Hunt Wheels to broadcast live wind tunnel testing on social media

Hunt Bike Wheels will be broadcasting live from their Facebook and Instagram accounts from 1pm today, as they take to the Airbus wind tunnel in Southern Germany to test disc brake wheelsets. 

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​The UK brand want the public to see behind the scenes of their testing procedure as well as answering questions about what they hope to achieve, "unheard of in the bike industry" according to Hunt. The testing session will exclusively focus on aero optimisation of a new disc wheelset, as although discs have become hugely popular, even surpassing their rim counterparts in some sectors, Hunt say they are yet to receive the same level of attention in the wind tunnel.  

A big area of scrutiny will be tyre choice. Hunt's Chief Engineer Luisa Grappone says: "The tyre pattern, the width and shape in fact have great impact on aerodynamic drag and even using 2 different tyres of the same brand model can change the wind tunnel test results when differences in rim shape are small. This is why, during the design phase, our focus was not just on the rim shape but also on the global system of the tyre plus rim. We designed our prototype considering a particular tyre model and our aim was to obtain the best aero rim shape around that particular tyre, but we will soon test a wide range of tyre models from different manufacturers and compare the wind tunnel tests results with our selected reference tyre."

Hunt will use Schwalbe's Pro One Tubeless tyre, regarded as one of the fastest tubeless options, and design a wheelset that is aerodynamically optimised for it in a 28mm size to create "the ultimate aerodynamic package for the modern rider". The wheels and tyres will be mounted to Canyon Aeroad frames throughout the tunnel testing process.  

What's more, our Tech Editor Mat Brett is out with Hunt at the moment watching it all unfold and getting finer details about the R+D process with Grappone. The testing will start broadcasting live on Hunt's Instagram account at 1pm GMT, and on Facebook Live from 1.30pm GMT. Over the coming months we'll be following up on the new wheels from development up until they go on sale, projected for Autumn/Winter 2018. Keep an eye on the site for more... ​