In the sport of cycling, it is the time trial that holds the distinction of being the most grueling event. Imagine crouching forward and pedaling furiously, keeping your heart at the red line for two hours. The time trial may be called the “race against the clock,” but a better description would be a “fight against the wind.” The riders start off one after the other and are timed—as opposed to racing in a group to see who finishes first.
It is the air, not the clock or the terrain, that is the most formidable adversary in a time trial, and to fight through it and lessen its impact, the racer lowers their teardrop-shaped helmet into the wind so low that it is a strain for them to see ahead. From this awkward, bent-over position, the rider struggles to produce the power to fight through the air, which is getting disproportionally thicker the faster they go. Wind resistance increases as a square of the speed. For example, a pro cyclist racing at 30 mph (yes, they can do that) is going only 1.5 times faster than a recreational cyclist at 20 mph but encounters 2.2 times the wind resistance.
This is why the racer is crouched so low, back as flat as a table, arms out front, hands together as if praying to Aeolus, the Greek god of the Winds. The rider’s clothing is stretched over their body like a superhero so it doesn’t flap or catch the wind. In every way they can, they try to reduce the coefficient of drag, including the hardware underneath them. The bike’s wheels have elongated rim sections. Frame members are streamlined, too, and have thin brake and shift cables tucked inside them. The only permitted accessory, a water bottle, is streamlined or held in a streamlined cage.
Riding a bicycle is not natural and having to ride in a time trial position is even less so. You learned to ride a bike sitting upright. Now, to lower yourself and hold that position for two hours—the nominal time of a common Tour de France individual time trial—is torture.
For a professional cyclist, torture comes with the territory. And the stakes are high. A difference of a split second will determine where you stand on the podium, if at all. Prize money in top races, like the grand tours of Europe (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España), is in the millions of euros.
For a professional rider competing at the highest level, spending $1,795 for a streamlined bar setup will not sound like a bad idea. That’s the cost of Predator Cycling’s recently introduced Custom Aerobar Extensions.
Aero Bars (Not the Chocolate Kind)
Professional cycling, like any pro sport, has its rules in terms of what equipment and technology can be used to enhance performance. Some of these rules, such as how much a bike should weigh, are based on safety. Others are not as easily explained. Such as the rule for denying the “praying mantis” position for riders trying to break the one-hour record.
Unlike most time trial bar extensions that bolt onto the handlebars, Predator Cycling’s bars are custom fitted to the rider and fused onto Predator’s bar setup. The extensions provide better control, taking the slop out of steering with a snug fit made for each rider’s forearm. A time trial bike, more than a standard road bike, is designed to go straight. Turning all but the shallowest turn means taking your hands out of the praying, streamlined position and holding on to grips further from the center. From piercing the air to hugging the wind. There go split seconds off your time. With a rigid and forearm-hugging extension of the bar, the racer can leave their hands and arms in the optimum air-piercing position—and still make turns.
There’s Aram in Trying
We last saw Aram Goganian, CEO and founder of Predator Cycling, at Autodesk University 2022 in New Orleans, in the Lenovo booth, where he was upstaged by the show-stealing bright yellow Aston Martin SUV. Once a bike racer, Goganian founded Predator and runs it from his heart—his love of cycling. The black, stealth frame, the handlebars shaped like a bird in flight—their shapes the result of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and structural analysis using Autodesk’s Fusion 360 and, of course, the Lenovo ThinkStation P620 workstation, is by now an old story.
Making It
The manufacture of carbon fiber parts is a messy, sticky, manual process. Carbon fiber in sheets dripping with epoxy are wrapped around a mandril and heated to make the tubular structures of a frame. The sheets have certain orientations of the fiber and care must be taken to ensure that the fibers are along lines of force. Fibers along the long axis take care of tension and compression, including forces from bending. Fibers around the tube prevent twisting. And sheets at 45 degrees for every other force. A sheet typically has carbon fibers in a cross weave, which accounts for the distinctive snakeskin pattern seen on the surface of the components in the photo.
Predator, however, has a more modern approach. It was six years ago that the company introduced 3D printing processes to their composite manufacturing.
“We are releasing new products with our improved manufacturing system in which we fuse 3D print technology with composites,” says Goganian. “Unlike other manufacturers utilizing traditional core materials as purely shaping cores, we’re using 3D print material to create internal surfaces and structural hybrid fusions, in which the cores and the external wraps work together to create substantially strengthened and measurable effectiveness for the end users. Imagine a 3D print ‘skeleton’ with the ability to fuse with carbon fiber for structural integrity rather than a traditional wrap of a solid core system."
“The technological accomplishments in design and AI modeling that Predator has incorporated in our manufacturing processes in the past two years has freed our internal design fantasies into becoming realities.”
About Predator
Predator has been in bike manufacturing for 16 years and is headquartered in Mount Juliet, Tenn., a suburb of Nashville.