How Much Time Will FLO Wheels Save Me?

Legacy Article: The data discussed in this article is taken from our previous generation of wheels.

The benefit of aero race wheels is that they reduce your overall drag and make you faster. In 2012, I wrote a blog article that discussed how much time you’d save by reducing your drag while traveling at speeds between 1-30mph. In that article I discussed how there is a common misconception that you have to be traveling at a certain speed for race wheels to be of any benefit. The truth is, that is false. In reality, the slower you go, the more time you save over a distance. That’s right, if you were to ride 40km at 30mph you would save less time then if you were to ride 40km at 20mph. While counterintuitive, the best explanation I can give is riding at slower speeds allows you to experience the benefits of reduced drag for a longer period of time since it takes you longer to complete the course.

Since I wrote the first article, we’ve released all of our new wheels and have updated our Net Drag Reduction Value formula based on our Data Collection Project. Today, I wanted to share all of the new time savings charts for each of our new wheels for relative velocities between 1-30mph.

Before We Start
Before we discuss the results, let’s first discuss relative velocity, and the math behind the time savings calculated below.

Relative Velocity

Before we get into the math, there is an important concept you should understand. This is relative velocity. When calculating drag, your speed is not simply the speed at which you are traveling on your bike. Relative velocity is the combination of the speed at which you are traveling on your bike and the velocity of the wind. This combination of velocities are known as the relative velocity. If you are traveling 15mph into a 5mph head wind, your relative velocity would be 20mph. If you were traveling 15mph with a 5mph tail wind, your relative velocity would be 10mph.

The Math Behind the Numbers

In the original post FLO Cycling – Cycling Wheel Aerodynamics – How Speed, Time, and Power are Affected by Reducing Drag, there is a detailed discussion of the math behind the calculations below. If you are interested please take a look.

FLO Carbon Clincher Wheels

FLO 45 Carbon Clincher – Time Savings between 1-30mph