Neil came to see us part way through 2018 in a bid to end his season on a high. He had started training with Sean Yates (https://www.seanyates.co.uk/) earlier in the year who had recommended he get his aero looked at as he did not think he was going fast enough bearing in mind the power he was putting out. He had tried a few things out himself but after speaking to some fellow racers he turned to us for help.
We first saw Neil for a biomechanical assessment in our studio using Retul to review where he was. We quickly identified that some changes were needed to put him within a safe biomechanical range. Through a number of iterative changes we were able to find a position within that range that Neil felt much more comfortable with and which we knew would be faster. He left the studio being able to train in that new position, which was also more aerodynamic, prior to coming to the wind tunnel. Neil reported back that he was immediately able to hold the new position in a 25 mile TT and go a fair bit faster which was great news.
Next stop was a visit to the wind tunnel. Through a series of 12 runs we worked with Neil to validate the changes made in the studio and really work on some of the finer details to get him as aero as possible. As expected, we confirmed that the pre tunnel position was a whopping 21 watts slower – this tied in with Neil’s post studio race times. Further changes were made to head and hand position which resulted in reducing drag even further and by the end of the session we were confident that if Neil could adapt to racing in the new position, he would be on for some PBs before the end of the season.
Training in a new position is key to making the most of the time spent with us in the studio and the wind tunnel. When we advise our customers to use a mirror on the turbo we are not doing so for reasons of vanity but because it is a great way to ensure you are replicating the position that was fastest in the tunnel.
Neil was a dream client and took all of our advice on board, training hard to replicate the best position: “I came to see Drag2Zero on the advice of a couple of guys I know who had each been to see them on more than one occasion – like everyone else I just wanted to get faster and knew that I had got to the point where becoming more aero was going to make all the difference. And what a difference it did make. After my sessions I went on to come Second in the South DC 25 and won my age group (and the one below!) at the Closed Circuit Champs. Thanks to my visits to Drag2Zero and great coaching from Sean, I posted new PBS over 10 miles (19:46) and 25 (52:00) I am obviously looking to go faster this year to add to the trophy cabinet.” We know that Neil will be able to build on these successes and we are really looking forward to seeing what he can do in 2019.