> The tests showed that shaving his legs reduced Thomas’s drag by about 7 per cent, allowing him to exert 15 watts less power and still go at the same speed. In theory, that translates to a 79-second advantage over a 40-kilometre time trial that takes about one hour.
Shaving reduces the drag, but the originally study measured the reduction around 0.6 percent while this one found a 7 percent reduction. So, about 10 times bigger than anticipated.
When I read this "Even more confounding was that the results contradicted earlier findings" it totally colored my reading of the article. (Emphasis mine.)
Shaving reduces the drag, but the originally study measured the reduction around 0.6 percent while this one found a 7 percent reduction. So, about 10 times bigger than anticipated.