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Factor has been everywhere in Adelaide and at the Tour Down Under. With teams in the women's and men's TDU, a new Ostro VAM, a stand in the expo, an eighth-anniversary bash on Wednesday, and finally, a presentation of their new track bike on Thursday evening, it's been difficult to avoid them.
That track bike is the Hanzo Track, developed explicitly for Australia's riders heading for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Its launch was a little strange, providing no actual technical details, stiffness numbers, nor aero data. The only insight we did get was that the bike is a pursuit-specific model developed in collaboration with AusCycling.
Its unveiling doubled up as the Factor & AusCycling partnership announcement, and although the bike was there to touch and feel, the actual details were not for sharing.
Not for sharing ... until after the Olympics, that is, which is a similar story to the pricing for this bike. Some talk this week suggested prices as high as $60 & $90,000. Regardless of the actual number, what is clear is that the pricing is just a workaround for the UCI commercialisation rule, which states all equipment must be available to purchase in a bid to ensure "fair and equitable access for all" to the latest tech.
Technically, the bike probably is available to order and, as such, is in keeping with the rule. But there are no team pursuit nations with 60-90K to drop per bike for their four- or five-rider team pursuit squads. And even if a nation does have that kind of money, you can be sure they've already got a similar partnership with another brand that's delivering a similarly - for all intents and purposes - exclusive bike. You can probably also expect to see that price drop as soon as the final medals are presented at the Paris Olympics.
In the meantime, while we may not be able to buy the bike just yet, we do at least have this gallery of Sam Welsford's national team pursuit bike to pore over.
We don't yet have any aero data, but the Hanzo Track certainly looks fast with some of the deepest tubes we've seen, innovative design concepts, and it was surprisingly light also ... for an aero-focused track bike, that is. The bike is clearly a relative of the road going Hanzo TT bike, but with the aero turned up to 11. We'll delve into our best guess at each of the design elements below.The Australian connection is clearly evident in the bike's fabulous First Nations artwork-themed paint job.The almost entirely external post concept is particularly interesting. It's akin to a bayonet or external fork steerer design, placing the post outside the frame and extending the air smoothening, drag-reducing surface area of the compensation triangle between seat tube and top tube quite considerably, while also satisfying the UCI's regulations on frame design. The result is a compensation triangle and seat tube combination, which is clearly much deeper than even the most aero of time trial or track frames. Clearly, it has also passed the UCI's frame approval process and my reading of the clever design work that makes both those statements true is that the uppermost section of the seat post clamping area is considered part of the top tube, while the angle on the leading and trailing edge of the lower section of the seat tube keeps the so-called aspect ratios or compensation triangle within the maximum permissible limits. Clever!The seat post and seat tube also feature a truncated rear, which should improve the flow off the frame.Yeah, that's a 64 tooth!You've two options when it come to fork design: go as narrow as possible to reduce frontal area or go as wide as possible to get the forks away from the rotating wheel and free up space for flow to pass between. It's pretty obvious which option Factor took. This is not, however, as wide as the forks on the Hope-Lotus bike adopting a different concept and attempting to reduce the drag on the rider's legs and thus the total system.Narrow-wide. For as wide as the fork legs are, the dropouts are exceedingly narrow, swooping in to meet a proprietary flat front disc wheel with a matching narrow hub.The wheels themselves are actually front and rear-specific, even beyond the sprocket mount on the rear. The front is a flat disc designed to be as narrow as possible, while the rear is lenticular aiding with flow over the rear.That huge compensation triangle is also pretty narrow and contrasts the wide-flared seat stays. Getting those seat stays as thin and low as possible is crucial in reducing aerodynamic drag on the stays.The external steerer/Bayonet fork and head tube design is also impressively narrow and ...... features some neat attention to detail, including a shark fin-like section following the curve of the front tyre and a small tip protruding forward of the lower edge of the head tube. That small tip may be an attempt to reduce drag-inducing high pressure in this region.That's a narrow head tube! The base bar mount and headset integration is identical to that featured on the road-going Hanzo TT bike.The extreme contrast from head tube to forks.Is it even an aero bike without a down tube front wheel cut out?Australian brand Sync Ergonomics provides 3D-printed and custom aero extensions. It may come as a surprise to some that the Australian team is prepared to rely on 3D-printed handlebars again after a failure in this area cost the team any chance of success in Tokyo. Speaking with the founder of Sync at the new Hanzo launch, there are no such concerns this time around as AusCycling has upped its spec requirements while Sync is confident in its increased load tolerances and testing procedures, plus the fact that the same extensions have been used countless times in road time trials with much greater stresses for a few years already.The only actual difference between these extensions and the road extensions, as used by Luke Plapp and Tadej Pogačar to name but two, is that the base of the track bars is specifically optimised for the much lower yaw angles typically found on the track.Sync also developed the arm/elbow rests. While the design may offer a little flow control diverting flow around the rider, the main design goal was to ensure a wide open space for riders to quickly and easily drop into after the initial out-of-the-saddle standing start is complete.The 3D-printed base block to which the extensions are mounted aids in building more reach into the Hanzo's combined mono-riser and fork steerer concept.Aero bar ends and grip tape for that all-important start.Welsford's bike features this 3D-printed saddle with rider-specific variable density cushioning developed specifically for the Australian Institute of Sport and unique to each rider. The saddles first appeared during the Toyko Olympic cycle and despite looking something akin to a torture device, clearly the riders like them as they are still using them.The saddle also features this tail, which extends the length of the saddle and is presumably designed to double up as an aero aid helping the turbulent air coming off the rider and bike to reattach for smoother flow behind the rider and thus reducing drag.The saddle mounts directly onto the seat tube, removing the traditional bulkier saddle mount presumably offering a slight weight saving and perhaps an aero gain.
