OPTIMISED FOR AERO

Weight weenies move over. There’s a new metric to obsess over in this decade, and it’s cheating the wind, reports Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

- Michelle Arthurs-Brennan

With the UCI weight limit sitting stubbornly at 6.8 kilograms, and modern bikes capable of coming in far lower (with relative ease), manufacturers and consumers alike have switched their focus quite substantially in the past few years to home in on reducing aerodynamic drag.

This sort of treatment is not even dedicated to aero bikes now. Take the Specialized family – the lightweight Tarmac race bike now takes major cues from the Venge aero model, and the most recent endurance-targeted Roubaix has been optimized so that it outperforms its slimline sibling in the wind tunnel.

The trickle-down of aero optimization is also being seen across the board at the bigger brands – case in point, Giant’s new TCR with a claimed eight watt saving at 40kph thanks to flat-backed truncated ellipse tubing shapes – a learning taken from the Propel aero road bike.

The arms race shows no sign of stopping any time soon.

All bikes going aero

“Our product development model is to push the limits as far as is practical… with the intention of trickling the technology developed down to other models and also across product lines,” says design engineer at Cervélo, Robert Pike. “Aerodynamic developments from our [aero bike] S5 informs more modest aero design solutions for our classic road models – not to mention gravel bikes – just like weight and stiffness optimisation concepts from the R5 inform design methods for our aero bikes.”

While aero bikes with their distinctive tube shapes, integrated cockpits and hidden clamps are now a mainstay in the range of any brand looking to keep it sleek, it was Cervélo that kicked the trend off with the Soloist in 2012. This groundbreaking machine has progressed to what is now the ‘S’ family, topped off by the S5 with its proprietary Starship Enterprise style handlebar shape sitting proudly at the cockpit.