Inside Road Cycling’s Only Independent Bike Testing

Tour Magazine Special Episode

Inside on worlds only independent, objective bike testing, Tour Magazine. Today we are joined by head of engineering Robert Kühnen, as we unpack their testing process and the results they have discovered over the last 20 years of testing.

Chapters
00:00 intro
00:20 What Is Tour Magazine?
2:09 What Bikes To test?
3:09 How Are Tests Performed?
6:41 Turbulent Air?
7:42 Standard Set Ups
8:39 Fastest Bikes
11:51 Different Builds Tested
15:17 Disc vs Rim In Tunnel
17:39 Consistency Of Data
18:30 Features Of fast Bikes
19:47 Fastest Bikes 2023
26:06 Brands Own Aero Claims
27:50 Stiffness Testing
31:31 Traits Of A Stiff Bike
37:57 Testing Results Effect Reviews
40:25 How To Access Data?
42:40 Testing Groupsets
47:06 How Do Wheels Effect Results?
49:22 Best Performing Wheels

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Welcome to a special episode of the Nero Show featuring head of engineering at tour magazine Robert kernin Robert’s been performing objective scientific testing on bikes for over two decades and today we want to find out all about that testing how they do it what bikes perform best in those tests and where he

Sees both the industry and the magazine headed we’re going to start with just a little bit of Story Time on how I was introduced to tour magazine this this has been a complete adventure for me so the way you were introduced to me anyway was anytime Jesse and I would talk about

A bike its performance maybe we would be sitting here and comparing them to each other the show would go live and I would get half a dozen to a dozen Instagram messages from people after the show and they would look all like this they would they would be a

Screenshot of this list of bikes with numbers next to them and there was there was kind of a ranking system and they were sometimes alluded to the bike that that I’d talked about and the comment was always the same it was like toour magazine have already worked this out

Chris seriously and it was like come on come on and so this was like I’m like what is this thing tell me more about it so could you potentially go just a little bit into maybe tour magazine for the for the Chris Millers who hasn’t been receiving these DMS for the last 12

Months yeah it goes back to the I think to the ‘ 80s um H Christian smik my predecessor at the tour magazine he introduced the magazine world to objective testing methods and this this goes back to the 80s so he made the first stiffness Rigs and also work with

Universities and came up with with with interesting stuff and we we developed from there and our goal was always to have objective testing uh in place so I mean we are all Riders we love to ride our Bicycles of course but uh we want to have an objective scoring system so this

Is this is the base of of everything and uh aerodynamic is one part but but we also do a lot of other testing let’s let’s get into the some of the testing then just first off first question I have is how do you decide what bikes to

Test how do you how do you get the bikes what is that is there a process there first step is to make an editorial Choice what is an interesting story so if if there’s a new bike popping up that’s usually not enough road to have a

Story uh I mean if it’s a really famous brand and there a bike everyone is everyone is waiting for then we do a single test but usually we do comparison test we bundle uh bikes with some kind of bracket bikes from Italy uh cheap ones again expensive ones uh aerob bikes

Lightweight bikes whatever you can think of so it’s an editorial Choice and then we ask the manua to send in the bikes and uh we get them for free we we test the bikes and send them back that’s a process so let’s I I’m really curious about this actual testing process how is

This testing done cuz it’s so well and good to say uh the arrow drag of U of the bike and the frame but I I’m really curious to to go into the details on how yeah how you’re running these bikes through the gauntlet so yeah what is the

Testing that you you do from from let’s start off with aerodynamics what’s the testing process the aerot testing aerot testing is perform at the GST wind tunnel that’s a privately owned wind tunnel at the airs facility in Imad at Southern Germany and we have relationship with this tunnel since 10 years uh before

That we went to a tle tunnel in in Dron Eastern Germany and the GST tunnel is yeah this is the best tunnel I’ve seen so far and we have developed a process together which is uh quite nice so the the the usual process is we set up the

Bike in the Wind Tunnel and we have I’ve made a special dummy a moving leg dummy a dummy without upper torso uh we got rid of the upper torso because it’s a source of arror you introduce a lot of of wind resistance with the upper body but there’s not so much interaction

Between upper body and the bike so it’s it’s an error Source from an engineering point of view the upper body and I wanted to get rid of this failer uh before that I had a full full full body dummy but without moving legs so the NE Next Step was moving legs but no

Torso looks a bit strange and we get a lot of of questions from the readers but from a technical point of view it makes sense and we have these moving legs and they introduce all possible leg positions during the measurement and this is this is a key to get the right

Interaction between the legs the Rider and the bike to have all these different leg positions in your measurement it’s not about the speed of the the legs it’s about the moving not that fast it’s about the interaction in all these different positions and to be fair you

Need to have all these positions in your measurements and the cool thing about the GST run is we measure we do 41 measurements in One Sweep so we do a sweep fromus 20 to plus 20 20° y so we introduce side winds and this is a continuous measurement so we take these 41

