Aerodynamic Wheel Disks - For your Bike

Looking for a little edge in the aero department? Aero wheels are the way. These wheel disks cost less than $2 each.

Step 1 Gather Materials

Here's what we used

A sheet of an unknown plastic. It was thin, very flexible and appears not to be very brittle. But more importantly, it was $1.75 for a 2' square sheet. I love surplus.

You will also need a cutting device - we used a jig saw with a fine metal blade.

A stiff backing - we used some scrap foam - this makes cutting easier

A Sharpie

Measuring Tape

String

Sand Paper

Caliper

Comments

[chrisinsweden]

Your fairing looks amazing and reminds me of the light aircraft I built -absolutely the best thing I have ever built or will build. Some details would be much appreciated. Thanks, Chris.

[Simond157]

I Ride a Hi Performance Hybrid my wheels obviously are 700 or 27 inches im thinking of installing paneling but only for half of the lenght of my spokes using coroplast material the look is sand blasted half way will let the wind go trough and give me a fast edge at the same time, thanks for the instructions about

measurment cutting and sanding i have 24 spoke criss cross patern wheels im woudering how to fix or secure the panels to the spokes and it got to have aestetics no zip ties so anny ideas or suggestions ? Im thinking of using stacks of coroplast square stuck with epoxy and to unify both sides using velcro so yeah anny ideas?
Thanks
Simon.

[shooby]

I've been looking into doing this for a while, but I have a pet girlfriend who doesn't like power tools in the apt ($$$ and noise, what a wacko!). If possible, I'd like to see a photo or a description of attaching the wheel to the rim. The velcro sounds good, non permanent and simple. Any problems with this so far? One idea I had was to include 'tabs' around the edge of the discs, which extend over the edge of the rim, fold at the rim, and are clamped down by the inflated tires. The plastic would have to be pretty thin though, and you'd want the visible edge of the disks to come all the way up to the tire.

[Robotrix]

hahah meat person! i'm curious as to what your other drivers are made of.

[trebuchet03]

hehe, in our computer model, we have lego guy (just because his head is a cylinder and his body is boxy).... All of the riders are 100% meat people - that tend to not look like our lego man model :)

[Ezza]

Sweet. When I have a spare road bike I will try this. But I can't use my main bike because I ride where there are strong crosswinds and I already nearly get blown off the bike!

[ironsmiter]

Last picture in the post shows him, in his fully faired bike... upright riders probably shouldn't be using this type of device... If you're lucky enough to know someone in the music industry (drummer, drum repair shop, etc.) Loose drum heads with "hub holes" also work if your wheels are the same size as the heads. Added bonus that they're tough as nails, stretchable(to a degree), and old beat-up heads can be had for almost-to-completely free. Just have to make sure to get a Head rim size to match your wheel rim size :-)

[trebuchet03]

Uprights can benefit from having full or partial aero wheels ;) Especially on terrain without high grade slopes (where the weight penalty overcomes to the aero advantage). I like the drum head idea :)

[mje]

Fully faired rear wheels can make some improvment on an upright. But don't used faired front wheels! Very dangerous. Once the wheel starts to turn the airstream will force it to turn more.

[trebuchet03]

This is especially true when you have large wheels -- we're not too worried as we're dealing with the front wheels of a trike with a pretty wide track distance. It's a whole lot of fun taking high speed turns in the thing, no problems at all : But the steering design makes the wheels want to track forward, so it will take quite a bit of force to bring those wheels out of control :p

[ironsmiter]

Do these really make that much difference to your fully faired bent? I there is only the one image, but I expect there's not a whole lot of your wheels showing to the wind to begin with.. Can't wait to see a build instructable for your LWB USS Bent :-)

[trebuchet03]

No, ideally - only the very outer edge of the wheels will be exposed... The fairings just keep the air stream moving around the vehicle instead of going into the vehicle. It's a SWB 'bent tadpole trike :)