New super areo wheel tested in the Mercedes Formula 1 wind tunnel...
"I'd come to the UK on business in March 2009 and I was watching the Australian Formula One GP in the hotel. Back then we were sponsoring Fly V which also had Virgin branding. Then on the television I saw the Brawn GP car wheeled out and it had a Virgin sticker on the nose. I made some calls and got a contact at Brawn GP and requested a meeting with them. They put me onto Simon Smart who had a contract to use their wind tunnel. From the first time we met I knew he was the guy we needed."
As well as having ten years of experience in F1 and two of the fastest and most successful time trial bikes on his CV, Smart is a keen and rapid time triallist himself. But most crucially, he was already thinking along the same lines as Enve. The development of the Giant and Scott time trial bikes had involved a lot of wheel testing and he'd soon started having ideas on how to make faster wheels than were currently offered. He just needed a manufacturing partner...
It was a perfect fit. If Enve had any doubts, it was that they might bite off more than they could chew. "I can't tell you how much thought went into this project before we committed," says Lucas. "We had to be sure we could actually make what Simon came up with."
Yaw angle: the angle between the direction of travel and the direction of the wind.
It's one thing for a wheel to be aerodynamically effective in a varying crosswind but it's quite another for it to be rideable. Ease of handling and confidence stem from predictable behaviour which in turn owes everything to a linear response from the wheel as the crosswind changes. As is so often the case in any interaction between man and machine, from the brakes in your car to your PC's mouse, linearity allows the user to calibrate their actions and working in harmony with the machine – in this case, their bike.
Smart's wind tunnel rig allowed him to measure the steering torque applied to the front wheel by a crosswind. Baseline tests with existing wheels that were known to be tricky to ride in gusty conditions showed a non-linear response to crosswinds. That is, as the wind angle increases you might have to steer into it more but then if it increases again past a certain point then you would need to steer against it a lot less.
By designing this in from an early point, Enve and Smart were able to achieve a near-perfect ratio of steering input to angle. That means that you can run your deeper, faster wheels when everyone else is reaching for their skinny back-ups.
...and, the best part...a post with Labels of F1 AND Cycling - How cool is that?
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