Would love to get a tow mounted bike rack so I could take bikes to france with us easily but its about £1000 to get one fitted to our car an integrated with the electronics, then you have to buy the rack and we're not even sure how long this car is going to be with us because its a bit of a nightmare and might be binned off for another one soon. Roof mounted is such a faff though.
Road Cycling
- Thread starter FrenchTart
- Start date
I already have a boot rack and have had towbars on my previous 3 cars for it.
Current car is on lease and whilst I have permission to put a towbar on it, that comes to £700 from a good specialist. Main dealer prices were silly - £1175 for a detachable and £1500 for a folding towbar! Worse case the car goes back in November, best case I can extend for another year. Either way, if you do cost per use, it's not cheap...
Not a fan of roof solutions ever since I watched somebody go under a car park height barrier with bikes on the roof
In case anyone wants to nerd out. Really interesting IMO.
escapecollective.com
If you don't care about all the setup and want to go to the conclusions (albeit rather long conclusions too!), search for "Lesson 1 - Pressure matters more than tyre width"
The temperature results were especially interesting. Explains why I am just much faster in the summer. Well, 1.5km/hr faster maybe.
Introducing Escape tyre testing: Get ready to rethink accepted wisdom
Our detailed real-world test protocol challenges rules of thumb about width and pressure and reveals a long-overlooked factor in rolling resistance.
escapecollective.com
If you don't care about all the setup and want to go to the conclusions (albeit rather long conclusions too!), search for "Lesson 1 - Pressure matters more than tyre width"
The temperature results were especially interesting. Explains why I am just much faster in the summer. Well, 1.5km/hr faster maybe.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 17 Sep 2006
- Posts
- 4,725
- Location
- Gloucestershire
What's the jist of it? Locked behind sign up thing which I CBA with.
Broadly speaking its thats we are probably running pressures too low if we are optimising for speed purely when we are using these online tyre pressure calculators. Obviously speed is reliant on power and if you're uncomfortable you might be slower over 2-3 hours even if your rolling resistance is lower.
Temperature made a much bigger difference than I realised as well. Warmer conditions obviously better than cold. This was accounting for air density and everything else as well so that the tyre was isolated as the location of change.
Author seemed to think that we might see more temperature/seasonal tyres being made for the pros. ie. a summer tyre for 30 degree heats, autumn tyre for temperatures below 15 etc.
Makes sense to me. I went to a few events at the commonwealth games when it was up on the Gold Coast a few years back. They cranked up the heat inside the velodrome to 34 degrees, which was warmer than it was outside, with the aim to create the perfect conditions to break some world records.
Altitude, heat and lovely smooth surface. One day I want to go ride at a velodrome just to experience it.
There’s one near me. It’s outdoor though but still good. People respect the lanes when someone is laying down efforts and you can really wind it up on a good day.
I’m at 26 seconds. KOM is 19 seconds at a 66km average.