First brought to our attention by the ever-observant Cycling Spy, it appears Belgium’s Wout van Aert is testing an unorthodox time trial bike setup involving solid disc wheels both front and rear. This should have aero advantages, mirroring the setup most often seen on track bikes. With only a few days until the start of the Paris Olympics, and a gold medal on the line, the multidisciplinary rider is clearly looking to eke out any advantage over his competitors in an effort to secure a medal.
Van Aert’s Cervelo P5, a bike that has recently been updated with some minor tweaks to the seat cluster along with wider tyre clearance, has been stripped back to raw carbon almost entirely in order to save weight - paint over a whole bike can often run into the hundreds of grams - which is even more of a factor when running a solid front wheel.
The time trial course for the Paris Olympics is more or less entirely pan-flat, though twisty in places. The added inertia of the front wheel could make it more tricky to manoeuvre, and will certainly make the front end feel stiffer, but it’s likely the gains are well-studied and worth the trade-off in the team’s eyes.
In Belgium's press conference on Thursday, Van Aert explained that riding double disc wheels was an option and it wasn't his first test with the setup.
“I did not come to Paris to test some material. For sure it is an option. It is something we prepared since a while already. I think it is super fast, but it needs the right circumstances to be able to have it on the bike. So, it will be a decision we make only on the race day," Van Aert said.
“It mainly has to do with the wind. You need to still be able to handle the bike. But me and my team thought a city circuit is not really exposed to the wind. And actually, I was happy when I saw the course. It was all quite covered. It might be a good option.
"It is a super fast course. There are only fast corners and really high speed. But I was also surprised about the surface. Not everywhere was as good as you would expect for such a big event."
The wheelset in question is the Reserve Infinity Disc Turbulent Aero, a wheelset designed specifically for Visma-Lease A Bike, but to our knowledge, it is yet to be used by the team. It costs $4899, so perhaps is only rolled out for special occasions. Van Aert interestingly has his rear valve uncovered in the images we’ve seen, so he may be experimenting with tyre pressure for the course to fully optimise his setup. According to the Reserve Wheels website, “Wind tunnel tests show a negative drag coefficient of the front disc, which means once you have the wheel rolling, it's actually pulling the bike and rider forward.”
As ever, it pays to dig through the comments on Instagram, and a comment from a user stating that “I‘m gonna be disappointed if Tarling doesn’t rock up with this set-up” has been liked by none other than Dan Bigham, perhaps hinting that Van Aert might not be the only rider we see with a double-disc setup for the big race.
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