The Win Tunnel: Shaved and Dangerous?

Does this mean the end of hipster beards?

Matt, what exactly does that statement mean? What I heard in te video was a minute and a half over 40km. What are you calling BS? And how are both you telling people to have their own opinion while also calling this info BS. I’d bet you were one of the guys who always said it was stupid or gay to shave. Don’t be insecure about this topic. Even MMA fighters shave their body hair and they also paint their toenails.

AYHSMB, I won’t shave my legs. Just can’t stand the itchiness…

@godisdead
They already did that one.

No one is forcing you to shave. The fact that you feel so threatened and defensive simply reflects your insecurity. People feel the same way about skintight lycra, which has a very significant difference.

Dang. I’m also shocked that it makes such a big difference, but more than a minute saved on a 40 km/h effort is too much to ignore if I’m racing seriously. I got lazy with shaving this year, but looks like I’m going to have to start again. Very informative video!

Cool. I can’t really see where the bias would be here, especially given what they stated about their procedure. They even admitted the shaving for that rider saved more time over the given distance than what they claimed the Venge would save.

The posts on that shoe review were hilarious. A bunch of dudes getting bent out of shape because another guy doesn’t shave his legs. Amazing.

Yes, so 82 seconds over 40km distance but at what SPEED? Aerodynamic drag increases exponentially with speed. The data is useless without knowing what metric you were using. From 1:51 on the video the monitor shows 49km/hr so 30 mph. How much of a difference does it makes for those of us who aren’t going as fast as time trialists?

@jack
Fignon lost for various reasons. Saddle sore, thinking he had it in the bag, competitor using illegal equipment, pony tail, etc

@j gunther
This is common knowledge. The slower you go, the more time you save. While the savings is proportionally less, the time savings in absolute terms is greater. So you will save more than 82 seconds.

Here’s some numbers from bikecalculator:
100w in the hoods takes 80min to go 20mi
100w in the drops takes 74min to go 20mi
500w in the hoods takes 44min to go 20mi
500w in the drops takes 40min to go 20mi

So the guy pushing 500w at ~30mph “only” saves ~4min by switching to the drops but is ~9% faster, whereas the guy pushing 100w at ~15mph saves a greater ~6min by switching to drops but is only ~7% faster.

Next step – shaving arms….

JTrain right!? I’m surprised Specialized let him say that on this video. Not exactly a great marketing move, haha. I guess we know these videos are objective.

@jack, if I recall correctly, Fignon still finished 3rd in that time trial. Not a bad result for someone suffering from a saddle sore. He lost because not only was LeMond faster and more motivated that day, but also because LeMond had the advantage of aero bars and an aero helmet.

@anonymous… “illegal equipment”? Just because LeMond was the 1st to use aero bars in the TDF doesn’t mean they were illegal. Or were you referring to something else?

@Chris

Are you going to post a paper or any more info on this? It would be interesting to see a picture of the rider’s legs before shaving and how much time each shaved.

I think you’re supposed shave your legs AND buy a Venge. This article should be published in Hipster Cycling and the title should be “Shaving: No longer just for balls”. I used to favor periodically shaving my legs, but I don’t do so much road riding nowadays and prefer not to reek road-dork so much while riding trail.

So the claim of 80 seconds savings over 40K time trial (at 40K per hour, or 25mph) means velocity is 2.22% higher, at the same power. Since power is proportional to velocity cubed, at these speeds most of energy is spent against air resistance, this means 6.8%, almost 7% power savings. So if one was riding at 300W, shaving saves you 20W?! That doesn’t sound crazy to you guys? Crazy enough to run some more controls?

If you imagine overall frontal area that contributes to drag, a few hairs on legs (or arms for that matter) will not even make up for 0.7%, never mind 7%. I realize it’s not just frontal area, there’s turbulence and all that, but still, 7% is too high to be believable.

Sheldon Brown references research that reports 0.6% savings, which sound about right to me.
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/rinard/aero/aerodynamics.htm

I suspect psychological advantage of feeling “freshly shaven” has not been properly accounted for. Take a mannequin, stick it into wind tunnel, measure the force. Then tape some leg hairs, measure it again. I will be shocked (SHOCKED!) if the difference in drag is 7%. I bet it’s well below 1%.