Measurement points in one run it takes only one and a half minutes and then we have the complete information about the bike and Its Behavior in all these different wind conditions and so yeah what when you talk about um normalizing the position of the

Legs uh in the on the model is that so do you mean kind of like position over the bottom bracket uh that sort of thing the riding position ankle position in fact we spent most of the time in the tunnel adjusting the dummy okay it takes

A lot of time um we have I’ve made special laser rigs from the side and and from the front to ensure that we have always absolutely the same position and we have a referrence bike we start each measurement with a referrence bike and so we can refer it with with with the

Last run and the run before and so on and this gives as us an idea how good our measurement is set up on this day so the the dumm’s on the um reference bike and that’s positioned with the lasers from the side and the front and then you

Swap the bike over and get the dummy in the exact same position right um right okay interesting so we spent really lot of time and this was all a Lear learning curve it’s uh the dummy introduces more resistance on the bik itself there’s a sort of buzzword going around a bit at

The moment which is this this turbulent air thing um o obviously and I’m sure you you’ve heard it referred to as yeah just the the reality or trying to mimic the conditions as much as possible of being outside so with with your wind tunnel and and you mentioned the your

Angles and that sort of thing do you think that that is a that is potentially a factor where the the wind tunnel is not capable of taking that into account or do you think that turbulent air is and we shouldn’t even be considering it in the first place like

Would you have a take on that yeah sure the wind tunnel is good but yeah turbulent air would be would be better okay fair enough yeah I mean you can always improve but I mean you already achieved a really high standard and uh yeah turbulent a definit definitely happens

Outside so uh this would be a nice additional information when I’ve sort of looked back at some of the testing there’s reference to the these standardized wheels that you I think you maybe used to use the zip was it zip 404s that you used to use we still use

Them zip 404 okay and and now so um you used to test with so this the zip 44 and then the wheels that came stock on the bike now you’re just testing the stock build as as it comes from the manufacturer is that right no that’s not

Right we still test with a s for Force sometimes we missed to publish the values yeah that that really happened but we every test is run with with C for Force as well to uh to get an idea how good the bike could perform but the scoring is done with

With with with the wheels coming with a bike yeah yeah so so the the arrow drag number that I’ve seen in some of the like the cutouts from the m magazine that’s with the stock wheels that come right okay can we talk about the fastest bikes that you’ve tested yeah sure the

Fastest bike so far was simpon Pride 2 you saw that one the other day Chris someone brought that up yeah I I I was so I actually wanted to talk about it on the on the show I to be to be all completely honest Robert I had never

Heard of this brand like I I’m coming off in this I’m coming off in this show as as someone who’s no idea about Cy but um yeah it again it was someone on on Instagram who fed this on to me and was like hey check this out like this

Thing’s blowing blowing the water out and I suppose my question in relation to that is c can you look at a a bike like the pride 2 from from your perspective with your experience and say oh that’s going to be a fast bike like can you see

The arrow can you see the arrow in that frame yeah we we we had our learning curve I I think the we we can tell it now yeah more or less would you be able to potentially talk me like I’m looking at that frame now so is there are we are

We talking about that massive head tube like what what can you can you maybe point to a few factors in that frame that that you go oh yes this is going to be fast yeah this frame has deep profiles a small silhouette and it’s it’s it’s it’s

Really clean now that’s that that’s it I mean it’s not uh that mysterious I think simplon was was pretty fast and adopting to the new UCI rules they were the first to move uh to these super D profiles after the 321 rule was skipped and this

Is the main reason why they why why they are leading the list right now and of course I mean this this uh did not came out of the blue and the the aerody development was done by swissside swissside is the aerodynamic company which also uh is responsible for the DT

Products for the aerodynamic design of DT and they have a background in form yellow one Formula One racing so no surprises here and um yeah if you look at these super fast bikes I mean it’s quite similar to to an S5 the the whole the whole principle is

There a bike that you’ve tested relatively recently that you you looked at when it came in and went okay this is going to be pretty fast and then you put it into the tunnel and the results weren’t there we have funny we have had funny things we had another German brand

Stevens you might haven’t know of them as well I know that yeah I’ve heard that and they they they are more famous for Cross Bikes but they came in with with a new bike an aob bike and and we knew that this bike has never seen a tunnel

Before so they they did all the development based on cfd on simulations and has turned out to be quite good I think we we landed at 207 wat something like that or 208 and not too bad for for a bike which has which hasn’t seen a

Wind tunnel uh it went to a wind tunnel the first time with st magazine and uh performed well Arrow by visual design in a computer somewhere interesting well I mean cfd cfd is is is can be a serious tool I’m curious about the the builds cuz as you as you kind of

Mentioned there between the simplon and the SLL the the drag differences in Watts between a lot of these top bikes now are are quite small what sort of difference have you seen in terms of little tweaks with the components for example the specialized tarmac sl7 versus the sl8

