Sunday, March 19, 2017

Holy Moly...Vittoria Corsa Speed TLR




Since their introduction, there's been a lot of "buzz" about the newest Vittoria tires which incorporate Graphene into their tread compounds. In particular, the Corsa Speed model has been touted in various locations as the fastest tire. Despite being only offered in one size (23C), it's intriguing in that it's the first "Tubeless Ready" tire on the market that utilizes the "open tubular" type of construction, with a flexible cotton-casing and a separately glued-on tread. I finally acquired a set of the Corsa Speed tires and put them to the rollers. So...are the fast? The answer to that is an emphatic "YES!"

To cut to the chase...I tested the Corsa Speed in 3 ways:

  1. First, on my standard test wheel (Mavic Open Pro) with a latex tube inside, 120psi.
  2. Next, on a Jet6+ wheel with a latex tube, 100psi
  3. Lastly, on the Jet6+ wheel set up tubeless, with 40ml of Orange Seal.
As I've described in the past, I've found that the 120psi results on the Open Pro rim match the 100psi results on the Jet6+ rim, and this way I could confirm that once again while having a result (on the Open Pro) that can be more directly compared to the majority of tire test conditions in my spreadsheet. Here's the results:

Vittoria Corsa Speed TLR 23C, latex tube, Open Pro (120 psi)  = .0025, 23W for pair @ 40 kph
Vittoria Corsa Speed TLR 23C, latex tube, Hed Jet6+ (100 psi) = .0025, 24W for pair @ 40 kph
Vittoria Corsa Speed TLR 23C, tubeless, Hed Jet6+ (100 psi)    = .0025, 24W for pair @ 40 kph



As you can see, the results are basically identical, with rounding differences in the 5th decimal place of the Crr estimate accounting for the 23W vs. 24W values in the estimated power for a pair of tires.

The Corsa Speeds are the new champs on my list...and not by a small amount, but by a fairly significant jump! The next closest new tires are a full 3W behind for a pair at 40kph.


As I described above, the Corsa Speeds are built in a traditional Vittoria Corsa manner, with a cotton-based casing and a separate tread. One of the things that's different about this particular tire is that there is a grey, flexible coating (feels to be a latex-based coating to the hand) not only on the sidewalls of the tire, but also on the majority of the inner surface as well. This most likely is done to help enhance the air sealing capabilities of the tire...and it seems that this particular construction for tubeless road tires might require more sealant being used on initial installation. I found that the air loss for the tire was unacceptable until I had inserted ~50-60ml of sealant. After that, the tire has held air perfectly fine.

Coating inside casing. Appears to be same as sidewall coating


This is a thin tire, and I'm not sure if it has any type of puncture breaker under the tread...and so most would be concerned about it's durability. To test that out, I've been running it as a rear tire on my road bike and have currently ~500 miles in "not so pristine" road conditions. We've had a good amount of rain this winter in Southern California, and the road shoulders are littered with debris right now. So far the only mishap has been a small staple that was picked up by the tire. I noticed the staple prior to a ride, and hadn't spun the tire before pulling it out. That was a mistake in that it took me a bit to get the sealant to work on the very small hole...but, eventually it held and the sealant has formed a nice plug in that area that is holding just fine.


So far so good...I'm really liking this tire. I've also recently discovered a tubeless repair technique that I think will dramatically alter the "hassle factor" of dealing with a hole large enough for sealant to have a hard time plugging. I'll be going over that technique in a future blog post.


There you go...a new "top dog" has been confirmed.

Monday, March 6, 2017

Stinner Aero Camino - Hot Rod American Steel - Part I

Ever since my "Win Tunnel Playtime" series of posts on this blog, I've quite often been asked about the details of my personal bike shown there. Here's the story of how that bike came about and some insight into its design.


Stinner Aero Camino: Road Art

It was time to go to work. As I opened the door to the garage from my house, I saw the exterior roll-up door was half open. My heart went into my throat. Did I accidentally leave it open? Did I not watch it descend all the way when I closed it yesterday?

I quickly scanned around the garage to see if anything was missing and immediately saw that my Cervelo S5 road bike was gone. My stomach turned into knots. How could I be so careless? I looked around some more and realized that also missing was my older aluminum Cervelo Soloist, along with the nearly identical model (same year, 2002) that was my son's first road bike. Shit. How did this happen?

As soon as I hit the garage door button to fully open the door and it didn't move, I realized exactly what had happened. Thieves had cracked one of the garage door windows at the top of the door and pulled the door emergency release cord. Once the door was released from the track, that allowed them to easily roll up the door. After seeing that, I could kick myself...how could I have not realized that it was so easy to break into my garage? Great, now I get to have the "fun" of dealing with a police report and my homeowner's insurance...

