Specialized Mclaren Venge aero bike.

[Rich_W]

They make racing cars. Not even Aeroplanes. Let alone Fighter Jets or even Space Shuttles. Which is where a lot of MIT grads end up.

It all reminds me of the time Cosworth tried to make that Aprilia Cube MotoGP engine. Fantastic power. Best in class. But absolutely fk all in useability. Coming from F1 they forgot that MotoGP bikes spend hardly any time at full throttle compared to a car. Same as when "another company" tried to make a MotoGP frame. Like in cars thought "better make it stupidly stiff" Only bikes need a degree of flex built in to the frame or whenever they lean over they become rubbish.

To blindly assume that what their speicalist area is, makes them qualified to make a bike is daft. And insulting to the established high end bike makers IMO.

[groomi]

There was an article in one of the mags this week (Evo, Motorsport or Octane I think) where they explained that McLaren Applied Technologies (Not the F1 team, but a subsidiary company) acted as consultants to the Specialized designers. IIRC their expertise enabled Specialized to use different grades of materials in different ways and enabled changes to the manufacturing process to be made.

So they didn't design the bike, they didn't set out the performance parameters of the bike, they did provide advice and know-how as to which materials to use in the best way to achieve the goals set out by the Specialized designers.

[Raven Flyer]

I would think the top F1 teams are the pinnacle of aero engineering. The air flow over a F1 car is far more complicated than the flow over an A380's wings, even with it fully flapped.

I just don't think cyclists ride fast enough for frame aerodynamics to be an issue.

Wheel spokes are a different matter.

[louiebaby]

Raven Flyer said:

I just don't think cyclists ride fast enough for frame aerodynamics to be an issue.

Wheel spokes are a different matter.

At the highest level, when you add up all the tiny differences, they can make the difference of fractions of a second, which can make all the difference.

For mere mortals like ourselves however, there is a limit, and frame comfort will make far more difference to your fatigue, and hence average speed, than frame aerodynamics.

So I disagree and agree at the same time. Which is nice.

[HundredthIdiot]

louiebaby said:

At the highest level, when you add up all the tiny differences, they can make the difference of fractions of a second, which can make all the difference.

For mere mortals like ourselves however, there is a limit, and frame comfort will make far more difference to your fatigue, and hence average speed, than frame aerodynamics.

So I disagree and agree at the same time. Which is nice.

In TTs the extra fractions count, but aero frames make very little difference in mass start races.

R&D effort would be better spent on things which reduce rider fatigue or risk of crashing. Maybe cruise control and fully automatic shifting. Or the ability to selectively block out communications from the DS (as apparently used by John Gadret in last years TdF).

[okgo]

I've not ridden an aero bike, I'd certainly be keen to see how it feels in comparison.

Mind you, as said above the position it puts you in would probably kill me!

[DrMekon]

I rode with a guy on a Stork Aero2 at the weekend. He'd got some time booked at the McL wind tunnel for himself.

[Rich_W]

DrMekon said:

I rode with a guy on a Stork Aero2 at the weekend. He'd got some time booked at the McL wind tunnel for himself.

BULLst!

As for Aero on bikes. Whilst it's important on a TT bike. It's worth remembering that 70-80% of the drag is the rider themselves.

[Crippo]

There is a story that a well known and very high end bicycle company was showing its wares at a cycle show when 2 young men came onto the stand. They spent some time poking around the bikes and avoided any mention of who they were. They questioned the reps for some time about the advanced carbon construction and fantastic consistency. They eventually admitted that they worked with carbon but this was light years ahead of what they were doing. They eventually admitted that they worked for a Formula One team.
Its a true story but I'm not spilling the beans on who, what or where.

[okgo]

I just can't allow myself to believe that.

[anonymous-user]

i cant believe that either. given mclaren were building carbon fibre monocoques in the mid 80s and bicyles were still made out of steel at that point, i struggle to see how the bicylce industry has overtaken the highest levels of f1 in twenty years regarding the optimum use of carbon fibre....

interesting to read that there were 9 mclaren venges out there last weekend, three to the top three specialized backed teams wwhich the teams then gave to their "top 3" riders. Cav was on one but got caught in the split leaving Gosss on his own for HTC. they were delighted given Leopard outnumbered them in the split.

[BalhamBadger]

DrMekon said:

I rode with a guy on a Stork Aero2 at the weekend. He'd got some time booked at the McL wind tunnel for himself.

I was out with a guy on a Raleigh Grifter the other day, he's got some time booked on the ESS for zero-grav testing.

