To ride faster you don't always have to ride harder. In this episode, Wahoo Sports Science coaches Neal Henderson and Mac Cassin reveal some pro tips on how to improve your finishing times without wasting watts.
Riding faster doesn't have to mean riding harder. In this week's episode of The Knowledge, Wahoo Sports Science coaches Neal Henderson and Mac Cassin share some pro tips on how to improve your average speed on rides and in races. From the importance of aerodynamics to the simple technique of powering over hills, Neal and Mac pull the curtain back to reveal everything you need to know to improve your finishing times without wasting watts.
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Neal Henderson 0:00
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Knowledge Podcast brought to you by Wahoo. I'm Neal Henderson, head of Wahoo sports science.
Mac Cassin 0:08
And I Mac Cassin senior sports scientist here at Wahoo.Today, we're going to be talking about riding faster with the power you already have. So riding faster, not harder.
Neal Henderson 0:17
But if you ride harder, do you go faster?
Mac Cassin 0:20
You can, but even then, not always.
Neal Henderson 0:22
So harder is harder and faster is faster. But harder isn't always faster, and faster isn't always harder.
Mac Cassin 0:30
Exactly. And that's what we're gonna dive into.
Neal Henderson 0:32
In thinking about this, the highest average power, even for two riders of the same size will not determine who actually would win a race if they're racing. In fact, actually, there's some evidence from some race results that I've seen from athletes accumulated that in the criteria that athletes who had the most time spent at zero power actually had the greatest chance for success and higher win rates than those who had less time coasting and lower overall average power. Some, so almost the inverse of what you might think, right?
Mac Cassin 1:08
Yeah. And I've had my fair share of experience in criteriums and was able to be teammates with a pretty good crit racer by the name of Daniel Holloway and
Neal Henderson 1:16
National Champion. And along the way,
Mac Cassin 1:18
A couple, probably a couple dozen at this point. I was just amazed at how little that guy could do in a race. Like just by conserving being in the right place. It was mind-boggling. We'd look at our power files, and he'd be 100 Watts lesson would have won. And I granted I was helping him. But still,
Neal Henderson 1:35
Yeah, there is definitely something more than just pushing more watts, though, yes, in training, a lot of times a big portion of what we do is working on developing the ability to produce more watts. But the ability to save Watts will also then actually help you when it comes down to racing and performance.
Mac Cassin 1:55
And even if you're not racing, it's just if you want to go and do a loop faster. If your goal is to hold a certain speed for century ride metric century, then, you know, this stuff's important.
Neal Henderson 2:05
Yep, you can't spend what you don't save. So saving some power is definitely part of the game as well, right?
Mac Cassin 2:12
Yes.
Neal Henderson 2:13
All right. Let's look at some physics. Right? Do you want to give us a little breakdown on a couple of the things in terms of what physics says about riding a bike and how we can ride faster?
Mac Cassin 2:22
Yeah, so it was great when I was taking physics and they used bikes as an example because I actually cared about it. So it stuck a bit better than doing some other theoretical thing. So the first thing I think it's pretty easy to think about is the resistance going on when you're pedaling. The first one that comes to mind is probably gravity. If you're going uphill, gravity's pulling you down. If you're going downhill, you know, you can go slowing you down, slowing you down. Yeah, the force of gravity is dependent on really how steep the gradient is. And then we call system mass. So you plus your bike, how much does that weigh your bike packing, your bike might have 50 pounds of stuff on it. So then that system mass is more and it's easier to see, then it's going to be harder going uphill, and easier going down.
Neal Henderson 3:03
Yep. And there's also a little bit of the rotating mass too. So if you think about your wheels, probably having more importance than like your stem turns of which one, you know, if you had the choice of the same weight bike, one that had lighter wheels, and a heavier stem versus one with heavier wheels on a lighter stem, definitely go for the lighter wheels, because those are rotating.
Mac Cassin 3:21
Yes, the problem is they're probably substantially more expensive than the lighter stem but...
Neal Henderson 3:26
True.
Mac Cassin 3:26
Well, we'll touch on that side of things a bit later. So then the next force which I know you have some experience dealing with is air resistance.
