Elite level cycling events are performed at speeds in excess of 50 km/h. At these speeds, over 90% of the resistance forces come from aerodynamic resistance (C D A). Recently bicycle-mounted pitot tubes, such as the Notio Konect (NK) have become more commercially available making C D A easier to measure. Its reliability and sensitivity would be useful for riders and coaches to be able to understand what constitutes as a change in C D A. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to establish the intra-and inter-effort reliability and sensitivity of the C D A measures of the NK. Seven elite level track riders were used in this study which was broken into two parts: (1) Reliability and (2) Sensitivity. For both parts of the experiment, riders performed identical efforts, riding at ∼50 km/h for six laps of a 250 m indoor velodrome. For reliability, the riders performed six efforts without any changes in position or resistance. For sensitivity, they performed the efforts with a rod with discs of a known diameters attached at each end to vary the C D A by a known amount. For the reliability assessment, low coefficient of variation of intra -(0.47%) and inter-effort (0.9%) reliability were measured. With regards to sensitivity, the smallest changes in resistance (from 5 -6 cm, i.e. 1.2% or 0.002 m 2 ) was identified by the NK. The data in this experiment suggests that the NK is a highly reliable in measuring C D A can detect changes up to at least 1.2% in an indoor velodrome using elite level track riders. Highlights. The Notio Konect showed high levels of inter-and intra-effort reliability.. The Notio Konect could detect a change as small as 1.2% in aerodynamic drag.. The findings suggest that the Notio Konect is suitable for detecting small changes in aerodynamic drag in a velodrome setting.

Wind tunnel experiments were conducted to assess the validity of the outdoor use two commercially available bicycle-mounted static pitot tubes (BMPT), viz the Notio KonectTM [NK] and AeropodTM [AP]. Three different experiments were conducted by comparing wind tunnel speed to the measured wind speed by both BMPTs. The sensors are tested, firstly, in a wide range of wind speed (8 to 20 m/s); secondly in a range of yaw angles (0° to 20°) and, thirdly, for three riders’ positions. The results show that both sensors require calibration to ensure that the measured wind speed matches that of the wind tunnel. After calibration at 14 m/s, the measured wind speed of the NK is within 0.22% over the velocity range up to 20 m/s. Instead, an error is present in the wind speed measured by the AP, which grows with the velocity offset to that of the calibration and reaches -2.51% at 20 m/s. Further both the NK and AP did not measure the wind speed accurately when yaw angles were introduced, this resulted in an error of 5.8% for the AP and 3.9% with a yaw angle of 20degrees. Besides, rider position influences the measurement of the wind speed for both the NK and AP. We concluded that both the NK and the AP are not suitable for outdoor testing when crosswinds occur. Furthermore, before every position changes, it is necessary to do a calibration run to collect accurate results.