Which I think in your testing they were pretty much the same there was a couple of Watts possibly but the sl8 comes with the integrated Arrow handlebar um is that I mean and then for if I’m comparing another bike uh the the AO come stock with the 60 mil DT Swiss

Wheels like in terms of the package is is there if you add how many watts are we looking at between different stock builds because if you know if you’re splitting hairs between sort of two and three Watts between bikes as a consumer but there might be a handlebar

Difference that could make up that Gap yeah the difference differences between the good wheels are not that big nowadays we talking about two or three wats that’s it the tire makes a difference there are there are very well performing tires in the wind tunnel and

There are there are a bad tires so the Tire Choice is in fact a rather big thing uh if if you have a not not not performing tire then you will stall early uh so uh at higher your angles the tire becomes it’s a Leading Edge of the

Wheel and so it’s important part of the of the whole profile and the aror performance of the wheel totally depends on the tire in the magazine the reviews that are written about the bikes including the testing data so say Canyon aoad scored 203 watts in in the um in

The drag but Mike m who writes those reviews is it is it do you write those or does someone from the magazine side write them it it it it depends sometimes I write the review but we have we have a test crew and usually the guys who are to do the riding

So who spend the time on the road with a bike they do the they do the writing too okay so yeah one of the I guess what you would say is kind of the contextualization of the the data that you’re giving or the interpretation of

It is that between two spec um builds of bikes it one might come with 25 mil tires and another one might come with 28 mil tires so the one with 25s tests faster Maybe by a couple of Watts because the front tire is narrower but then in the review the magazine says

Well this bike is faster because it tested 204 watts versus 206 but there’s kind of another level of uh well why is that well that came spec with a narrower front tire which could provide those AOS savings now yeah you’re testing the bikes it’s maybe not

Your job to do that um do do they attempt to make those kind of explanations in the reviews of the data then we have the space and then we do these explanations yeah sure I think it’s yeah it is pretty important especially um you know if you compared

The sl7 to the sl8 and the arrow drags from the from the frame appears to be the same it’s just that one has an aerodynamic handlebar so it tests faster is it too early to to Dive Dive just a little bit into the the disk Rim stuff

Just in terms of whether we saw a difference when when dis came in when this came in there was a difference yeah I mean you introduce another another piece of of of of material and you can’t get rid of the disc so the disc introduces some more drag that’s true

And right in the beginning we had two or three WS more but then things started de to develop and you can really hide the calipers quite well and uh now there’s no big difference anymore so it’s it’s more or less equal now we asked you about the bikes that were perhaps look

Fast and was there any that tested slow and your answer is kind of no if they look arrow and they have deep tubes they’re probably going to test quite well are there any on the other side of that are there any bikes that surprised you on how fast they tested given how

They looked when they came in for testing yeah the most surprising might be the specialized h mark the sl8 latest version yeah yeah tested quite well given how uh sort of thin the tubes look especially in the back end yeah this this bike is quite FR for for the for

The for its overall design do you have do you have an opinion on that because it’s interesting like I look at that sl8 as a just a Layman cyclist and it looks you know very similar to something like a giant Propel the new giant Propel um

But you know you’re you’re right like in in your your testing the the sla’s done quite well is is there do you have a theory on that is there is there any anything you can think that might be might be causing it I think they they

Just have done a brilliant job they just focused on things which matter obviously in terms of aerodynamic and I think the overall package is is pretty good yeah what they’ve done there we done we’ve done test rides last week in Italy and I I I could join the crew for this test

And I was riding the sl8 in on Donal stretches and the difference to to other bikes is is quite amazing in terms of stiffness and uh so the overall package uh lightweight High really high stiffness and quite good aerodynamics that’s uh that’s a winner in my in my

Eye so just in terms of the um the data that’s collected how do you find it Compares year to year so if if a bike tested at 205 Watts this year for example is that comparable to testing your moded on 3 years ago is that how are the wind tunnels accurate enough

Year on year to to have that comparison yes okay that’s really impressive to M yeah let’s manage to do that it’s always uh you have more Precision when you compare within one run So within one day our our measurement Precision is better than when you compare a measurement from

From two years ago but it’s still quite good I would say it’s plusus one watt if you look at the data from two years ago and it’s rather plus minus point3 wats if you are within one session pretty impressive giving how much is uh moving around and going on in those tests yeah

That’s crazy stuff that’s absolutely crazy and this is why I like the GST tunnel it’s it’s it’s so good another question in terms of the aerodynamics of of these bikes are there any common features what what are the main common features that you’ve seen between the top performing

Bikes and there are there any Brands you can think of that aren’t using those features that it it kind of confuses you why they aren’t taking advantage of that well a benefit means uh a low frontal area so small silhouett um deep profiles espe especially the head tube and the fork