Neal Henderson 3:35
Yep, the aerodynamic drag coefficient of drag area or CDA, as we call it is really important in terms of how fast you can go for a given amount of power output, there are a couple of things that will affect as an absolute for the same drag coefficient for a rider what the air temperature is, and things like that. So temperature, pressure, saturation will have an impact on that but ultimately, having a lower coefficient of drag is going to allow you to go faster, you know, you can actually even see like cars they actually show you know, your CDL you can actually look up the CDA of your car, which is kind of interesting. In cycling, you know, we have different things, different types of positions will yield different types of CVA and extreme aerodynamic position. Individuals are getting under point two pretty consistently, which is absolutely amazing. I know a couple of folks that have said our records with CDs of greater than 0.2. So and that's in the recent history in the past year and five, six years, people were still able to produce world-record-setting speeds with those though, I'd say today that would not be possible because so many advancements have been made in aerodynamic drag. And it's the combination of really how you sit on a bike, your body position, as well as then all the equipment and so you have the wheels, the bars, the frame, the clothing, your shoes, pedals, all of those components in sum total will affect your CDA, some of them more than others.
Mac Cassin 5:03
And so you've got that CDA, which is an interesting one because it's a unitless number, which is always hurting my mind when you get a number like a point two. And it's just, there's no point two
Neal Henderson 5:14
0.2
Mac Cassin 5:14
0.2. So then the next thing going in there is, is your net airspeed. So there's the speed you're moving. So if you're in a perfectly still calm environment, then the net airspeed is the speed you're going. If you're riding at 20 miles an hour, the net airspeed is 20. If you have a five-mile an hour, tailwind, then your net airspeed is 15. So that's why it's easier to ride with a tailwind and harder to ride into a headwind. Why aerodynamics is so important is because it's the way the resistance for it works is it's exponential. So to double your speed requires four times the power. So to go from 10 miles an hour to 20 miles an hour is four times more power. And when you get to those higher numbers like going so then like going from 30 miles an hour to 31 is actually becomes a pretty big jump and power.
Neal Henderson 6:03
Yep, it's exponential, as, as you mentioned there. So smaller increases in speed have much greater costs in power, or you can look at it as follows have small savings in aerodynamic drag out of high speed have dramatic savings in the power.
Mac Cassin 6:20
Yes. And so like we're saying it's more significant when you're going faster. But still, basically, if you're going above 10 miles an hour, that air resistance is such a...
Neal Henderson 6:30
Is the predominant resistance that you're facing.
Mac Cassin 6:32
Yeah. So even going uphill at 10 miles an hour, you still you know, a large part of it still arrow so ...
Neal Henderson 6:38
Yeah, interestingly, I rode up Flagstaff a couple of times recently, and one time I was on, you know, more of a training wheel, a lower profile, not very deep rim. And I switched to a more aero wheel that was actually slightly heavier, you know, maybe 100 grams or so total mass between the two different wheelsets, but a much more aerodynamic profile. And for the same power, I went almost a minute faster,
Mac Cassin 7:03
Wow!
Neal Henderson 7:03
Aero does matter. There might have been a headwind in both situations to some degree, not just the speed ongoing. But there's definitely an impact of aerodynamics even at relatively low speeds. Because if you know me climbing up Flagstaff, I'm not going terribly fast on the way down, definitely in my happy place, going fast. But going up average speed is definitely less than 10 miles an hour for me.
Mac Cassin 7:24
Yeah, for thought, if you ever get a chance to ride with Neil, and he takes you on a descent, just buckle up,
Neal Henderson 7:31
We'll have fun. Make sure your brakes are in good order, though. And you're wearing a helmet and have skills
and competence,
Mac Cassin 7:41
and good health insurance.
Neal Henderson 7:42
Definitely make sure you're up to date on everything there.
Mac Cassin 7:46
So speaking of the wheel changes you have there, the next resistance that's acting on you is rolling resistance. And so that's really just okay, the patches a tire that is on the ground, how much essentially drag are those causing, and that's can be changed by the compound of the tire tread of the tire, how much pressure you have, and then what's the surface like so on the track got super skinny, very nondurable label doing it for about 100k. And we pump them up to about 200 psi because they're on a perfectly smooth wood, Siberian pine wooded track. And that's the fastest if you were to go take that and ride outside,
Neal Henderson 8:24
you'd probably flat. lol
Mac Cassin 8:27
You definitely find it would definitely not be comfortable and it'd be less efficient than a wider tire with lower pressure.