[Total loss]

groomi said:

There was an article in one of the mags this week (Evo, Motorsport or Octane I think) where they explained that McLaren Applied Technologies (Not the F1 team, but a subsidiary company) acted as consultants to the Specialized designers. IIRC their expertise enabled Specialized to use different grades of materials in different ways and enabled changes to the manufacturing process to be made.

So they didn't design the bike, they didn't set out the performance parameters of the bike, they did provide advice and know-how as to which materials to use in the best way to achieve the goals set out by the Specialized designers.

And in doing so shaved 15% off the weight while making it 10% stiffer over Specialized own frame.
It seems McLaren may know what they are doing after all, and not 'just' sticking their own badge on it.
http://venge.specialized.com/#/press/press

[Mutley]

Total loss said:

groomi said:

There was an article in one of the mags this week (Evo, Motorsport or Octane I think) where they explained that McLaren Applied Technologies (Not the F1 team, but a subsidiary company) acted as consultants to the Specialized designers. IIRC their expertise enabled Specialized to use different grades of materials in different ways and enabled changes to the manufacturing process to be made.

So they didn't design the bike, they didn't set out the performance parameters of the bike, they did provide advice and know-how as to which materials to use in the best way to achieve the goals set out by the Specialized designers.

And in doing so shaved 15% off the weight while making it 10% stiffer over Specialized own frame.
It seems McLaren may know what they are doing after all, and not 'just' sticking their own badge on it.
http://venge.specialized.com/#/press/press

This weeks cycling weekly gave the same basic figures in a write up on the bike, that Specialized had done their frame work over the last cople of years develpoping the bike (it also fell foul of the new UCI aero rules) and the McLaren techs 'tiedied up' the aero, and weight loss (no online links)

[Rich_W]

As Flemke said elsewhre. Nearly all bike frames are stiff enough anyway. Making it "more stiff" matters little if a Pro like Cavendish can't distort one. And isn't there a minimum frame weight under the UCI rules?

[HundredthIdiot]

Rich_W said:

As Flemke said elsewhre. Nearly all bike frames are stiff enough anyway. Making it "more stiff" matters little if a Pro like Cavendish can't distort one. And isn't there a minimum frame weight under the UCI rules?

Not frame specifically. Complete bike weight 6.8kg excluding removables. It's high enough that weightweenie frames are not necessary. This weekend I built up an aluminium Canyon with ordinary finishing kit, 50mm clinchers and a power meter, and it came out at 7.26kg, so 6.8kg from a carbon frame and tubulars is no real challenge.

[DrMekon]

BalhamBadger said:

DrMekon said:

I rode with a guy on a Stork Aero2 at the weekend. He'd got some time booked at the McL wind tunnel for himself.

I was out with a guy on a Raleigh Grifter the other day, he's got some time booked on the ESS for zero-grav testing.

It's easy to call BS on the net. Whether he's a bullstter on this, I have no idea. I do know that he was on a bike with a $10,000 frame, and the other things he mentions that indicate he has the financial means to do what he wants check out. There can't be many Stork Aero2's in the UK, so if anyone here is on the TT scene, I suspect they will know the person I am referring to. I merely tried to stay on his back wheel on an audax, Quite frankly, at the end of 200km at a moving average of just shy of 29kph, I didn't have the mental energy to think about anything other than hanging on his back wheel, so he could have told me anything.

[okgo]

We've got one of these in for testing at the minute, it looks pretty mean!!!

[Raven Flyer]

DrMekon said:

It's easy to call BS on the net. Whether he's a bullstter on this, I have no idea. I do know that he was on a bike with a $10,000 frame, and the other things he mentions that indicate he has the financial means to do what he wants check out. There can't be many Stork Aero2's in the UK, so if anyone here is on the TT scene, I suspect they will know the person I am referring to. I merely tried to stay on his back wheel on an audax, Quite frankly, at the end of 200km at a moving average of just shy of 29kph, I didn't have the mental energy to think about anything other than hanging on his back wheel, so he could have told me anything.

I have heard it can be difficult to fit mudguards and panniers to $10,000 bike frames?

[2fast748]

Crippo said:

There is a story that a well known and very high end bicycle company was showing its wares at a cycle show when 2 young men came onto the stand. They spent some time poking around the bikes and avoided any mention of who they were. They questioned the reps for some time about the advanced carbon construction and fantastic consistency. They eventually admitted that they worked with carbon but this was light years ahead of what they were doing. They eventually admitted that they worked for a Formula One team.
Its a true story but I'm not spilling the beans on who, what or where.

I seem to remember reading an article in the cycling press stating F1 carbon tech was generally 2 years behind bicycle tech which is pretty close to the cutting edge. The cutting edge being aero/military I think.