Twice a year, Cervélo hosts a weekend of lectures, bike demos and free food for some of its dealers. This winter, they held the event at the San Diego Air & Space Technology Center Low Speed Wind Tunnel, the very facility that has hosted athletes from Tour de France star Lance Armstrong to Ironman world champion Chris McCormack. Part of the weekend was spent indoctrinating us with Cervélo propaganda (think A Clockwork Orange), but they also gave us interesting wind tunnel data and a glimpse at the upcoming P4C. I've sorted through the biased info to present you with some fascinating impartial facts.

Aerodynamic Freebies
Free speed is a tantalizing teaser. Improving performance without time or effort is the Holy Grail all busy multisport athletes are searching for. However, nearly every time "free speed" is mentioned, it's followed by a dollar sign and several zeros. Not exactly what I'd call free. But Cervélo has decided to publish valuable wind tunnel data that really does make you faster-and, yes, they did it for free.

We all know that Cervélo has a financial interest in the results of frame wind tunnel testing. They do not, however, have a bias when it comes to positioning, aero bars, wheels or water bottles. For this reason, I think all of the data to come from wind tunnel tests conducted by Cervélo truly is objective.

Since wind drag data changes when the wind hits the rider from different angles, giving specific when reporting Cervelo's findings can be misleading unless a whole lot of data were to be included. For this reason, I will not provide giving specific grams of drag numbers for different products but rather an overall recap of the results.

HED Stinger 90

Wheels
- HED and Zipp wheels are more aerodynamic than any other race wheels. They share the patent for the most aerodynamic rim shape, which gives them a massive advantage over every other brand out there.

- Narrower tires are significantly more aerodynamic than wider tires. Unfortunately, wide tires are considerably more comfortable. Team CSC compromises by using 21mm tires on their front wheels and 23s on the rear.

- Discs are really, really aerodynamic.

- This may freak some people out, but Cervélo's data has shown that HED Stinger 90s are slightly more aerodynamic over yaw angles from 0 to 15 degrees than Zipp 808s.

Bars and bottles
- S-bend aero bars are less aerodynamic than single bends if a rider's forearm is parallel with the ground. The S-bend forces the rider's hand to rest below the arm, which increases frontal area and slows a rider. Tilting the bars upward until the hands are at least even with the elbow creates the fastest bar position. Pointing the aero bars down is the slowest.

Arundel Crono

- On a Cervélo, a water bottle mounted on the down tube is faster than a bottle moored to the seat tube.

- Shaped water bottles, such as the Arundel Crono, are faster than cylindrical bottles.

- A behind-the-seat bottle holder is less aero than any other hydration option. Air flows cleaner through the legs than behind the rider's butt, so a bottle holder is less of a penalty if it is equal with or above the saddle.

- Of course, a frame without any bottles is the most aerodynamic option. Each of these changes gives only a small benefit, but they add up to serious timesavings, and they actually are free!
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Aaron Hersh is the Technical Liaison at Colorado Multisport in Boulder, Colorado. He has been competing in endurance sports for the last seven years. Hersh has a B.A. in Integrative Physiology from the University of Colorado, focusing on biomechanics.

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