Neal Henderson 8:32
Exactly. So there's been a lot of stuff recently as we move into, you know, there's also the different types of a tubed tire and actually, a latex tube versus a butyl tube, which latex is a little bit lower rolling resistance generally there. And then a tubular versus a tube tire. Now a lot more people are writing to bless tires. And clearly, there are some changes that we're seeing both the width of the rim and the width of the tire and the pressures that are going to give you then a lower rolling resistance and higher pressure isn't always faster actually, there's clear evidence that if you go in higher pressure, you're going to actually go slower, it may feel faster because you're vibrating and bouncing but in fact, you're actually going slower and so definitely there are some things you can check out there about tire pressure that we're not we don't have enough time to get into today but higher isn't always faster outside.
Mac Cassin 9:21
There's a whole paid website where they break down the rolling resistance of every basically tire manufactured and if you're nerdy like us, you probably spend your hours doing that.
Neal Henderson 9:32
Doing that...
Mac Cassin 9:33
All right, what's the last one?
Neal Henderson 9:34
Yeah, your drive train efficiency. So I give people a lot of hassle sometimes based on the way they do or do not upkeep their bike, having a clean drive train matters, because it reduces the drag that you have there. Not to mention, you're more likely to have failures if you don't maintain your equipment properly. And so keeping a clean chain keeping your chainrings keeping your cogs clear and using appropriate lube, we'll definitely make a difference. Of course, we also had the elements of the rotating part, the bearings at the wheels at the crank, especially as well as at your pedals and spindles there and the bottom bracket that, you know, you can save nearly say a watt per bearing set. If you go well, we'll crank pedal. So that's almost four watts there that you can save if you go to the high expense of ceramic bearings versus an old-school steel ball bearing. Yeah, I think it costs money to go faster in that way. But you can go faster at a cost of only money, not power.
Mac Cassin 10:33
I think we've all probably experienced this, whether we've admitted it or not, and been convinced on one ride that our bottom bracket is seized up because we just think there's no way I'm going to slow like there's something definitely wrong
Neal Henderson 10:44
headwind,
Mac Cassin 10:44
and then you get off and spin it and it's totally fine. And you're...
Neal Henderson 10:48
Just on a day, just a bad day. It may feel like a good drag. It's...
Mac Cassin 10:55
Alright, so that's the physics of riding a bike and we kind of touched on as we went through the different portions but okay, let's really get down to the meat of it. Okay.
Neal Henderson 11:02
How do I get faster? Yeah, right. That's what matters at the end of the day.
Mac Cassin 11:06
And so for the error component, without any equipment changes, you can just ride in a more aerodynamic position. The fastest bikes are actually technically recumbent bikes because they have such a low CDA, but that's a whole...
Neal Henderson 11:20
Not going to go there Mac, you can't make me.
Mac Cassin 11:22
Another time. So just you know riding going from riding on your hoods riding on the drops, if you get into what's the best is what's called the Sphinx position, which is where your forearms are parallel to the ground. It's actually kind of semi-illegal now in the UCI, it's unclear how that rule is being.
Neal Henderson 11:39
Yeah.
Mac Cassin 11:40
But that's the fastest now the problem is that's not necessarily comfortable or sustainable for five hours
Neal Henderson 11:45
For the most control if you're descending a mountain at 80k an hour.
Mac Cassin 11:49
True, and then even just like standing or sitting like standing on a climb is generally okay, but if you're rolling along with the flag at 20 miles an hour unless you're sprinting standings gonna be slowed significantly.
Neal Henderson 12:01
Which is why we see guys like Caleb Ewan and you know, Mark Cavendish, with their head position lower when they're out of the saddle sprinting to reduce that CDA,
Mac Cassin 12:09
Which again, the first time Caleb Ewan first came out and you see his nose almost touching his front wheel. It's disconcerting but effective.
Neal Henderson 12:16
Yeah, yeah, that's practice skill. Not everyone needs to practice that skill there either. So how you ride the bike, definitely important how you hold your position, we can then get into the equipment side, this is generally going to cost money. So you know, your bike, specifically getting an arrow frame, yep, you can buy by some speed their wheels, definitely go for those arrow wheels, definitely gonna cost some money. If you go lighter, and both of those realms, if you go both arrow and light, then the cost is going to be even more, but you will be faster for the same power output with those.