Legs and then Dro seat stays an nrow seat post which hasn’t to be super deep I think um these are the main features it’s quite simple but uh when you create the bike I mean how how how do you make the transition between these tubes I think this is a tricky part and

Um but overall the equation is is is is pretty clear so I mean Stevens is a good example just uh copy and pasted the the process and made the cfd stuff and came up with a pretty good result so what’s the model of that bike a Caris that is

Okay so the Stevens okay interesting 27 Watts 207 27 Watts so what were the C can I ask in terms of 2023 what were the the the top five in in the tunnel seems to be the Scot foil RC ultimate with synchros wheel 60 mm deep

That was uh 203 and the Stevens was 207 seven yeah I guess it’s I’m going to say what’s the what’s the difference between you’re going to say well the difference is for Watts but um is if in your experience sort of probably riding some of these bikes is that a

Significant difference I mean it’s for what’s in your testing is is that a lot is that negligible sort of no no you won’t feel it if we’re if you’re looking between two bikes how many watts difference in your testing would you say is is is going to be noticeable for for

Someone race yeah for someone racing at a kind of of a club level I think 10 watts 10 watts and more they will notice I mean the real differences are between these Arrow bikes and non- aob bikes and we talking about 20 wats or 30 watts and that’s for

Sure uh noticeable yeah it’s good to know yeah because there some can can get quite overwhelming when you’re comparing the results and I mean you need to take into account the these these single W numbers I mean there’s there’s a lot of of Ms involved to get one single M uh

What number out of 41 measurements uh you need to to to check the uh the graphs to be sure what what what you’re comparing in which situation because uh if if you if you’re going really fast and if there’s no wind no ambient wind then we’re talking about uh

This the flow at 0 deg so you should compare these bikes now at 0 degrees to get an idea how they perform in this situation in our normal procedure we we calculate with 10K per hour ambient wind which is quite a lot we won’t see that much here in

Bavaria and um so the single number has to be taken uh yeah with with with with with this uh information in could you explain that so the the the wattage number overall that is that the tour magazine gives is is that what did you say that is factoring in a 10 kilm an

Hour ambient wind yeah because we we introduced side winds and you only see a side wind as a cyclist when there’s some ambient wind going on otherwise you won’t see flow from the side and we have a we have a waiting function so we we we process the

Data and calculate with 10 K per hour ambient wind and then we have a waiting function which uh which uh processes all these these measurements we’ve taken the 41 and measurements taken at at 0 de or at at lower y angles are more and more important in this equation then uh flow

Was was coming at 20° and depending on on on on the ambient wind your cting with you will see different uh overall results so if if we look look at less ambient wind then we will get a different profile and a different waiting function and a different result i’ uh I wish I

Had more um knowledge to to dig into that I think uh yeah it’s got you’re at the limit of my aerodynamic expertise there um we we take into account the sailing effect when when we introduce side winds and the whole thing developed a because in in Cora during the Hawaii Marathon uh

Tron they they see a lot of side wind that’s where the whole discussion with your angles came popped up up and these guys really see a lot of side wind because uh there’s a lot of wind on on Hawai and when you ride here in Bavaria

There is not that much wind and um so you’re more into into um uh it’s more kind of Lamina flow when you go here and L less side winds and um then you don’t talk about that much about the sailing effect and the your angle is not that much important anymore

And um this is a different measurement then we we we do this measurement we do all these measurements in in in the one run but the question is how do you how do you handle the uh uh the the results and if you look if you’re interested in in zero ambient wind then

You look at uh the the direct numbers at 0 deg and in the best of of all of all worlds we would print also the graphs which eat with each bike and then then you could compare the Dr numbers at 0 degrees and could compare the Dr numbers

At 10° and so on and we just put it together to one single drag number the whats we are presenting but this is for a certain wind profile that makes that yeah that makes sense so it’s it’s the bike speed is at 40K an hour but then

Also a 10K an hour wind coming from whatever angle your angle you’ve you’ve moved it to is that kind of sum that up yeah okay just out of I want to move on as well to the stiffness testing and maybe some of the other testing you do

But in terms of all that data uh obviously gets published by the magazine is there any way that is that to people can people get access to that is it something that the magazine would kind of sell a membership to or is that just kept in house uh right now it’s kept in

House unfortunately I’m surprised the industry hasn’t sort of tried to knock that down and and come in and and have a look at all the the data like just from a from a bike industry perspective to get get their little grubby mits onto that they would be very very happy um which kind

Of I don’t know if this is particularly relevant but it always interests me when a when a when a new bike is launched Etc and we we all hear the claims from the manufacturers you know this is some this is 14 watts faster than the previous generation blah blah blah blah

Blah do you do you see these these claims coming out and sort of giggle at them and and fact check them in in a sense or most of the time they’re being relatively um honest and upfront about the claims that they’re making about their own bikes uh we don’t care that

