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@Dammit
I'm becoming more and more interested in this and thought it might be an idea to have somewhere to discuss how advances in our understanding of aerodynamics as it applies to bicycles can help us go faster/further/macho joke.
This is a good article about the basics by Chris Boardman and Phill Mosley.
This article (from BR) shows the results of back to back testing of road and TT parts
What is interesting there is that it makes it quite clear that you can "buy speed".
My Functional Threshold Power (what I can put out for an hour) is a frankly risible 270 watts, but with the full TT rig that BR test in the article above I could gain the benefit of an additional 60-70 watts, meaning that I'd see the equivalent of 350 watts FTP- that's a massive gain.
Of course, that figure is huge for me as a percentage of my FTP due to my power level being fairly low- for a stronger rider it's going to be a much smaller percentage.
But for two riders with an equal FTP, the one with a lower CdA is going to have a significant advantage- you only need to win by one second, after all.