Tom Davidson goes behind the scenes of the new medal factory on British Cycling’s doorstep
Standing inside British Cycling’s new wind tunnel, I’m immediately struck by how cold it is. I had readied myself for the force of the air, but as the engines begin to whirr and the turbine roars, an icy blast punches me in the face. My fringe, still wet from the Manchester rain, lifts off my forehead and points skywards. To my left, a lady scrambles to catch her lanyard, now flapping from her neck towards the fan at the back of the chamber.
The turbine spins to a halt. In front of us, Ed Clancy, three-time Olympic gold medallist turned test dummy, shivers as he steps off his Lotus track bike. “Can somebody pass me my jacket, please?” he asks, rubbing his hands together for warmth. We laugh and turn to fix our dishevelled hairdos.
This wind tunnel is British Cycling’s latest weapon in its quest for marginal gains. Valued at £1 million, the tunnel – which used to be the heart of the Boardman Performance Centre in Evesham, Worcestershire – was offered at a fire-sale price by previous owner, Halfords, and was snapped up by the governing body for just £1. Less than my bus fare there from the train station.
I’ve come to Manchester for a tour. My guide for the afternoon is Chris Hebert, British Cycling’s senior aerodynamicist and the only member of staff qualified to run the wind tunnel. The six or so of us walk along a corridor and through a set of double doors. Here, Hebert stops us. “No pictures,” he says. Suddenly I feel like Charlie Bucket, standing anxiously before the gates of the chocolate factory.
Hebert, who has swapped a top hat and cane for a branded polo shirt, leads us into the first room. It’s a small workshop. I recognise the belt sander and milling machine from my tech class at school. Where’s the glitz and glamour, I wonder. Where are the giant lollipops and chocolate river?
“The workshop is a critical part of tunnel testing,” Hebert says. “You come in with a bunch of parts that have been designed and carefully crafted. And then as you go, you’re like, ‘Well that was crap. Oh, this was good.’ And you combine things and redesign.
“Tunnel testing is expensive. You want to make the most of every minute that you’ve got in there.”
Going local
Efficiency, it turns out, is the operative word. For years, Britain’s top cyclists have travelled from their homes in Manchester down to Southampton to use a satellite wind tunnel.
Chris Boardman, the former Olympian who ran British Cycling’s research and development programme for almost a decade, says he travelled a week every month to the south coast, where he carried out some 20,000 tests.
When Boardman left his post, h
