Energy methods for analyzing drag and inertia in cycling kinematics

Abstract

A model was developed for measuring the drag and effects of inertia for a cyclist during a race. Professional cyclist data from the Tour de France was acquired for several athletes. The data contained elevation, distance, velocity, and power as a function of time. Rolling resistance, drag, inertial energy, and potential energy were then evaluated. An integral energy equation relating these terms to input power was developed. This is much more stable numerically than differential equations in the power and force equations. This formula gave excellent agreement with the theoretical assumption that inertial effects are negligible. Additionally, the measured drag agreed with wind tunnel results. This work is the first to extract drag data from a cyclist during actual race conditions. In the future, this evaluation of drag variation coupled with energy equations could lead to optimizing cycling strategy.