Much about the marketing talk we just draw our measurements have you ever it just out of curiosity as Chris sort of said is there any been a claim that you’ve seen that you’ve then looked at your data and gone yeah that I’ve got no idea how they got to that conclusion

Anything come to mind no not really I think most of these uh claims now days are are quite are quite quite good and serious and and not too crazy and I mean if you use different measurement method then you will come up with different results so they actually said the same

Thing um Chris when the sl8 got released I said actually if you actually look at their specialized marketing claims and read their white paper what they say it’s doing is actually pretty modest so I think um yeah in that in terms of that specific case it was I mean I I I did

Some calculations I I I have a simulation software where I can put down our data and I did simulations for for the last two the fronts this one thing you can Google on the on the two website to uh that I called the tech briefing to

The fr Tech briefing and the these ones are in English available was all the uh Associated data and I did some calculations with these bikes and um well the overall numbers uh how many time you can save were a bit lower than than the numbers provided by specialized

But uh yeah the trend was always okay should we move on to some of the stiffness testing because I know this is another key part of the the reviews when you’re putting out for the bikes also contains stiffness testing can you run us through how how how that’s tested in

What area the bikes you’re testing for stiffness yeah we we tried to get a complete picture of the bike how it behaves on the road and and we do a couple of stiffness tests so we do we test the bottom bra bottom bracket stiffness this mimic um Sprint out of the saddle

Yep then we test the front comfor and rear comfor uh we’ve just updated the procedure front com includes the fork handlebar and stem and just put a load on the on the handlebar and measure the deflection so we get a front stiffness and we have a rear stiffness we

Introduce a load to the seat post uh quite High load and so we have the deflection of the seat post at a certain seat he and the deflection of the seat stays if there’s some and then we have the overall stiffness we call it riding stability and this one has also been

Modified right now and um there we load Lo the the fork and the front part of the frame with a side force crumming from the tire so we we test the whole stiffness chain we make a measurement with with a wheel dummy and super stiff wheel dummy introducing a side side

Force into the whole construction and then we have the the chain where the forces flow from the ground to the rider and we take this as as a measurement for the riding stability incredible so is the the uh you mentioned the seat plow stiffness test so is that testing for uh

Compliance of the frame as well or is that only testing the No it’s it’s the overall compliance of the system so if if the seat stays are flexing they will Flex in this test and is there I mean the the the common theme is that a thick aerrow bike is overly stiff and

Then a smaller tubed non- aob bike is is less stiff do does that rude sort of claim hold hold true uh not exactly I mean it depends on what type of sance you’re looking at I mean in in a vertical plane and an aerobike is stiff that’s that’s correct and the first arob

Bikes were not so nice to write because there was no compliance at all but then things developed now we have uh better seats seat posts d-shaped seat post or extreme long seat post and lower clamping areas and they they put a lot of energy in designing Arrow aerrow

Designs with some compliance built in and it works so uh modern aerob bikes and they have some kind of built in compliance they are not too bad and they are nicer to ride than the first tries and the traditional round tube bike uh that totally depends on the

Dimensions and the gometry if it’s if there’s some compliance built in uh the the seat post obviously is very important because it’s just a single tube and if you have a single tube the diameter is very important and the length to get some deflection and so a small seat post uh

Um yeah small seat post has more deflection than a than than than than a a big one it’s a large diameter so the equation is uh you want to have long and slim seat post then you have some some comfor you’ve probably sort of answered this question though

But just the same in terms of you look at a bike oh you can you can tell that’s going to be fast in the in the aerot tunnel can you can you look at a bike and potentially name a bike and go oh that’s going to be that’s going to be

Overly stiff are there yes I mean if you look at at the client Quantum Pro then you you can see that this one is really stiff I mean these big round tubes and plus a thick round and short uh seat post that that must be stiff I I

Guess we’re all under the assumption at least uh as far as I’m aware that sort of stiff take us take out the seat post that seat post measurement you were talking about that stiffer is better so bottom stiffer bottom brackets pretty clear stiffer head tube if we’re looking

Up marks in the data from the tour magazine is is high stiffness always better in those areas is there any uh examples or situations where that’s less ideal when we talk about tarmar and nice pavement I would say more stiffness is better yes and things might change a little bit

When you go off-road I did I also work for the bike magazine so I know off-road riding as well and we did a blind test with prepared mountain bikes in a bike park and uh I prepared bikes to have to be to have different stiffness values so

They had a blind test with with same looking bikes and but the stiffness was was manipulated and quite the manipulations were quite big and they had a hard time to figure out which which one was a stiff one and which one was a weak one under off-road conditions

Huh and lower speeds and on the road it’s quite the opposite then it’s pretty clear I mean if you go fast I had the experience last week if you go fast you need just few hundred met to to really feel the difference and then uh more

