Lessons of a Wind Tunnel Dummy

When Zipp engineers head to the wind tunnel, they bring Jonathan Jacob along as their favorite test rider. Jonathan, or JJ as everyone calls him, is a SRAM employee and two-time national champion bike racer. You could also call JJ Zipp’s unofficial wind tunnel test dummy, as the model rider when Zipp goes to the wind tunnel. JJ embraces the role, spending more than 10 hours as in the wind tunnel in just the past four months alone.

In this episode of the Zipp Speed Podcast, Zipp content manager Dan Lee sits down with JJ and Zipp senior design engineer John Leachman to discuss lessons learned from all those hours in the tunnel. JJ breaks down what he can apply from the tunnel to time trialing, his specialty. John then explains how the wind tunnel is still a crucial tool in wheel innovation even as Zipp does more real-world testing and Rolling Road testing to realize speed gains through decreased rolling resistance and other factors.