Tech Stuff

Right now that I'm back it's time for the tech update for those that like that sort of thing. I had the chance to check out some of the other team’s gear and here’s some of the bikes on the track so here's what I found.

Firstly the Aussies are riding the new BT Blade. BT have made a pursuit bike that looks quite different from the old one. The most obvious features is the new clean look seatpost clamp. There is a stop down the seat tube and the seat post is cut to the right length and rests on the stop with a hidden bolt to hold it in place. The result is a nice clean line – no ungainly and un-aero clamp dirtying up the airflow. The rear edge of the seat tube is concave (barely legal when the wheel is right the way in the dropouts) and hugs the tyre for more smoothing out the airflow onto the wheel. More subtle up front is a head tube the is narrow in the middle to the same width as the top tube to disturb as little air as possible and options for different fork tips for different rake/trail.

The Germans use the FES bike again with a nice clean seat post area and a pretty serious looking front end. It bloody heavy too which must be reassuring for those 2000 watt starts.

The prize though has to go to the British who have spared no experience in their R&D budget as you might’ve seen during the Olympic coverage. No stone has been left unturned with their gear. The front end has had special attention. The sprint bars (Notice the box section of the tandems in the back and foreground) are pretty striking and must be real stiff if Chris Hoy can swing on them the way he does and not move ‘em. The head tube is only as wide as it needs to be and no more. None of this oversized rubbish that the roadies go for. The fork blades hug the contours of the Mavic comet front wheel right down to the tip where the small part of wheel axle/cone showing is an aero shape to cheat the wind and the dropout has a plug to fill in the dropout under the wheel axle once the wheel is bolted in place. The wheel nut is low profile too. The aero bar option has plenty of beef in the stem area and the seat post area is also very clean.













I didn't get to see any of the Zen bikes that Milton down at dynamic composites has been working on for the kiwi pursuit squad so unfortunately can't show you those. Anyway that’s enough of that. Last photo though - here’s the other side of the motorbike that we used in Perth just so you can see the names there as well.