yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

The Science of Cycling | StarTalk


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

There's drafting-- something we know about in NASCAR and other very fast races. But there's also drafting in cycling. It's crucial in cycling. In Tour de France-- so somebody in front of you, you can get an advantage from that. You certainly can. The energy that you need to expend reduces up by maybe 30%. So I asked Lance about that. Let's see what he says about drafting.

So let's talk about drafting. OK. It's one of the most important parts of the sport. So presumably there's some speed below which drafting is not useful.

Right. That would be like one mile an hour. No-- anything more than-- anything more than stationary. Keep in mind that the speed is important to talk about. But the wind is-- if you say 10 miles an hour, that's not very fast. But if the wind is 50 miles an hour in your face, 10 miles an hour is pretty fast.

So your draft-- it's just-- it goes up exponentially. The more intense the wind is, the direction of the wind, right? Obviously, if it's right in front of you, you stay right behind the rider that's in front of you. If the wind is from the left, then you inch over to the right.

Oh, OK. OK. So you just find-- this is why I say NASCAR. You find that sweet spot of where that draft is. And then, of course, that just gets multiplied. If there's one rider in front of you, you have a draft. If there are 100 riders in front of you, you're not even pedaling.

So Max, first, this sounds like-- it sounds lazy, first of all.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And diabolical, because you're exploiting the energy of the leader. So then why does anyone lead the race?

Because that's their job. Because their team leader may be behind them. So they may be a domestique, one of these servants, to go out the front, to take the brunt of the wind so the people behind, their team leader, can save their energy by slipstreaming.

Now, what if the servant wins? [laughter]

That's good. That doesn't happen, Scott. That doesn't happen.

  • Come on.

No, no, no. No one's ever gone rogue?

People go rogue on one day. But the next day, suddenly, they find they don't get out of the caravan. [laughter]

More Articles

View All
Sectional conflict: Regional differences | Period 5: 1844-1877 | AP US History | Khan Academy
From the very beginning of English settlement in North America, the contrast between the Southern colonies and the Northern colonies was stark. Things didn’t improve much when the 13 colonies rebelled in 1776 and became an independent nation. Tensions ove…
Squire, Edlyft, Promise: The Journey, Challenges, & Impact
My co-founder Dave and I didn’t have any history working in the barbershop industry or in tech for that matter. Both of us had been going to barber shops for years. I started going as a kid, around six or seven, with my dad. It was like 20 years later, an…
Your 15 Biggest Flaws YOU Can Capitalize On
If you could change one personality trait of yours, what would it be? Maybe it’s gotten you into trouble in the past; it’s left you feeling embarrassed or ashamed, and you wish it wasn’t a part of your character. We get it; okay, those flaws are frustrati…
15 Lessons Poor People Teach Their Kids
Poor parents can’t teach their kids how to be rich. Growing up poor, you receive plenty of counterproductive advice from people you look up to. Let’s see just how many of these you were taught. Here are 15 lessons poor people teach their kids. Number one…
How to finance a private jet
Will you take bank financing on the air? Correct. Okay, so that’s a key question because a bank, if they’re going to loan money to you, usually what they say is the term of the loan plus the age of the airplane should not exceed 20 years. So, meaning at…
Price discrimination for a monopoly | Microeconomics | Khan Academy
Let’s say that you own the only hotel that is in a city. For a wide variety of reasons, maybe all of the city council members are your friends or whatever else, no one else can build a hotel in the city. So there are insurmountable barriers to entry. In t…