Winds of
change
Despite the incredible success of British Cycling over
the last decade, the UK has never had a dedicated
wind tunnel facility. Imagine what could lie ahead
now there is one. Tom Austin-Morgan reports
Despite the incredible success
of British cycling over the last
decade, the sport has never
had a dedicated wind tunnel
facility in the UK. That has become
a thing of the past, thanks in part to
legendary cyclist Chris Boardman MBE,
the British former racing cyclist who
won an individual pursuit gold medal at
the 1992 Summer Olympics, broke the
world hour record three times, and won
three stages and wore the yellow jersey
on three separate occasions at the Tour
de France.
Sports Aero Solutions, a joint venture
between high-performance design and
engineering company KW Special Projects
(KWSP), CFD consultancy TotalSim and
bicycle manufacturer Boardman Bikes,
has now seen its goal of designing and
opening the UK’s fi rst cycling-specifi c wind
tunnel come to fruition.
The 18,000ft2 Boardman Performance
Centre in Evesham, Worcestershire,
was opened to the public in April 2018
and aims to service both professional
athletes, as well as ‘enthusiastic
amateurs’. Alongside the wind tunnel, the
facility also incorporates a retail store,
a biomechanics suite and a physiology
suite. With prices ranging from £150 to
£695, depending on how in-depth you
want to go with your session, it offers
cyclists of any ability the chance to benefi t
from access to processes previously only
available to elite-level athletes. “Legend
has it,” explains Keiron Salter, managing
director, KWSP, “that Chris Boardman
said: ‘What we need is a wind tunnel
that you could use for the price of a curry
to do some testing’. He must be eating
expensive curries, but that’s how it was
formed back in 2012.”
Shortly after this, TotalSim was brought
in to help with airfl ow and aerodynamics.
KWSP was later called in to provide
engineering support, control systems,
electrical integration and software
development. It took a further fi ve years
to fi nd a customer that wanted to build a
world-class easily accessible wind tunnel
facility specifi cally for cyclists. Boardman
used his contacts at Boardman Bikes,
which has been a fully-owned subsidiary
of Halfords since 2014, to make the
investment in a new facility at Evesham.
“We started the design and installation
of the Evesham tunnel in November
2017,” says Salter. “The main structure
and the air line was built and shown to the
public in April, so the actual construction
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