We all know that a drafting/slipstreaming rider does up to 35% less work than the rider on the front. But is that front rider actually working harder than if he were riding solo?
A solo rider has to break a hole in the air ahead of him, but then it seems to me that the air closing in behind him would give him a fraction of that force back. With someone drafting him, the air stream would not close behind him but behind the drafter, so it looks to me as if the drafter gets the benefit of the broken airflow, while the rider on the front loses the (much smaller) benefit of the closing airflow.
That would mean that a "wheel sucker" is actually taking something from the rider he latches onto.
Is that crazy?
A solo rider has to break a hole in the air ahead of him, but then it seems to me that the air closing in behind him would give him a fraction of that force back. With someone drafting him, the air stream would not close behind him but behind the drafter, so it looks to me as if the drafter gets the benefit of the broken airflow, while the rider on the front loses the (much smaller) benefit of the closing airflow.
That would mean that a "wheel sucker" is actually taking something from the rider he latches onto.
Is that crazy?