Quote:
Originally Posted by SVOboy
Pretty sweet! I'm endlessly impressed by your ability to make improvements and actually get out there and collect the data.
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Thanks... although coast down testing is so difficult to do it's almost impossible. I'd treat any figures with a large grain of salt.
With wind, elevation, and temperature all playing a part, it's very difficult to get it right. Especially wind. Every cyclist knows what it's like to get a gust of wind in the face, how that will slow you down very quickly (or enable a longer coast). But you just don't feel it in the car.
Crosswinds are also lethal - wind can be coming from almost any angle except about 30 degrees or so directly behind, either side, and still slow you down.
I should get myself some sort of altimeter before I even do a coastdown test via eyeballing.
However, I do know that there is a definite improvement to all my modifications, and that it is sizable. I can tell that by the sorts of hills I can coast down now and maintain or increase speed, and the way that my FE has improved to something like 3.7l/100km compared to 4.6l/100km highway. And that's with a combined cycle drive. If it was solely highway, it would be better than that no doubt.