Riders get the unfair advantage of a motorcycle from behind.

Physicists from Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands) and colleagues from Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and University of Liege (Belgium) discovered another way that professional cyclists use to gain an edge over their rivals, except for electric motors in a bicycle carriage and neodymium magnets in the rear wheel .

Scientists have conducted experiments in a wind tunnel and found that the motorcycle directly behind the rider reduces the drag force by a few percent . In time trials, where athletes share hundredths of a second, this can play a key role.

In professional cycling races next to cyclists there are always a lot of motorcycles, often very close to the athletes. These are reporters, photographers and others. Because of them, unpleasant incidents and accidents occur, as in the recent incident with the 25-year-old Belgian racer Antoine Demoitié, who died a month ago in a blockage on a Gent-Wevelgem road cycling race after driving a maintenance bike.
')


Now it turned out that motorcycles not only pose a threat to the lives and health of athletes, but also significantly affect the aerodynamic characteristics of the bike.

Specialists conducted a series of experiments in a computer simulation program and in a wind tunnel. It turned out that the decrease in drag of the air for an athlete is registered even if the bike is 10 meters behind. When reducing the distance, the effect is much stronger: for example, when the distance between the bike and the motorcycle is 25 centimeters, the drag force of the air decreases by almost 9%. At a distance of 10 km in the race with separate start it gives a gain of tens of seconds. At a distance of 60 km - more than two minutes.



If behind the cyclist there is not one, but three motorcycles, then the drag force can decrease to almost 14%.

Photos from the cycling race prove that motorcycles often ride at such a short distance from the cyclist. But even if the distance increases to ten meters, the driver can still save a second or two in the race with a separate start, even for a short distance.



Last year, researchers from the Eindhoven University of Technology calculated how much advantage a rider could give to a car that drives ahead. Now in the model of aerodynamic drag included a motorcycle behind the athlete.

Scientists have sent a recommendation to the International Cycling Union to increase the minimum allowed distance between a cyclist and a motorcycle during the race to 20-30 meters, which makes sense also for safety.