Last fall Hunt Wheels introduced us to their new composites engineer Luisa Grappone, with an eye on further optimizing their carbon wheel designs. Well, she’s been dragging the Hunt team from Sussex into the wind tunnel, and now we all get to go too – at least virtually. Tomorrow afternoon Tuesday, January 9th (in Germany, so wake up early US-dwellers) Hunt will be broadcasting live behind the scenes from the GST wind tunnel, testing the aero performance of their next wide, disc brake tubeless wheels on a complete bike setup.
Aero testing live from the GST wind tunnel
Hunt wanted to get better data on real aero performance of wide, tubeless disc brake wheels. So they’ve mounted up some 28mm Schwalbe Pro One tubeless tire to their latest prototypes and put them into some aero Canyon frames to see how they can optimize rim design with a tubeless setup and no rim braking constraints.
Now they want to offer a rare peek into the real aerodynamics testing from one of the world’s leading facilities. The GST or Gesellschaft für Strömungsmeßtechnik is the same tunnel where several big companies like Canyon, DT Swiss & Swiss Side test their cycling products, and where many pro athletes come to dial in their fit & equipment. Hunt has just started testing their latest wide disc brake carbon tubeless wheels there this week, in what they are calling ‘first round’ tests.
Follow along at home – Live!
Follow along inside the GST wind tunnel from 1pm GMT via Instagram Live (14:00 CET, 08:00 EST, or an early 5:00 PST). Or half an hour later at 1:30pm GMT via Facebook Live (14:30 CET, 08:30 EST, or an early 5:30 PST).
Of course broadcasting live means you get to see it as it happens, plus Hunt are hoping to be able to answer questions about what they are doing and what they hope to achieve. So chime in on their Instagram and Facebook posts if you have questions.
Update: Hunt has gone offline now, but you should still be able to view the video archive of the second part of the livestream on their Facebook page. Some interesting stuff in there, both for those who have not spent time in a wind tunnel, and also some good tidbits for anyone who has.
