Georgia Tech Presentation

I wanted to thank everyone from the Velodrome that should up and added to the discussion following the presentation Wednesday. I was surprised to see so many folks considering the event wasn't really advertised outside of GT.

Following the presentation, the bike-geek within me thought it'd be cool to apply the project '96 formula to conditions at the Dick Lane Velodrome on a standard day. The table below lists times for 4000m individual pursuit, the average velocity the rider maintains AFTER they have accelerated up to speed*. I calculated the power requirement of two different conditions to illustrate a point about aerodynamics.

Power1 is the average power requirement for myself, my current bike/setup (round tube, wire wheels, with aero bars, regular bike shorts/jersey, aero helmet)

Power2 is the average power requirement for myself if I had an aero-frame/wheels, skinsuit, etc.

Time __ Velocity (kph) _ Power1(W) _ Power2 (W)
5:10 __ 47.36842105 ___ 351 _______ 312
5:05 __ 48.16053512 ___ 367 _______ 326
5:00 __ 48.97959184 ___ 384 _______ 341
4:55 __ 49.82698962 ___ 403 _______ 358
4:50 __ 50.70422535 ___ 423 _______ 375
4:45 __ 51.61290323 ___ 444 _______ 394
4:40 __ 52.55474453 ___ 467 _______ 414
4:35 __ 53.53159851 ___ 491 _______ 435
4:30 __ 54.54545455 ___ 517 _______ 458
4:25 __ 55.59845560 ___ 546 _______ 483
4:20 __ 56.69291339 ___ 576 _______ 510
4:15 __ 57.83132530 ___ 609 _______ 539
4:10 __ 59.01639344 ___ 645 _______ 570

The power requirement drops about 40-60 watts (depending on velocity). That was a lot larger range than I expected. Now, does any have any power data recorded during iPursuit? How does it compare? What was the temperature/pressure during that day? What equipment/setup was used?

Yet one more little geeky science experiment.

Thanks again to everyone, eventually once this crazy weather clears up, I hope to actually get out there and try this track stuff out.

Lee

*there are more sophisticated formula to calculate the cost of acceleration, I didn't use those due to time constraints but I'll try incorporate them into future models assuming the above output is at least reasonable.