ever done by myself was 73.6.
I know that pretty clearly.
So to get 76.1, it makes me pretty happy.
I didn't feel all that safe with the tucked in elbows.
I didn't have the same control over the bike
that I've always liked to have
but, as we know, my position wasn't that fast,
which probably explains my results.
(laid back hiphop music)
So next up, we have the Andre Greipel,
the big, powerful sprint position of the German rider.
(laid back hiphop music)
So for me personally, I felt like I got that one
a little bit wrong, maybe a little bit under-geared.
We do have a tailwind here today and I got 52.11
and for that sort of speed, a 53,
does it actually make a big difference?
But either way, Greipel would've absolutely smashed me.
(laid back hiphop music)
The Caleb Ewan position,
the only one that's made me feel a little bit nervous,
if I'm honest.
The other three, they're quite similar
but I will say they're quite simple
and my nose is nowhere near my tire.
Whereas this one, I'm a little bit nervous
I might end up with a black stripe on my nose.
So 55Ks an hour roughly,
I said 52 just then.
One more corner to go so about 150 meters
until I start my sprint, the final one.
And it's all about getting forward and down.
Alright.
(laid back hiphop music)
Observations.
It felt mega-fast.
I'm less out of breath because I couldn't pedal harder
and it felt sketchy
but it's definitely effective
if you have less power and want to go fast.
Although having said all of that,
I don't think I recommend doing it,
certainly not on the open roads
or anywhere near anyone else.
- We're back at base now
and Chris has looked at his data from the sprints.
- I have.
- So tell us what the peak powers were and stuff
and things like that.
- So the peak powers for all of the sprints
varied between 1,200 watts in the Caleb Ewan position
to, let's have a look, 1,483 in my position.
Which is natural, you'd expect me to put out more power
in the position I trained in for years.
The average power for all the sprints,
and this is what surprised me the most actually,
the average power for all of the sprints
was within 20 watts.
So they were all just over 1,000 watts
for the 20 seconds roughly that I sprinted
so between 320 meters and 340 meters,
which is quite a long sprint.
- That's interesting.
- Yeah, I'm surprised by that
because I genuinely thought in that Caleb Ewan position
I'd have been well down.
- So your peak power was less in the Caleb Ewan position
but you were still able to get the same average power out?
- Yes.
But in that, that's why I think the Caleb Ewan position
wasn't the fastest one for me.
So the Cavendish position ended up being quite a bit faster
than all the others actually.
I mean, I'm getting towed in by the motorbike,
up to 50 kilometers per hour, then I'm sprinting from there.
But I think the fact that I'm able to accelerate
really, really hard in the Cavendish position,
just a few watts below my own personal peak,
invests that initial snap and that speed in the sprint,
which you're then able to build on
and maintain towards the end of it.
Whereas you miss that with the Caleb Ewan position
because you're over 200 watts down
so you don't get that initial acceleration,
which gets you through those first kilometers
and that few kilometers an hour.
- Well, you don't.
- He does, yeah.
- Well the other thing is although the Caleb Ewan position
is by far the fastest aerodynamically
and you can get some good power out in it,
it is important to say that
we wouldn't recommend anyone goes
and tries to replicate that does at their local criterium.
- [Chris] Out of all of those positions,
having your nose that far away from the tire
is a little bit unnerving.
- Yeah, I was a bit unnerved watching you do it.
And I think it's the same thing as Danny MacAskill.
You watch him do some amazing stunt
but you don't then think
well I'm going to go and try
and balance on that beam above a bridge as well.
It's the same thing, isn't it?
- That's a pretty good point.
So if you want to try and replicate one of these positions,
then it's the Cavendish one to go for
because you're still strong, you're still locked in
but because you've got your elbows tucked in
and your head down and your shoulders down,
you are going, what's he called, the Manx Missile?
You can see where he got that name from.
- I think the big question we have to ask
from seeing this and seeing you do it is
knowing what you know now from this data
and the aerodynamics--
- I can see where this is going.
- If you had your time again,
would you have changed your sprinting position?
- I think I'd be foolish not to.
When you see it so clearly put on paper like this,
then if I didn't do something to adapt my position
and try and work on getting myself faster and more compact,
I would be a fool.
So yeah, I would try and replicate the Cavendish position
if it was my time again.
- How does that make you feel
knowing that you could have been faster?
- Well, it just reassures
what I've been telling people for years.
I'm better than I look.
(laughing)
- Well, you heard it here first.
I mean, on that bombshell, I think, well,
I hope you've enjoyed this video.
- I enjoyed it, Ollie.
It's been a good experience.
- Give it a thumbs up,
subscribe to the channel if you haven't already,
and if you'd like to watch another video on sprinting,
well, click on Chris.