Mac Cassin 12:48
Yeah, and it's worth this is always a debate I had with my teammates, I'd always insist we'd usually get the option of the arrow frame or the light frame, I would always go arrow frame, all the climbers would go for the light flame frame, but then they end up weighing the same because there's a point.
Neal Henderson 13:02
And the funny thing is they're climbing faster than you anyhow, because they're climbers, so they should have actually gone for the arrow. Man, they missed the mark on that. Every time. Physics is physics, just physics. You can't argue this. I mean, you can but you're wrong.
Mac Cassin 13:16
So then the next component, which is less on the expensive side, but can still be quite expensive is you know, clothing and helmets. So...
Neal Henderson 13:23
I've seen some expensive clothing and some expensive helmets. But on the scale. Yes, they are cheaper than the wheels and the bikes.
Mac Cassin 13:30
Yes. I mean, I think I've seen wheels that are anyway. Yeah, cycling is an equipment base sport, and boy, can it get expensive.
Neal Henderson 13:37
Yep.
Mac Cassin 13:37
But so clothing is significant because you have this nice arrow frame, but your body makes up the majority of what's facing the way and what's causing that air resistance dragon. So the clothing you wear is massively significant, as a skin suit, or not saying you know, right a skinsuit
Neal Henderson 13:55
All the time,
Mac Cassin 13:56
All the time. But it's, it's significantly faster, you're talking like upwards of 30 Watts, and a lot of instants,
Neal Henderson 14:02
At higher speeds. Again, speed has an impact. And in any one of these things. The higher the speed that you go, the greater the savings or cost of the measures if you've implemented them or not in the aero realm.
Mac Cassin 14:13
Basically what you're looking for for the clothing is when you're riding, is it flapping around, like basic
Neal Henderson 14:19
flapping is bad
Mac Cassin 14:20
flapping is not good
Neal Henderson 14:21
wrinkles, bad helmets. One of the things if you are like if you're thinking about TT and arrow positioning, and even if not, it's really how the helmet and you're back really what that transition is if there's an abrupt transition from one to the other. That's where we see higher drag. So generally speaking, you know, we have little things with our head, especially for time proposition where you think about dropping down your chin, we kind of call this turtling as well as even drawing up your shoulders to reduce that frontal area part of the coefficient of drag area that you just reduced that frontal area a little bit that'll make you a little slippery or you might not need to hold that all the time. But when you're at your fastest speeds where you're trying to hold then that's where it's gonna be most useful to do that.
Mac Cassin 15:03
Yeah. And then lastly, on the equipment you've got, like, we've talked about tires and tubes, do you want to go latex butyl for tubes? Do you want to go tubular tubeless there's, and that's one where it can make more difference than you would expect.
Neal Henderson 15:17
Yep. And again, lower relative costs than both of the other. So that's the easy speed gain and most cases, the easiest speed gain.
Mac Cassin 15:25
Basically, if you have normal innertubes, and you switch them out for latex, that's about seven watts for 20 bucks, which, in the grand scheme of things is a heck of a deal.
Neal Henderson 15:35
Cheap, definitely take it. Alright, well, what else can we do? So we're gonna say, okay, equipment, we're good to go, I got Super Arrow, super light, super-fast flash stuff, what else can I do?
Mac Cassin 15:45
Or it's fine. If you don't have any of that,
Neal Henderson 15:47
and how to have it, I'm not going to change. I'm a curmudgeon,
Mac Cassin 15:51
Then the next thing, and again, this is kind of course dependent. But your handling ability, every time you have to break to go around a turn, that's the speed you've lost that you have to put back in
Neal Henderson 16:02
Regain. If you want to go faster, then you have to accelerate. So that comes at a cost of work being done. So if you don't break as much, then you're maintaining better speed, and therefore your average can be higher, which is less work,
Mac Cassin 16:15
Which is why Neil really likes going down Flagstaff.
Neal Henderson 16:18
Whoohoo! Gravity is my friend.