Stiffness is better of course I don’t I haven’t been able to I don’t have many questions about the um comparing bike stiffness cuz I struggled to find the stiffness ratings um the AO claims were a little easier to find I can we can say that the top level

Of the arrow bikes the drag is quite similar at the top level of them what’s the difference in stiffness between those top level bikes is there is there a bigger variation in stiffness than there is in aerodynamics or they all quite uniform no there are differences

Um the new test I haven’t done so many measurements with the new test but I can give you numbers for the S5 for instance so an S5 is in terms of writing stability stiffness it’s 20% weaker than a Tarmac sl8 for instance and you can really feel this difference is there any

Other um bikes that you’ve run through that latest round of test that you have the data on handful I’m just interested the isol8 yeah I mean we we limit the values so uh our limit now is at 9 Newton per millimeter and everything above gets the same score why is that so

Um why that I mean this is always a trick with scoring systems you need you need to adjust your scale to something oh so you are scored when when it oh I see what you mean okay we have seen the the highest values we’ve seen so far

Around uh 11 yeah 11 was the highest value you make you have to make a decision our our our feeling was that everything above nine is is quite good so but yeah maybe we adjust the scale some at some point so if it bike’s 1’s 11 and On’s

10 you they’re all getting the top Mark in the in the sort of the star rating if I want to say that that you that it’s given in the magazine right up and we also the funny thing the funny bike was we also wrote vtus carbon 9 a bike made in approximately

1988 one of the first carbon bikes in the prop pellaton and this one is so weak it’s it’s wobbling all over the place and we we made we we took it with us and just for the fun and for comparison and for nice pictures of course and this one is it’s really

Amazing that this that the guys rode these bikes at the T of France and uh you you can’t hold the wheel of a really fast racing bike from from from from today well what do you have the number for that was it like two on the

Stiffness it was yeah it’s it’s it’s uh it comes up at five so half is I am actually truly Blown Away by that number that you just gave that the S5 is 20% 20% less stiff than the SLA like if we’ if we had had that conversation about

Some of the aerot testing and you’d said the sl8 is 20% less aerodynamic than the the five that would be an enormous number so I I’m is is that a big margin is is I suppose my my question and also on the back of that the the rhetoric

Around um the S5 The Limited experience I’ve had writing it is it’s a pretty stiff Arrow bike like to think that the sl8 is 20% stiffer than that it it blows my mind actually um and so yeah is that a big number you can feel it so it’s it’s

It’s quite noticeable yeah but the writing impression the the S5 is is is a rather harsh bik compared to to the uh sl8 in terms of of vertical uh elasticity do you have those numbers there with the vertical compliance um numbers between the sl8 and the S5 uh I

Don’t have the numbers at Android now but there’s I think there’s a big difference there a lot more than 20% Then we talking about I think 100% % or even more so the sl5 is meant to to be ridden on really good roads that’s what that’s what I suppose now but it’s all

About the package Jesse see I’m on the I’m on the the the 30 the 30 mil tires running sort of 55 PSI so you you got to take all this sort of actually well that kind of I suppose builds me into the um another kind of angle I could take this

Jesse again again tell me to to shut up but um in terms of um when so the bike gets tested by by yourself through stiffness and and then the wind tunnel and then it goes goes out to be ridden Outdoors by the the reviewers um are the

Reviewers aware of the results when they go out and ride the bike or are they just getting the bike and riding it and then it’s all put together at the end it depends on the aura there’s no no clear procedure sometimes they have the numbers beforehand sometimes not I see

What you’re getting at there Chris if someone’s told you the slat’s five out of five stiff and then they go ride it they go huh it is pretty stiff isn’t it well The Handlebar is stiff of the sl5 it’s quite stiff and the rear end is stiff so the overall Impressions can be

Or must be that this is a stiff bike of of course yeah but when you compare these bikes on a downer stretch then you will see different Behavior have you seen an experience where a bike has you’ve done the testing you’ve done the the a testing Etc and you’ve got an

Impression of it and then it goes out to be reviewed by the the guys writing it and then they put their element together and the review comes out and they are somewhat split in the sense that maybe the guys writing it are using phrases like gee it was it was sorry Jesse it

Really held its speed really well outside and and was stiff and fast and then they combined it with your results and it turns out it’s actually a dog of a bike and it’s like the worst aerodynamics you’ve ever seen like there’s a total mismatch in terms of

What the person outdoor felt compared to the the reality has there been any experience of that no no when I see the text then the the guy who’s who was riding the bike already got the numbers so they if if they had the wrong impression they could adjust it are you the only

Independent sort of body doing this kind of testing I think so yes well occasionally there are tests done by other Publications but not on such a high level and not uh not so continuous so I think in the end we are unique yeah so how do we how do

We broaden your we need to broaden your audience beyond the beyond the ger borders and get get this out there yeah would love to do it I’m I’m yeah it’s it’s it’s it’s yeah it’s hard to understand how we behave to be honest yeah but I’m I’m responsible for the

