CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

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Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7793
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

Post by Velocomp »

To get the most accuracy out of AeroPod, your bike needs to be properly maintained.

I found out the hard way that my bike had a bit of play in the fork tube. How did I find out? When I did sprints, my AeroPod CdA values changed. Not possible...but my ride files showed a 0.1% increase in slope during sprints, even though there was no change in topography!

I eventually found the cause...check out this video.

https://youtu.be/HeDIzME2e84
John Hamann
mir
Posts: 94
Joined: Fri Jul 26, 2019 5:43 am

Re: CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

Post by mir »

Hi John,

This is easy fixed. untighten the stem bolts and tighten the screw on the top of the fork which then will press the spacers down securing the fork ;-)

Tools required: 4 or 5 mm allenkey and a torque wrench.
Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7793
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

Re: CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

Post by Velocomp »

Yup, got it fixed yesterday. Local bike shop did it for free!

It was easy to do, but many things are, after you know what to do!
John Hamann
ChrisW
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 03, 2016 4:21 am

Re: CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

Post by ChrisW »

FYI, it's normally called a steering column not a fork tube and we'd normally say that the play was in the headset (i.e., the bearings) and not in the steering column (you'd have a serious problem if that wasn't rigid).

I wanted to reply to your YouTube video, but comments are disabled there.
SoaringBear
Posts: 25
Joined: Sat Jun 20, 2020 8:53 pm

Re: CdA: the importance of a properly maintained bike

Post by SoaringBear »

I agree. It happens. I recently found that my headset was not tightened all the way and had play in it. I took the fork out, cleaned everything out and regreased the bearings. Much better now. The root cause of the looseness was that I hadn't sufficiently tightened screw at the top of the fork as mir said.
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