To avoid any confusion, i say 'IP' a lot which refers to individual pursuit but also to intellectual property which is discussed near the end of the vid. Cheers
Brilliant video, I remember Chris Boardman came into a shop I once worked in, he talked about how carbon frames would take over. I didn't realise at the time he was going to go to the 92 Olympics and ride the Mike Burrows Lotus. Obviously things have progressed a great deal since the 90's. Thanks for the explanation, you made a difficult subject easy to follow.
As far as I could tell, they ditched that idea against GB, so the Hope Lotus was simply defeated by an off the shelf Argon 18(maybe with a custom cockpit).
@@kristianholgersen10 True, it's the previous model I believe, but good riddance, I think somebody riding the new model had a headset/cockpit malfunction on the new model at the Olympics? Haven't seen the footage, just heard it mentioned.
It's pretty clear that as long as you really scrunch your shoulders in put on a bling Palace X Poc Duck helmet and tape the front of your legs you'll absolutely smash the pursuit record
@@mitch9294 but no world record as far as I understand. The race gets stopped by this point. The German women nearly catched the GB women in team pursuit yesterday and destroyed the wr!
I can t wait to see where the triathlon bike designer are going to go with this concept if it works. Looking forward to crazy looking forks and seat stays...
Something else to consider alongside the action of the forks and seat stays as splitter plates is the shielding effect. Since cylinder drag is highly sensitive to Reynolds number and turbulence intensity the wake given off by the fork can be tuned to optimally reduce the drag of the rider's legs or more likely the fork/leg/seat stay combination.
Loved the video. It's a no brainer, bikes don't ride themselves. Splitter plates have been around forever in the automotive world. There's a bunch of good SAE papers on them. That bike will be fast on the track, but not outside with transient yaw vectors. The fork has to be to manage interference drag with the wheel, it's way too in front of the legs to have any effect otherwise.
It’s the same as the front wing end plates on f1 cars the brawn f1 car was an early outwash. The double diffuser got all the credit but the out wash end plates where as important
The Fes (as used by the Germans) also has a front fork with fork legs really far away from the front wheel for most of the length of the fork legs. Seems like they use the same concept as the Lotus bikes for that one.
Actually, Ganna is riding on Pinarello bolide hr from 2014 so as the rest of his team, because italians are using this bike for 4km pursuits. Maat is only used in disciplines in which cyclists are using traditional drop bars.
I see very few videos on wake modification. Most things made aero are tear drop shaped, but as fairing the persons body is not permitted this has to do. I would love to see some aero paniers come to the commuter market that do the same. Proper HPV-style (not the STD, bit human powered vehicle), but in a practical upright package.
Phenomenal video as always! Quick question: do the dual water bottles behind the seat(triathlon) also act as a splitter to separate the opposing vortices that are creating drag behind the seat?
Love the content. One thing to improve the video would be to keep the graphics up for a little bit longer, especially the technical stuff, while you are explaining them. Thanks!
could you also review German team Fes, looks stunning and seems similar philosophy to lotus-hope, just bit more traditional. Also NZ team bike has few similar design features to guide the air around the knees?
When you mentioned aerodynamics of a tube, i imagined that the fork would purposely create vortices to deflect the air away from the legs. You get a small loss on frame aero, but a big gain in overall aero because the most drag inducing part (ie the leg) is in a low pressure zone ... It wouldn't be the first time engineers devellop solution that use vortices to reduce drag, it was done recently in F1 too
The Hope bike is an interesting mix of people looking at the inventors listed on the patent. Dr Neil Ashton is Principle Computational Fluid Dynamics Specialist SA at Amazon Web Services Chris Herbert is D2H Engineering (motorsport primarily) Tony Purnell BC Head of Technology (ex Jaguar & Redbull F1) Richard Matthews - Senior Composites Engineer (Cervelo, Lotus) Gregory Stevens - Performance Innovation Consultant at the EIS (ex TotalSim Ltd Engineer/Aerodynamicist)
Lotus was involved with an F1 team at some point are we sure Mcainsh doesn't/didn't work them. It's complicated, but, both Lotuses (The car maker and the RD/Think tank) where involved with F1 around the time that Patent was filed.
Actually more if you count the entire research and development cost. This isn’t a mass market bike. They won’t recoup any of the development cost. They would only sell a few limited number of bikes just to be UCI compliant. So the large sticker price is in place to discourage potential buyers. So they wouldn’t lose more money manufacturing the bike for sale to the public.
@@iMadrid11 that about take into account devo cost is somewhat in a sense not true, its not like you make one and want to earn all the the costs in one go
A Dutch company has made this design earlier and patented it. Edit: just saw the end of the video, where this is discussed. Actually, Lotus applied voor a patent, but was denied, because of the existing patent. The Dutch company has lawyered up already.