Technique here not for so how do we I guess the best way to access this data uh is to is what to search to a Magazine’s website for those of us overseas that can’t get access to the magazine um used I guess used the search search function on the site currently

Yes yeah so if I search for a bike I if um okay so you’ve okay here’s the article you’ve written the sl8 and it’s got the numbers in there okay 209 Watts um so yeah with a bit of I mean it does take a little bit of work but for those

That have are curious if there’s a bike you’re interested in and you want to see the numbers go to a magazine use the search function and um you search for the Articles you should be able to bring up the test data on it one of the trends

That I’ve started to see a little bit on on the frames are these are these wider forks I I think I saw it on the was it the BMC Road machine R had that very wide Fork yeah St is doing yeah there are two strategies white for legs fork

Leg and very very narrow ones and both work both seems to work because that that was that’s quite a dramatic look from from from my perspective anyway yeah I mean there are extreme bikes out there we haven’t had it in the Wind Tunnel but there was this hope track

Bike uh made in the UK with super wide and super narrow fork legs and also seed stays that I think they tried to bring the the frog legs in front of the of the legs of the rider and same was true for the for the seat stays so super super slim profile and

Really wide white legs so there’s the arrow testing the stiffness testing which includes compliance is that is there any other tests that you put the bikes through is that it uh no these are yeah we we test uh check the paint and some some some more details but overall

What’s go what goes into the scoring is uh is our score of the components we do comp onent test as well from time to time when the new group set pops up we we do testing with the group set so we have a scoring system for the components

As well and these go into the the rating of the bike as well yeah what sort of testing of the group sets do you mean like between like a Shram red access seap and a shiman j yeah we look for shift quality we I check the chain we of

A machine to test chain where we look at the shifting speeds we look at stiffness of the the of the cranes and other crazy stuff and we put it in the brakes of course we have a test Rak for the brakes as well and we put all these numbers

Together and then we come up with a score for the for the for the group set is Shimano juras your top rated group set at the moment uh I think it’s on par with the top group sets of sham and campu and one one one one very

Interesting test we’re doing is is uh is uh Tire testing Tire testing is really fascinating and and this this plays a big role in our testing we have our own methods to test rolling resistance we have our own methods to test the grip and punctual resistance of the tires so

We do a lot of In-House testing with tires and tires are part of the performance equation so if we talking about aerodynamics and uh Tire performance that’s why we so much into tire tire testing and this can be really eye opening as well I guess you yeah

You’d use that data when you review the uh the tie as a standalone item and then so does that also factor into the the bike review that the tires that come come stock is that L the level of detail that the reviews would go to yeah it’s both

It’s both we do these uh Tire tests where we compare tires and it’s also part of the the overall score of the bike yeah that’s such a good level of detail do not only just Factor the tires in which is probably most reviews to say

Hey it comes with a GP 5000 but to say it comes with a GP 5000 after you’ve independently tested it on your own is a whole another level that’s that’s really cool I I did reach out to a couple of sort of Industry type people I suppose

You’d call them in Australia and I’m said we were going to be talking to yourself and what was what was their opinion on tour magazine it’s really interesting because it’s quite quite split because um on the one hand that that Narrative of oh yes to toour magazine we’ve heard of we’ve heard of

Of bike of Manufacturers and brands that specifically make their bikes or Target their bikes to to perform well in your tests because they know how important the results are um ultimately to their sales um is that is that something that that you’re aware of or I mean obviously

Doesn’t impact you at all but is it have you have you heard that kind of thing as well yeah I’m aware of that yeah sure I mean and it makes sense from a manufacturing point of view I mean as as long as you believe in the methods we’re

Using I mean if you thinking that’s rubbish what they doing at tour magazine then you shouldn’t uh you shouldn’t adopt adapt your development to meet this these gos that would be stupid and I think the better companies they they they do their own stuff but

They keep an eye on our method as well and so they come up with a solution they believe in in terms of the road bike testing if you had unim limited time and perhaps an unlimited budget as well is there any other aspects of the bikes that you’d want to test or different

Methods you’d want to use to get a more complete picture of how fast the bike is of course what what would that involve uh yeah I Mean more Dynamic measurements um okay we talked about tent air that would be an issue but it would also be an issue to look at the dynamic behavior on the of the bike on the road we I occasionally did these measurements so putting exelor on the

Bike and uh picking up signals to to compare the the behavior of the bikes in a in a more detailed way but this is super timec consuming and uh yeah to come up with a standard for that that’s quite difficult yeah but I would love to

Do it yeah do you test your in the tunnel with a bike computer mounted to your to the bikes uh no but it does make make a difference we have tested if it’s if there’s a difference there’s no difference it’s it’s it’s below the measurement resolution interesting okay