One consolation to this event was that the dirtbags didn't completely clear me out of bikes. Our MTBs and my old commuter bike were still there, along with my first "real" road bike as an adult: a 1986 Bianchi Sport SX that I had originally bought brand new. It looked like I was going to be doing my road rides on "Violet" (so named due to the snazzy factory semi-metallic purple paint - officially called "Flaming Violet") for the near future. Violet is a Japanese built Bianchi: Tange steel tubed frameset, complete with downtube shifters. I figured that since she was my only road bike available, I'd put the best wheels and tires I had remaining on Violet, just to minimize any performance disadvantage of using a 30 year old bike on my road rides. I had a set of Zipp 101s I could use, along with a pair of Specialized Turbo Cotton 24C tires. With latex tubes inside, Violet was getting a new set of dancing shoes.

1986 Bianchi Sport SX "Violet" - After surviving the 2016 Belgian Waffle Ride

A funny thing happened as I started riding around with Violet and her new shoes...I began to realize that aside from the weight (~22 lbs), this 30 year old bike wasn't slow. I was easily able to "hang" on the fast group rides, and it was only when the roads tilted up to a great degree did we slow down (relatively speaking)...but that could have been just as much the fault of my own mass as Violet's. I had originally thought that I was going to replace the S5 with a brand new model (the 2nd generation of that bike had just been released)...but now I started thinking about other options. One of those options was a custom frame built by a local framebuilder who had been making quite a name for himself after being awarded the NAHBS "Rookie of the Year" award in 2012: Aaron Stinner, of Stinner Frameworks.

Thus began the project that became: The Stinner Aero Camino custom prototype.

Once I realized that a narrow-tubed steel bike could "hang" with modern equipment, I was really intrigued about taking that understanding to the limit. Knowing that aerodynamic drag is the largest impediment to bike movement at any speed above ~15kph (9.3mph), is it possible to configure a custom steel bike to have excellent aerodynamics? Can we do it in a package that's closer in weight to more modern road bikes? Sure, the largest aero drag impediment for a cyclist is the rider themselves...but, once you have that sorted, next up is the bike.

I had known of Aaron since he was a high school kid living literally just down the block from me. I remember seeing him coast past my house at the end of his training rides. He's hard to miss; tall and lanky. I had been aware that he had eventually decided to become a custom framebuilder, and had also been pleased to see his hard work result in his 2012 NAHBS award. It was also tough to miss Aaron's work when I saw it locally and had been impressed by the detail and creativity. One day I was doing a group ride and began discussing some of my ideas with Aaron's business partner of the time, and he really like some of the ideas I was floating. He suggested I contact Aaron and we start talking about the collaboration. So I gave Aaron a shout and he suggested I swing by the shop on one of my off days and we'd go for a ride and talk bikes.

It didn't take long on that ride to realize that both Aaron and I were on the same page about the geometry and features that make for a good all-around road bike. Interestingly enough, it sounded as if it might end up being a carbon-copy of the geometry of Violet, but in an updated form. I emphasized that I wanted the result to be as "clean" aerodynamically as possible, especially at the front of the bike. This meant using a "known good" aero fork (I was able to source a 1st Gen Cervelo S5 fork) with an inset headset, along with internal cable routing. I wanted the cabling from the bars to enter the frame behind the headset, and Aaron and I discussed various ways to accomplish that. I suggested that we offset the leading edge of the downtube at the bottom bracket to form a "fish mouth" that would allow the cables to exit, which is something I "stole" from the Cervelo aluminum Soloist frame design. I even suggested that we might want to extend the downtube past the BB a bit, and then mount the rear brake below the chainstays. The extension would tend to "fair" the brake, and the opening would make running the internal brake routing very easy. In fact, I could run full housing all the way to the brake from the bars.

The only thing left to decide on was the main frame tubes and the stays. I didn't want a round down tube, and was open to "flattening" a tube to ovalize it. We decided to both do some research on what types of tubes were available that might fit the purpose. Perhaps there were some decent aerodynamically shaped steel tubes? For the top tube, Aaron wanted a flattened area near the head tube so that there would be more room for the cable stops/entries. For the stays, I left the chainstays up to Aaron's discretion (he recommended Columbus Life Oval stays), but told him I really had my eyes on some of the True Temper Velo tear-drop shaped seat stays that I had seen on some Yamaguchi track and road bikes. And I wanted them to be "dropped", or attached at the seat tube below the top tube to seat tube junction. This would effectively elongate the teardrop section with respect to the air flow direction.

