Density matters

I saw a question today from someone who read recent comments about how high air pressure resulted in Brad Wiggins' hour distance being less than it might otherwise have been with more favourable conditions.

He was wondering if you can control air pressure in velodromes, or choose a time of year when it is lower. So can we do that?

Climate control

While there are velodromes where the inside air temperature is controllable (mostly northern hemisphere tracks located in cold climates), the control of air pressure is not something possible at any currently existing track that I'm aware of.

It would require quite a deal of engineering, in particular to provide an air lock / sealed environment that enables lots of people (and service vehicles) to enter /exit the building without affecting inside pressures and which meets emergency evacuation requirements for a large crowd, as well as fresh air to breathe. I don't see that happening any time soon.

Air locks do exist, e.g. at Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico they use an air pressure differential to support the roof, but that means the air pressure inside the velodrome needs to be higher than outside. Not by much, but it will always need to be higher relative to local weather conditions, and inside the velodrome air pressure will still vary relative to outdoors.

So what about picking a better time of year?

Well let's look at the daily barometric pressure readings near London for the past three and a half years. Source for these charts is the National Physical Laboratory in the UK.

Barometric pressure London Jan-Dec 2012

Barometric pressure London Jan-Dec 2013

Barometric pressure London Jan-Dec 2014

Barometric pressure London Jan-June to date 2015

Looking at the above, it's pretty clear there is no obvious pattern to suggest a time of year when barometric pressure will be, on the balance of probabilities, lower.

Air density is what matters.

Air pressure of course is not the only variable. What really matters is attaining as low an air density as is physiological sensible. Air density along with a rider's aerodynamics, ie. their CdA, determines the energy demand for riding at a given speed, and lower air density is desirable for greater speed, provided of course the means to achieve that lower density doesn't reduce a rider's power to the extent performance ends up being worse. e.g. by riding at such high altitudes or temperatures that the rider's power output is compromised to a greater extent than the air density benefit provides.

Air density is a function of:
- air temperature
- barometric pressure
- altitude
- relative humidity

You can pretty much discount the latter as the changes in air density is very small with changes in humidity, although for the record humid air is slightly less dense than dry air (at same temperature, pressure and altitude).

Air density reduces with increasing temperature and altitude, and with reducing barometric pressure.

Since attempting to reduce air pressure either via climate control or by picking suitable times of year is not really an option, that leaves us with adjusting the other two variables - temperature and altitude.

I've discussed altitude before in this item. I'm going to revisit it in a future post in an attempt to simplify the impact of the variables involved.

Heating the air inside a velodrome is common, and this was attempted with some powerful portable heating devices during Jack Bobridge's unsuccessful attempt earlier this year, and in the case of attempts at most northern hemisphere tracks, the temperature has been dialled up to the rider's desired level.

Wiggins did specific heat acclimation work and reports are the temperature inside the velodrome was around 28-30C. That's pretty warm - going too hot can be detrimental as power losses can occur with inadequate cooling. As I said earlier, it's a balance between a physical benefit and a potential physiological cost.