Berlin - 40mph?!

[mattc]

Anyone else find it amazing that several track events are now won at over 40mph?
That's over several laps from a standing start.

(And the women manage it on the final Kierin lap)

No wonder aero is important 

[LittleWheelsandBig]

The pursuit women are faster than I was at the kilo. Impressive speed.

[S2L]

It's all got a lot faster... I remember when the team GP pursuit were looking at 3.49.99 for London 2012 as a reference for gold... now you need sub 3.45 to make the final...

It won't be long before Ganna does the 4 K in under 4 minutes, which is mind boggling

[drgannet]

That Chloe Dygart is some athlete. Not only breaking the WR twice in the individual pursuit, she also rode 8 of the 16 laps on the front of the USA women's team pursuit squad in their gold medal ride.

[rob]

A lot more teams have now twigged how important aero gains are.  GB and Aus were always well ahead in this respect but the world has caught up.

As an example the Danes have been advised by Dan Bigham - aero expert, multi GB champ and owner of Wattshop.   You'll note they are riding stock equipment rather than custom.   Noticeable that team GB were still on stock frames rather than the new Lotus/Hope super machines.   Much has been made of this alongside the fact that GB trained up to the event rather than tapered but they have a lot of ground to make up.

The pursuit seems to be where the gains are being made.   In the kilo the top 2 were just sub a minute which isn't a huger amount faster than Hoy did in Athens.   This may be because less people specialise at the distance now it isn't in the Olympics.

[DaveJ]

That Chloe Dygart is some athlete. Not only breaking the WR twice in the individual pursuit, she also rode 8 of the 16 laps on the front of the USA women's team pursuit squad in their gold medal ride.

and she's the reigning World TT champion too.

[Karla]

That Chloe Dygart is some athlete. Not only breaking the WR twice in the individual pursuit, she also rode 8 of the 16 laps on the front of the USA women's team pursuit squad in their gold medal ride.

and she's the reigning World TT champion too.

... where she completely pwned the field.

[S2L]

A lot more teams have now twigged how important aero gains are.  GB and Aus were always well ahead in this respect but the world has caught up.

I don't think it's a case of realising how important aero gains are, even Roger Riviere was very aware of aerodynamics... I think a lot of teams have seen their funding increased, seeing how many medals you can bring home in an olympic year.
Also, athletes seem to be keener to keep doing track even when they have a PRO contract, see Ganna for one. In the past track and road were separate and it was Wiggins and Cavendish to show you can be successful at both

[Salvatore]

I seem to remember reading at the time of the Wiggins hour record that the distance is heavily influenced by atmospheric pressure. Makes sense, that's why you might consider trying at altitude. But even at sea level, success or failure could be decided by whatever pressure there happens to be on that day.

Here we are from cyclingnews

"A lot of the hour record is dictated by temperature and air pressure. Air pressure is everything," he recently told Sky Sports. "I'm not a weather man, but if you have really low pressure, under 1,000 [grams per cubic metre], you will travel a lot further on the day – anything up to one kilometre for the same power. The weather forecast for the first week in June is abnormally low pressure for London for that time of year, which is fantastic."

With the athlete responsible for over 90% of the drag as they punch a hole into the air at over 50km/h, air pressure can significantly affect the power output during an Hour Record attempt and so affect the final distance a rider is able to cover.

"As the speed increases, the air resistance and drag becomes fundamental because it grows quadratically from the speed. That's why even tiny variations of the air pressure can have a huge importance," Giovanni Tredici, the Giro d'Italia race doctor and a member of Francesco Moser's 1984 Hour Record attempt staff told Gazzetta dello Sport.

An area of low pressure (1015mb) is forecast to pass over Britain on Friday but high pressure (1034mb) is forecast for Sunday when Wiggins makes his Hour Record attempt, perhaps reducing his chances of beating Boardman's record.

I read elsewhere that it was actually 1036 mBar (compared to Dowsett's 1007 mBar.

I don't know what the atmospheric pressure was in Berlin last week*, According to https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/germany/berlin/historic pressure was hovering about 1000 mBar on 27th Feb when Ganna rode just under 4:02. Could it be that improved aerodynamics etc and low air pressure created the perfect storm for fast times at the WC?

[S2L]

I seem to remember reading at the time of the Wiggins hour record that the distance is heavily influenced by atmospheric pressure. Makes sense, that's why you might consider trying at altitude. But even at sea level, success or failure could be decided by whatever pressure there happens to be on that day.

Here we are from cyclingnews

"A lot of the hour record is dictated by temperature and air pressure. Air pressure is everything," he recently told Sky Sports. "I'm not a weather man, but if you have really low pressure, under 1,000 [grams per cubic metre], you will travel a lot further on the day – anything up to one kilometre for the same power. The weather forecast for the first week in June is abnormally low pressure for London for that time of year, which is fantastic."

With the athlete responsible for over 90% of the drag as they punch a hole into the air at over 50km/h, air pressure can significantly affect the power output during an Hour Record attempt and so affect the final distance a rider is able to cover.

"As the speed increases, the air resistance and drag becomes fundamental because it grows quadratically from the speed. That's why even tiny variations of the air pressure can have a huge importance," Giovanni Tredici, the Giro d'Italia race doctor and a member of Francesco Moser's 1984 Hour Record attempt staff told Gazzetta dello Sport.

An area of low pressure (1015mb) is forecast to pass over Britain on Friday but high pressure (1034mb) is forecast for Sunday when Wiggins makes his Hour Record attempt, perhaps reducing his chances of beating Boardman's record.

I read elsewhere that it was actually 1036 mBar (compared to Dowsett's 1007 mBar.

I don't know what the atmospheric pressure was in Berlin last week*, According to https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/germany/berlin/historic pressure was hovering about 1000 mBar on 27th Feb when Ganna rode just under 4:02. Could it be that improved aerodynamics etc and low air pressure created the perfect storm for fast times at the WC?

Temperature and pressure, you want high temperature and low pressure... velodromes are heated, but it's still hard to get 28 degrees in the middle of winter... 1000 mBar is low-ish but not super low

[LittleWheelsandBig]

For low air pressure, you also want humid conditions and ideally high altitude. A bit of a bugger breathing for riders in a low O2 environment though.

[cygnet]

The Izu velodrome looks like its about 300m higher in altitude than Berlin, so there should be a benefit there.

[S2L]

The Izu velodrome looks like its about 300m higher in altitude than Berlin, so there should be a benefit there.

Negligible...

[rob]

Knowing about aero and being able to implement changes to optimise a position are 2 separate things.  What has happened in recent years is that this has become accessible to more people.  I spent £300 and 2 hours at an outdoor velodrome and gained 20w.  A few more hours would likely bring more gains.  It’s now down to how you divide your available time between optimising equipment and training.  As I mentioned above the Danes were using off-the-shelf equipment.

On the Wiggins hour attempt Dr Hutch suggested the high pressure on the day of his attempt could have cost  up to a km.  It’s reasonably clear why the next successful attempt was at altitude.