True Temper Velo Seatstays on a Yamaguchi road bike


The only round tubes on the bike were going to be the head tube and the seat tube, the latter of which was selected to hold a standard 27.2mm seat post.

As we contemplated flattening the one end of the top tube, Aaron suggested that maybe we should take a look at the Columbus Max bi-oval tube for this purpose. This tube is typically used as a downtube, and on each end it is slightly flattened, with both ends flattened in a direction 90 degrees from each other. When run as a downtube, the horizontally flattened end is usually attached to the BB, with the vertically flattened end welded to the head tube. For this project, the idea was to "flip it around" and use it as a top tube, with the horizontally flattened end at the head tube, and the vertically flattened end at the seat tube area. This did a couple things: First, it gave us the flat area just behind the head tube to use for cable entry, the width of the tube at the head tube junction better matched up with the width of the 44mm wide head tube needed for the inset headset, and lastly, the width of the tube at the seat post end also matched up nearly perfectly with the diameter of the seat tube.  It  was a total win-win-win. For aesthetic reasons, it was decided to make sure that the top tube wasn't completely horizontal on it's centerline, since the flaring of the tube on each end would then make it appear the tube sloped up as it went rearward...so, a slight downward slope to the seat tube it was going to be!

That left just what to do about the downtube. At this point Aaron suggested I look at the Columbus Life Aero tube shape, which is more of an "egg" shape than a true air foil.  After recalling an old aero bicycle tube test by John Cobb, in which one of the "aero" tubes tested faster overall when reversed (i.e. pointy end forward), I told him I wanted to do some quick CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) runs on the tube shape and that I might ask him to put the tube in "backwards" if the calculations held up. I'm sure he thought I was totally crazy...

It was the look at downtube shapes in the Trek Speed Concept white paper that gave me the idea of how to do the analysis I did :-) 

Since I was doing this at home, I only used Solidworks Flow Simulation. I happened to have a copy at the time due to some mentoring I was doing with the local HS robotics team, but only had a not-so-powerful laptop to run it on, so the analyses were justifiably very simplified. I took a tracing of the tube shape... 

Columbus Life Aero tube tracing


...and then modeled the tube in Solidworks...

Solidworks Sketch Details


...and took a 2D slice of the downtube (and bottle, when modeled) in the plane of the air flow with the downtube at the appropriate angle for the frame design. That obviously "elongated" the shapes in the flow plane. Here's an example of one of the analysis outputs:

Solidworks Flow Simulation 2D Result Plot


To attempt to get a gauge of the affect of bottle AND tube together over the entire length, I merely summed the respective per unit length drag for the bare tube and the tube plus bottle and plotted them out over yaw. Here are my estimates for the power required for just the downtube at an apparent wind speed of 40kph. The round tube entries are for the same Columbus tube, just without the aero shaping (i.e. pre-formed tube diameter).

Estimated Power for Downtube @ 40kph


The "front" and "back" nomenclature refer to running the Columbus tube with the wide end forward ("as designed") or with it backwards. There are some neat takeaways from that exercise...one of them being that the Columbus DT run "backwards" and WITH a bottle is faster than the equivalent round tube with no bottle at all...and another being that above 5 deg yaw, the same configuration ("backwards", w/bottle) is as fast or faster than the same tube configuration with no bottle. This was looking good!

Of course, the major assumption in all of this is that this isolated look at the downtube is valid for the bike design. That's where the fact that Trek first undertook a similar approach in the SC development made me feel a bit better about using the results to decide on the tube orientation I wanted to try in the custom build. The downtube orientation was settled..."backwards" it is!

In the mean time, Aaron was working on the details of the rest of the frame design, and here's what he sent me for approval:



Here's how the frameset shook out material-wise:

-Fork is first generation Cervelo S5 model 

Tube specs is as follows: 

-Head Tube: 44mm with Chris King Inset HS 

-Down Tube: Columbus Life Aero 42mm (run narrow end forward, simple CFD suggested that was faster, especially with bottle). DT is offset at BB to allow cables to exit and partially "fair" rear brake below BB. 

-Top Tube: Columbus MAX bi oval (oriented with horizontal flat at HT, and vertical flat at ST, both to match tube widths better at HT and ST junctions) 

-Seat Tube: True Temper HVERST1 

-Chain Stays: Columbus life Oval 

-Seat Stays: True Temper Velo Seat Stays (teardrop shape designed by Yamaguchi) 

-Bottom Bracket: BSA threaded 


After all of this was determined, I green-lighted the start of the actual construction. We were going to build a custom steel "aero road bike"!

The only thing left to do at this point was to come up with a name for it. Aaron has a range of customizable production models that are traditionally named after local roads and trails that have inspired the various designs...and I had been contemplating suggesting a name for this fully custom frame soon after we began talking about the build.