Just a thought. Going back to your video "your staggered wheel setup is wrong", could a deep section rim (or plate) rear wheel have a similar effect on turbulence in the wake of the riders legs?
@@PeakTorque the documentary is out, relatively interesting (not sure if the aero coach is an aerodynamist?) and will be good to hear your opinions on it. 👍
If he's ex-f1, he surely knows half of lotus just from geographical proximity. I do hope they licenced it from him. Wouldn't even be surprised if they left the prominent front fork there just to send their competitors on a wild goose chase instead of focusing on the rear triangle where the magic happens. Although, as this bike usually performs as a locomotive with 2, 3 or 4 riders in a row, maybe the front fork is only there to interact with the clean air produced by the rider in front.
I didn't know about the prior art. If team GB does poorly they'll blame Hope Lotus. They've probably done all the testing and it is faster. Hope-fully it doesn't come apart.
Think there is no need for a license as the McCainsh patent is not infringed by the Hope Lotus design. Insteade of putting the handlebar on the lower horizontal fork connection 37 (which is protected, see 14:53) Hope Lotus put it on the upper fork connection. Simple workaround and another example how important it is to ride the claims thoroughly.
The first rider was using the ooold uksi bike you're correct. Maybe chosen for the lower weight, higher wake properties to benefit rider 2 and 3? Or they just didn't have enough lotus bikes
I always wondered if putting helical strakes on standard cylindrical bike tubes would reduce the Von Karman vortices. Would there be an added benefit of reducing the instances of high speed wobble like you highlighted in your TT video?
Great comment. Yes helical strakes work but at very low Reynolds. Normally they're implementated in long chimneys to reduce VIV (vortex induced vibrations). At bike speeds and tube sizes you won't get karman vortex streets as the Re is much higher.
Looks like the GB team with the Lotus Hope was the 4th or 5th fastest team in the men’s pursuit. Maybe this is another example where the theory does not work in practice??????
It would just be a recumbent. These no need for downforce on bikes, all you care about is drag, therefore it will be the same drop shaped recumbent We already seen many times with the smallest crossection they can manage to get the package to
Is there a weight difference between the Lotus and standard frames? I assume because of the wider forks they need to be stiffer and so heavier. Also do you see this approach come to road cycling or isn't it very affective under 50kph?
@@compt3ck is that light or heavy for a track frame? With all the power track cyclist produce I guess a 650g aethos will break but 1500g seems a bit heavy...
Interesting video. First time I have heard an suggestion that the long tail saddle is to smooth the flow behind the rider butt…good catch. Begs the question of why TT saddles are so short. Also would be interesting to see an analysis on why the failure of the Australian Argon 18. And a more in-depth study on the Malaysian WX-R bike. And the NZ Avanti. Finally, I think this hocus pocus bike is not as wonderful as it claimed…if Australia did not have a crash earlier, GB might have not made the finals.
Its kinda limiting tho, the original Lotus track bike definitely looked like a bike and had kinda normal bike geometries, they should allow a bit more variation because now that we have computer aided design all bikes really are starting to look exactly the same
@@v0ldy54 yes, i agree they look all the same.. As a car guy, I've lamented aero cause the ultimate aero is an egg shape. All cars now look alike unless they compromise aero for style..
@@v0ldy54 Bikes have always looked the same, only in the brief period from ~2000 - ~2012 when the designers were looking for the best shape they could make with carbon did designs look different.
now probably its placebo but everytime I have the asssaver on my bike I feel that its faster on flats. For 99% its placebo but I had this impression for years. This confirms it.
I want your take on the danish team controversial use of kinesio tape (supposedly for arrow gains, making the flow turbolent around the tibias in order to havi it detach later on the calf profile) Seems so much bullshit to me, since it's such a approssimative application and the usecase is so complex to study, but aerodynamics is not something you can eyeball (both for believers and detractors) so I would like to know your thoughts
could be a massive troll for psychological reasons, remember Brailsford and his rounder wheels and barrage of kidology he employed against other teams to upset them, when GB was picking up golds for fun, and getting dodgy hormones delivered by accident, losing its rider medical histories and getting the team doctor struck off by the BMA.
As far as I could tell(although not on the highest quality stream), they weren't actually using it against GB. So probably very minor gains if any, and mainly psychological, and they ditched it to avoid controversy, since they knew the effects were very minor.
They are 'required' to sell it by the UCI. Whether or not they will is another matter. Aside from that, the physical sale is not important to the lawyers. They can claim other ways!
Very interesting, but I think you are giving them too much credit. I'm a Hope fan boy, but I think they where just trying to reduce the frontal area and lined the forks up with the legs.
I stuck one on for a 2/3 in the rain and the BC Commissaire told me to remove it. Told him I'd get trench foot up my arse but he insisted. Not sure why, he didn't know either. Just a rule. But you see them in World Tour events on wet days so it's not a UCI thing.
