Best way to handle commuting with a rucksack

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Darkstar
Posts: 20
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 7:58 pm

Best way to handle commuting with a rucksack

Post by Darkstar »

This is similar to another thread from last year, but different enough to be worth asking.

I ride what is basically the same route from home to work & back, but sometimes it's for exercise/training & sometimes it's the way to get from A to B. On the latter I often have a significant sized rucksack (10-15 litres & up to about 5kg in weight)
Distance is about 34km & there's about 500m of climbing in the downhill version of the route.

I'm curious about the effect of a 6-7% increase in bike weight might be (plus the effect on the CdA of having a parachute for the faster sections), but that currently stops short of doing a full profile calibration with the rucksack load on board!

Can I just duplicate the profile & add a bunch of Kg to the rider weight? Or should I add it to the bike weight?
Should I tweak the CdA at the same time? (is it different if I add weight to a different component of the total weight?)

I've not got an aeropod/way to easily measure CdA so if someone wants to throw a best guesss in here that would be good :)
Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7803
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

Re: Best way to handle commuting with a rucksack

Post by Velocomp »

1) Yes, you can duplicate the profile and add weight in the Edit Profiles command.

2) It's likely that your rucksack adds drag. My "GUESS" is about 10%. You can update this in Edit Profiles, too.

3) You're correct that AeroPod would be able to quantify the change :-)

4) If you have multiple profiles for the same bike, you'll need to switch manually between them.
John Hamann
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