Quote:
Originally Posted by freebeard
Yes.
In the case of the bicycle you have a minimal rim and tire, with the spokes open to the airstream on both sides. Would aero spokes would the flat carbon fiber spokes? They cut though the air better than a round wire spoke.
...The path is intermittently shuttered by the moving spokes, so deduct some additional points.
The correct way to cool brakes is to ventilate the rotors and cross-drill the rotors and drums.
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Fair enough wrt to the fat rim. With the moving spokes though, when the spokes get to the top of the rim, they are moving at almost 2x the speed of the car relative to the air, and so even though the spoke is small and not fully exposed to the air flowing around the car, I would think that there is some significant energy expenditure there.
I don't know about your brakes but I've never seen a non-ventilated rotor. As far as brake cooling goes a lot of cars are designed so that brake cooling air goes to the brakes from the inside and leaves through the outside of the wheel, but you could probably easily reverse this, as a partially covered wheel would act like a fan that pulls air through the hub.
The main reason people don't want to do this though is for looks, which is why I started this discussion. Like I said, brake cooling is not an issue for 99% of people.