Aero Gloves

[bigarnie]

Hi everyone.

Due to a back injury Im moving from track cycling to Time Trialling mainly for 2 reasons. I get no pleasure out of being in a sweaty pack chain ganging someones bot and being a bit of an inventor with a backgound in missile technology I love the (almost) anything goes approach to building the fastest machine yet.

This is a kit question.

It regards aero gloves, There are numerous ones out there and as far I see they only serve to cause less drag due to body hair aka useless. The only truly aerodynamic solution is a nose cone to direct aiflow past our largely un-aerodynamic bodies. Nose cones fitted to bikes are illegal I am led to understand.

I wonder what the ruling would be on properly aerodynamic gloves (imagine half a nose cone on each hand coming together to form a full cone when placed on aero bars) With the main aim to direct airflow around the stem of the body. This can be done by deliberately causing turbulance at the base of the cone directing airflow wide which keeps the pure bulk needed of the gloves down and hopefully keeping the sillyness factor to a minimum.

Downhill extreme speed skiers use them along with calf inserts to remove drag and I can see a reason as to why timetriallers cant. The fact that they may look silly is negated by the fact that we're wearing buck rogers tweeky helmets anyway.


Im building a set, have they actually been thought of before and would I actually be allowed to use them for anything other than novelty?

 

[frank9755]

Not sure exactly what you are making but it sounds quite interesting.

You'd get more and probably better informed answers on the time trialling forum

 

[bigarnie]

Not sure exactly what you are making but it sounds quite interesting.

You'd get more and probably better informed answers on the time trialling forum

Hi Im new to this forum many thanks ill cut an paste there if its allowed

 

[bigarnie]

Thought Id better expand on my idea it works on a golf ball priciple. A golf ball although round isnt very aerodynamic whereas a rugby ball is. This is because air is diverted gradually across the rugby ball and is why jets have big pointed noses. The golf ball overcomes this by using dimples to cause little bits of turbulance, which help to eliminate drag it effectively causes an air buffer making the ball appear oblong to resistance like a rugby ball.

To put a huge nosecone on a bike would look silly and as specialised found out its not allowed either ( now this is uci rules CTT rules are far more relaxed)

Aerogloves really arent up to much after all your hand is still hand shaped and the benefit for such a small space negates their purpose anyway


Imagine someone pointing a water hose at you, you would get soaked, imagine someone pointing a waterhose at you while you used a dustbin lid as a shield, you would be dry but you would be blown over. Now imagine a streamlined conical shaped dustbin lid the water passes by with minimum resistance.

Now take that dustbin and shrink it to the size of a saucer... not much cope the water flows over it and its like its not there.

Take the small lid you have in your hands and deliberately add an area of high resistance like a lip going around the base, it causes resistance yes but that minimum resistance causes a huge water shield all round your body keeping you dry.

Specialised tried a nose cone with their bike and the uci poo pooed it ask Alberto Contador http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/specialized-shiv-time-trial-bike-banned-by-uci-25105/

They went wrong by attaching it to the bike.... im suggesting the same aka the equivalent of one half of a nose cone on each glove , physics says it works.

I could go on about aerodynamics all day from depleted uranium to PTFE ..... but you have to admit it is a thought.

Not sure exactly what you are making but it sounds quite interesting.

You'd get more and probably better informed answers on the time trialling forum