The Win Tunnel: Steel is Real but is it Aero?

Mark and Chris finally take a look at just how far aero bikes have come.

[Kdiscus]

Just to put it out there. The S-Works Venge, top end like the one they showed there is 10, 000 dollars or more. You can get the pink steel bike for 80 dollars on Craigslist. It costs at least 9, 200 dollars to save 50 seconds over a bike made 30 years ago. The lesson here is. Don't worry if you don't have the nicest bike. And the new top of the line Venge is 12, 500 dollars.

[TXLorenzo]

Do you think that Specialized may have vested interest in wanting to sell carbon bikes over any steel competitor? 59 seconds with an average 25km speed over 40kms is a whopping .01 difference. If you are a recreational rider, this is nothing.

[MrNewlife]

How about this one. Which material is easier to recycle?

[reginaldscot]

Carbon has better ride quality than steel??? Maaan you don't know nothing.

[MrNewlife]

Those down tube shifters also add a lot of drag.

[GabrieLight]

i'm not surprised it's Specialized youtube channel hah

[JanTrenson]

But what about sidewind? All the tests so far were done with the air coming straight up front. In reality, sidewind comes into play on every ride, especially in Flanders where I live.

[kosci]

This is good test for complete vintage bike vs modern aero bike but it says nothing about aero frame. I would like to see complete bike setup with aero wheels on steel frame vs identical setup on aero frame and same rider position. Are manufacturers afraid of this kind of test? Modern bikes have much larger tube diameters so need to have aero shapes to reduce wind resistance.

[alexvpaq]

You guys should compare the allez, tarmac, venge and shiv and why not a MTB? I've always have been curious to see how it varies

[orionsrustrepair]

Now in order to give steel a chance, you should make a video with an aero steel bike (Columbus Air tubing for exemple) vs the Venge. That way we can see if the modern aerodynamics of the Venge can compensate for the bigger frontal area. And then make another video with the Roubaix and the pink steel Allez, where both bike weren't created with aero in mind.

[henri]

Hey, I'd like to know, whats the time difference between Shiv and Venge in lets say 50 km ?

[AdamWarrix]

Why didn't you do test his steel Allez against the new Allez? I understand that the new Allez isn't the most aero but for a lot of people, it may be their first road bike.

[djconnel]

Estimates... assume baseline CdA = 0.35.  Assume 40 seconds is out of 1 hour.  Then difference in force @ 30 mph standard tunnel wind speed is 161 gram-equivalents or 0.35 lbf.  This puts the steel frame slightly worse than the semi-aero frames like the Cervelo R5 or latest Trek Madone but better than the the round-tubed carbon bikes like the Parlee Z5 (according to wind tunnel data from Parlee).  I'd love to see a time trial comparison between that steel bike and the Tarmac.  I don't buy "all the advantages of carbon" to quote the article really add up to speed advantage: when steel bends it mostly stores energy (which gets returned), it doesn't dissipate it.

[AdamWarrix]

Here is a question I wonder all of the time. Which is faster, the drops with a standard arm bend or arms at 90 degrees on the hood? Cervelo claims on the hoods is faster but never provided data. Along those lines, how much of an advantage is clip on aerobars on a road bike?

[davidbohm]

It would have been interesting to see you compare an 20-30 year old  aero road/ TT bike vs. current offerings.   This was a bit apples vs. oranges.   

[travisroberts]

I would be interested in seeing the aero difference in aluminum bikes in the Specialized stable. Specifically, is the Allez Sprint any more aero than round tube aluminum frames with that thick seatpost?

[samuelhopely]

Hold on, in the video I watched before this, you said that upgrading from a Tarmac to a Venge saves you 59 seconds over 40 k's, but this only saves you fifty?  That can't be right.

[unistriker]

Personally thought the modern aero bike would be a lot faster than the old school tech. Surprisingly 40 secs seems relatively small- Giant claim there new propel will save up to 36 secs over 40Km ( not sure what they are comparing it to. Could also be marketing BS.

Additionally,  think this video could of been awesome if you showed us the actual data and compared the stiffness of the frames.. I know its the "win Tunnel" but could have been easily done- You have the tech to do it.

[cup_and_cone]

I know you guys give results as savings in seconds/minutes over 40km using same wattage for both, but how much extra wattage would someone need to push to make up that 50 second difference over 40km (expressed as watts-per-kilo for uniformity sake)?

[blackbearbowie]

i have a steel aero bike with eye shaped tubes iv never seen one before how common is it?