We haven’t talked about wheel Behavior we have we have a special procedure to to check the wheel behavior in the tunnel so the tunnel is you basically you put a a bike on the scale right you measure the frontal Drake we we also measure other forces but the frontal drag is important for

The rider but there’s a second uh scale involved which is put between the main scale of the wind tunnel and the and the front wheel or the drum spinning the front wheel and this second scale is meant to measure the torque uh introduced into into the

Steering system by the side winds so we can measure the side wind behavior in the Wind Tunnel how much force will you feel in the in the handlebar when you when you hit a side wind or wow yeah so this is the second measurement we do and this is quite interesting because the

Drag numbers are quite the same now with with the good Wheels but the uh the behavior incitements can be very very different and there we talk about twice the frost if the if the wheel constu is not constructed very well so the the big difference are now in the handling not

In the drag I didn’t oh that’s really cool okay yeah is there any common trait because I I I’m so happy you said that because I I feel this on the road between Wheel sets is is there is it is there a general rule like the The Wider

The the wheel the wi the the better it performs in terms of how how you’re affected in in in Crosswinds or is there any general generalization you can use there no I have no what are the better performing Wheel sets in Crosswinds a better for performing one the last the

Last surprise was uh a small company a small German company called L um they have amazing fast wheels with with amazing stability built in and um and they’re quite cheap as well so it’s it’s a triple win so they had um quite they were quite competitive drag wise

But also deal dealt well with this um this Crosswinds right right right yeah are there any wheels that you you think performed quite badly that are that are well known in terms of the stability in the crosswind yeah the stability also depends on on on the height of the rim

So if the if you have more sailing area then you have higher forces this this is uh the rule of Thum and it’s always true and the funny thing is these super deels uh the the drag numbers are not so much better than than than there’s there’s no

Reason to to have 80 mm D wheels that’s stupid to ride them because uh the drag coefficient is more or less the same and to introduce a lot more side Force so I would go for for Less deep Wheels let’s say you can have a real nice a

Performance with 40 45 mm or 50 mm so no need to go any deeper in my eyes uh then we talk about maybe one or two wat less drag but uh the sidewind behavior becomes a lot worse having currently owning 80 mm Wheels I stand by that cuz

You couldn’t easily get blown off the road and I’m about 80 kilos and I still if there’s a bit of wind up struggle with that um that’s what the MV are quite well-renowned for is that at a similar depth to other Wheels most people claim that they deal well with

That that crosswind stability have have you tested any bikes that come with EnV in terms of that side wind yeah for sure but I don’t have the numbers at hand uh we should look at yeah there are so many numbers um but yeah there quite many modern Wheels

Which behave quite well in in the Crosswinds so the lad example is not outstanding but it’s it was outstanding because these these bikes are also cheap this makes them special but um there are a couple of good Wheels out there but the general rule would be to go with

With not so super deep Wheels there’s no reason to ride them what people thought was that there the wheels do make a big difference in a package so someone looking at buying a bike and they they’re going to get 50 uh let’s say 40 M Wheels vers 60 mil deep Wheels I mean

The common knowledge or the what people thought was that the 60 Ms are a lot faster I mean is that have you not really seen that with the modern Wheels um that you’re testing that the differences aerodynamically aren’t actually that big do you have any numbers on the difference okay okay it’s

Not that big no is that because the rims are w wider now is that just is that perhaps an old rule of thumb from maybe 10 years ago and it’s changed cuz the rims are wider or was that never correct it depends on the overall profile you

Get tire tire and rim interaction and if the package is good then you get good numbers um just on that sort of but we we were chatting um earlier to uh one of the the guys who distribute some of the Chinese Brands um have you have you had

Many of those I suppose more direct to Consumer Chinese Brands come through the the testing protocol and the review protocol recently and and how of how have they performed if there’s any examples you might have no I don’t have examples we we occasionally we tried to

To to to to to buy something in China but uh I think the the the products uh didn’t make it I I know you said you you just sort of collect the data and you’re not in uh you’re not in control of Distributing it but like you know a

Website set up almost like bicycle rolling resistance but with all of the data we’ve just talked about like I would buy membership to that in a heartbeat um it would be really cool to have access to all of this sort of stuff yeah I suppose the only other thing left

To kind of mentioned was is is there a way people outside Germany can support the the magazine and that’s the testing yeah good question um right now the only thing we can offer is uh is to to buy the magazine yeah to to to have subscription but um unfortunately it’s

It’s in German only available but uh come back to our website and see what happens hopefully we have a different model at the store at sometime incredible incredible resource um so valuable like we yeah anyway we we’ve talked about it but we we we literally go week in week out talking about all

This stuff and the answers are potentially really just did a magazine in Germany that we need access to but that’s that’s another another story thanks Robert very much for your time and running us through all the the information here as as Chris said the yeah the testing you do is is really

Great resource so it’s been really interesting to get some more detail on how you run that so thanks for coming on yeah thanks for having Me Oh