Dan Bigham: Aerodynamics Guru

there are lots of aspects of wheels that affect aerodynamics, but I am wondering how much of a change is going from round butted spokes to aero bladed spokes like Sapim X rays makes? I assume as with all aero things speed matters as well. A spoke see air movement different from the rest of the bike due to rotational speed as well as air speed, does this make things worse?

I honestly didn’t notice the audio issues, but then again my standards are rather low.

I left a voicemail a while back but I think I may have hung up too early. So I figured, to be safe, I’ll write out my question here.

First- Thank you for this podcast. A few years back I suffered a terrible accident and now live with a pretty bad nerve injury. After racing for 18 years, I was having to come to terms with the idea that I may never compete again. While I was bed bound thinking about if I could return to riding, I began to pursue the idea of racing as a Para athlete on the track. This podcast was the catalyst for me tackling and segmenting out my challenges, obstacles, and goals to return to racing while handicapped. Listening to you guys got me through some dark days, I am forever grateful to you all.

Now, onto my question…You’ve talked at length about environmental factors for speed like how atmospheric pressure or temperature influence aerodynamics. We know high elevation velodromes are fast, but what I also hear is a number of other sea level velodromes are “fast” as well. So my question is, what exactly goes into making fast(er) velodromes? Everyone talks about how slow LA is, but I feel there hasn’t been a strong argument to justify why it’s slower. Additionally, with various velodromes around the world, how do you select the fastest line for an event like a pursuit? For example, I know in LA, riders drift high in the straights to try and make the corners “less tight” and use a brief downhill to accelerate through the corner. I’m targeting para track worlds later this year and would love any coaching and support you can provide! Thank you so much for your time!

I’m just under 8 minutes in and yes Hottie, the audio is the worst yet but unfortunately it’s also matched with a top guest and topic. Silca’s bread and butter, dealing with the effects and use of air!

Dan, Josh and our ears all now deserve Part 2 with Dan where whatever topics come up are not aimed at merely trying to replace this episode but enhancing it and showing respect to this guest and this topic, in only my humble opinion of course.

I’m taking a break from listen to write this because the audio is so bad that I’ll need to sit and only listen to this with a different concentration level than usual and not have anything else going on around me to decipher the content. A topic that like many others will mean listening to it more than once.

Of course I’m looking forward to the rest of this topic but perhaps the lesson that can be taken from this is that someone needs to listen in to such conversations in future to ensure Silca’s usual standards of topic, guest and audio are maintained and respected please. I’ve gotta sorta do a mental reset now to prepare myself for the auditory onslaught and insult and get my head around concentrating. Otherwise very well done so far!