Mac Cassin 16:21
And then within that realm of handling, there's, you know, what we'd call like pack dynamics riding in a pack. And that's a whole separate episode...drafting episode.
Neal Henderson 16:29
Potentially Yeah.
Mac Cassin 16:30
But yeah, drafting...
Neal Henderson 16:30
Safely, being able to stay close, and not be tapping your brakes, which again, you're gonna have to get back on the gas generally. So being crafty will say, yeah, good hiding skills in the pack.
Mac Cassin 16:44
Okay, so now you're saying, Oh, great, I have the equipment I have not in a pack or a handle just fine. Okay, so then the last one, which I actually would argue is the most important here. And that's pacing,
Neal Henderson 16:56
Yes, your pacing is going to be relative to the distance or duration, how long you're going. And your effort is going to definitely be variable across almost anything for the hour record on the track, a little less variation, but there still is actually some variation in the turns versus the straights. Maybe we'll talk about that another time. But realistically out on a course uphill, and downhill is probably the biggest thing or differences in wins. Those are things that we think about optimizing our overall speed. And there's this term that is used mathematically called Simple harmonic mean. Mac, tell me, what do I mean about the mean?
Mac Cassin 17:33
What you mean is basically, it's a representation of how riding at slower speeds for a given distance takes obviously longer than riding the same distance at higher speeds. So those slower speed portions, wait, the average to be slower t
Neal Henderson 17:49
Bingo!
Mac Cassin 17:50
So if you go right, 10 Miles uphill, 10 Miles downhill, but 20k an hour up 40k an hour down, your average isn't 30 kilometers an hour.
Neal Henderson 17:58
15.
Mac Cassin 17:59
So why is that important? Does it mean you want to go hard when you're going slow?
Neal Henderson 18:04
Yep, so uphills and headwinds, more effort, there's a little bit of a constraint-based on what your capacity to produce power is for those durations. So you can't just say I'm going to go 20% Harder up this hill than I would otherwise. Because well, if you can't sustain 20%, above that baseline for that duration, then you're going to get a lot slower if you have to stop on the uphill.
Mac Cassin 18:24
Yeah, so that goes back to the whole pacing for the effort. But the part where you can really miss out or in fact, really gain a lot of speed is there's a tendency for everyone when you get up a hill. As soon as you're at the top and cresting it, you back off the effort and start rolling down, which is I would say it's fine. But I don't think it's fine actually really bothers me when I ride with people. And they do that. But what you should do is, again, when you're at the top, you're still going slow. So the effort should still be high, you should not back off the effort until you're back up to speed
Neal Henderson 18:53
Bingo Hill doesn't end until you're up to speed on the downhill.
Mac Cassin 18:57
And that can save you like five seconds, every hill you hit. So if you have a ride with 100 Hills, that's a lot of time saved for, you know, five seconds extra effort.
Neal Henderson 19:07
Yep,
Mac Cassin 19:07
Each time...
Neal Henderson 19:08
Added up each time. Cumulatively, it makes a big difference. That definitely is something you should be trying out at home.
Mac Cassin 19:15
If you have a short 10-mile loop around your house, I'd suggest doing it once completely steady, doing it a second time with that variation, and carrying the speed over the top and seeing, seeing what the difference actually is.
Neal Henderson 19:26
Exactly. Or if you want to drop your friends, right, as you get close to the top hit the gas real hard get up to speed, and then they're going to have to work so much harder to catch up to you, or maybe they can't because they don't have the skills if you've been practicing them. So in summary, Mac what would you say? How would you list these out?
Mac Cassin 19:43
So I'd say you know, equipment, seconds and equipment based sport you can upgrade it but that is going to come with
Neal Henderson 19:50
Cost
Mac Cassin 19:50
Cost. You can change how your body is on the bike without getting a new bike. You don't need a time trial bike but just changing your position to be more aerodynamic, you want to pace the ride appropriately. So you're not like you're saying blowing up right at the start, you want to empty the tank over the whole course. And then lastly, most important, go hard when the speed is low and go easier when the speed is high. That's different than going hard uphill Go Easy downhill.
Unknown Speaker 20:18
And that is it for another episode. We hope you can apply these tips to your next ride and enjoy that extra speed. And thanks for listening to the knowledge podcast by Wahoo.