05/09/2026
ACCIDENTAL AERODYNAMICS 🚴♂️💨
Before we had the technology, we had imagination… and occasionally, absolutely no idea what we were doing.
1990s triathlon.
That’s a motorcycle visor on my bike helmet.
It looks pretty aero now, doesn’t it?
The truth?
I wasn’t thinking about aerodynamics at all.
I sweated so much that wearing sunglasses meant I could barely see. So… motorcycle visor!
Problem solved🤣
And this was just the beginning.
My flatmate was busy building his own homemade aero front wheel ( pictured)
No wind tunnel.
No CFD ( Computational Fluid Dynamics)
No carbon engineers.
Just a couple of triathletes, some imagination and the belief that we could probably make it work.
Looking back, we may have accidentally stumbled onto a few good ideas.
Or maybe we were just making it up as we went along.
Either way, the 90s were fun.
Circa 1996 - winning my first 70.3 - National long course triathlon champs.
Finish time 3.48.08