You see...his shop is on a small industrial strip near the Santa Barbara Airport. Obviously, many of the street and place names in Southern California are in Spanish. The street name of the shop address is "Aero Camino", which in English is translated as "Aero Road". I thought that "Aero Camino" would be a perfect name...and happily, Aaron did too.

Next up: The build, the paint, and the assembly.

Aaron Stinner and his crew from Stinner Frameworks are going to be displaying all of their awesome wares this coming weekend at the North American Handbuilt Bicycle Show (NAHBS) in Salt Lake City (March 10-12, 2017). If you happen to be there, stop by and say "Hi" to them and make sure you check out the impressive range of "stock" and custom bikes. Especially check out the paintwork...or, more accurately, the artwork.




Sunday, January 22, 2017

Getting Caught Up II

Yeah...it's been awhile. Lots of things happening in the last year.

Anyway, It's time to get caught up. Although this tire rolling resistance data was published last spring after I did a collaboration with Jon and Chris of Flo Cycling (see report here), I have been remiss in adding it to the spreadsheet linked to on the right side of this blog. These are tires I roller tested for the Flo tire aero study, models of which I had not already tested. Here are the additions from that testing:

Continental GP4000SII   25C = .0031, 28W for pair @ 40kph
Continental GP Attack   22C  = .0033, 31W for pair @ 40kph
Continental GP4000SII   23C = .0034, 31W for pair @ 40kph
Schwalbe One Tubeless 25C = .0037, 34W for pair @ 40kph
Schwalbe One Tubeless 23C = .0041, 38W for pair @ 40kph
Felt TTR1                      23C = .0048, 45W for pair @ 40kph
Continental Gatorskin     25C = .0048, 45W for pair @ 40kph
Continental Gatorskin     23C = .0052, 48W for pair @ 40kph

The interesting points in there for me are the confirmation that the GP4000SII rolls the same as the previous GP4000S, plus how poorly the Gatorskin models roll at 17-20W worse than the GP4000SII for a pair at 40kph. Wow.

Additionally, in August of 2016, I finally got around to testing a pair of tires that Eric Reid had sent me. One was a brand new model of the Continental Force tire (I had only previously tested a lightly used one) and also a Continental GP TT tire. The latter is a tire that hasn't had much test data on it, so it's something I really wanted to see. Here are those results:

Continental GP Force   24C = .0030, 27W for pair @ 40kph
Continental GP TT       23C = .0028, 26W for pair @ 40kph

That result for the GP TT makes it the new "top dog" for brand new tires I've roller tested. One caveat on that tire though...it measures much larger (24.6mm) than it's rated 23C on my narrow Mavic Open Pro rim, or nearly 2mm wider than a Continental SuperSonic 23C (22.8mm) on the same rim, and is only .0001 lower Crr (~1W difference at 40kph for a pair, or what I consider "tied").

Finally, in October of last year, I roller tested a couple of other tires. One was a newer version of the Continental 20C SuperSonic. I was interested to see if, like some of Conti's other tires, it had gotten any faster since I had last tested that model in 2012.  It did. Here are the results:

Continental SuperSonic 20C = .0030, 28W for pair @ 40kph

That's a fairly significant change from the previous measurement of .0034 for that tire, and corresponds to an improvement of ~3W @ 40kph for a pair, and is just as fast as many tires of MUCH greater width.

The other tire I tested in October was the Specialized S-Works Turbo Tubeless 26C model. This tire was interesting to me because it had been getting some "buzz" about how it was a super-fast tubeless tire (most aren't up to this point).

In this case, I tested it both with a latex tube inside, and then also set up tubeless, with Orange Seal sealant inside (~20ml). Both tests measured nearly exactly the same (within less than .0001 Crr) with the result being:

Specialized S-Works Turbo Tubeless 26C = .0032, 30W for pair @ 40kph

Although that's relatively fast for a tubeless tire, it's not the world-beater it had been hyped to be...especially considering that it's mounted width on my Hed Jet+ wheel for that testing was nearly 30mm!

Anyway...good to be back at it, and I've got some other fun stuff (not so much tire related, hopefully) to be sharing with all of you shortly. Again, all of these updated entries are in the spreadsheet link in the upper right of this page.

edit 23Jan2017: After roller testing a newer version of the Continental SuperSonic in 2016 as described above, I decided to use the newer value in calculating the total power for the H3/Conti 20C SS combination in the chart shown in my last "Win Tunnel Playtime" post. With those changes, the chart looks as follows, and it appears the old H3 has some pretty good speed in it still with that tire: