A day at the Wind Tunnel with John Cobb and Rudy Project

I was very fortunate to spend most of yesterday at the A2 Wind Tunnel in Mooresville, NC with John Cobb and Rudy Project. Just to back up a bit, John selected me and Herbert Krabel(administrator for Slowtwitch) to join him for aerodynamic testing. It was a bit of luck, but the day was a little bit of work in exchange.

Anyway, back to yesterday.

We met at the tunnel at 7:30AM. Once there I met John, Herbert, a couple of John's friends, and two representatives from Rudy Project: Simone and Norberto (both from Rudy's Corp. Office in Italy).

Here's the A2 Wind Tunnel. The building in the background is a larger wind tunnel for race cars. It is used 24/7 and is booked for a full year in advance.

We set up my bike in the tunnel and began testing with Rudy's new road helmet. This helmet was so light, it was ridiculous. We tested it with a winter cover as well. We then tested about 10 pairs of Rudy glasses. We also tested them against most all of the competitor's top sellers. This took a while, but the data showed a good pair of shades can save you as much time as a front race wheel. No kidding!!! It all has to do with the way the air flows around the glasses and around the helmet/head. Even John seemed surprised by the results.

We then tested Rudy's new aero helmet. It was a prototype that was a plaster mold with a normal helmet inner. Very heavy, especially to wear for a while. The finished product will obviously be much lighter and not made of plaster : ) I can't show pics or say too much about it. I can say that it tested FAST!! I look forward to getting one once it's in production. We compared it to a Spiuk, a Giro, and an LG Rocket Air. All helmets were tested at 0* and 10* yaw. It was very interesting to see how much development goes into developing a product. The Rudy guys and John were both coming up with ideas to test with the helmet. Let's just say they were using their share of cardboard and duct tape. It was all very exciting to be a part of. It was also very cool to give feedback about fit, comfort, air flow, etc... As you all know , the more air flow results in less aerodynamics. Rudy is making something that will work for both...The helmet was part transformer with lots of ideas and possibilities. In the end John made some recommendations for a few subtle changes, but the helmet will remain very similar to what we saw.
Here's me with the Giro Advantage.

After the helmet tests, we broke out the smoke. We used smoke to show airflow with the new road helmet and the new aero helmet. John also used a string to show the airflow disturbances with the aero helmet. Cool, but messy. I needed a shower after the smoke. Lots and lots of pics taken during the smoke.

Here's John showing Norberto how the air flows over my back.

Then, John did a few runs to test my aerodynamics. We really just tested my hand position. He said he liked my position overall, but thought we could improve my aerodynamics by moving my hands up. After testing two different positions, we found one that will work better than my original position. Very cool. I'll be using the new hand position beginning now and can test it at my race next weekend, the SC Half. Not much of a change, so I'm not too worried about making the change this close to one of my "A" races. I was able to find out which helmet tests fastest for
me. Well, the fastest helmet in production for me is the Spiuk, my current race helmet.

Here's a pic with the Spiuk. This was before the hands were raised.

After this, we switched bikes in the tunnel and Herbert put in his Jamis, which is a very nice looking bike. Those Xentis wheels and bars are wicked cool. Much nicer to see in person. We did use my training wheelset for both bikes, so the Xentis wheels had to sit in the control room. Herbert also tested all of the helmets including the Rudy prototype. He has a "Type B" back, where I have a "Type A" back. This different back shape allowed John and RP to get more data on the performance of the Rudy helmet compared to it's competitors. Once again, the Rudy tested very FAST. After many many more runs and many many more photos we finished all of the tests.

Overall a GREAT experience. Being able to listen to John at work was worth the trip all together. John's a great guy that was a lot of fun to hang out with for the day. He has a very "down to earth" way of looking at things. He's a "simple solutions" for problems kind of guy. Although some of his "simple solutions" come from years of wind tunnel experience. I learned a lot about air flow and aerodynamics during the visit. I hope to help out again.