At 0° yaw, the fastest road setup tested was the No.6 52/58 with 30mm tyres, requiring just 276.2 watts to hold speed.
For comparison, the Vision Metron SL60 setup required 284.9 watts, while the older No.6 Anniversary 50/58 Superlight setup required 285.0 watts.
Same speed, but nearly 9 watts less.
That is the part that matters. A saving of 8.7 watts against Vision and 8.8 watts against the No.6 Anniversary is not just a tidy laboratory number. For a racer, it means less energy spent in a breakaway, less fatigue before the final climb, and more speed for the same effort.
The hierarchy was clear:
Fastest: No.6 52/58 Superlight Aero
Third: No.6 42/48 All Round
Fourth: No.6 Anniversary 50/58 Superlight Aero
Fifth: Vision Metron SL60
The deeper 52/58 Superlight Aero also improved on the 42/48 All Round by 1.8 watts, which makes sense. The 42/48 remains the more versatile climbing and windy-condition option, but the 52/58 is the sharper tool for riders chasing speed.
The most interesting detail? The 30mm tyre setup was 1 watt faster than the narrower 28mm tyre setup. That matters because riders often assume wider tyres must be slower. In this test, the opposite happened. The 30mm tyre appeared to integrate well with the 52/58 rim profile, suggesting the rim and tyre were working harmoniously as a system rather than two separate parts.
*Data provided by Andy Turner, Sports Scientist and Performance Specialist - Tested at Silverstone on 27th April 2026 by ATP Performance. (atpperformance.uk/wind-tunnel-testing/)
There is also a separate piece of context worth mentioning.
In a separate wind tunnel test at the Silverstone Sports Engineering Hub, No.6 had already appeared in another wind tunnel story: Cyclingnews’ independent test of the Seka Spear, an aero road bike supplied with No.6 Anniversary 50/58 wheels. That was a different test, on a different occasion, and it did not involve the new 52/58s. But it matters because it shows where No.6’s aero development was already starting from.
In Cyclingnews' test, the Seka Spear was first tested with its supplied No.6 Anniversary wheels, then tested again with ENVE SES 4.5 wheels on the same frame. The result was close, but notable: Fitting the ENVE wheels added 1.24 watts of drag compared with the No.6 wheels.
That was an early sign that No.6 already had a competitive aero foundation. The latest 52/58 result shows where the development has gone since. At 0° yaw, the new No.6 52/58 with 30mm tyres required just 276.2 watts, saving 8.7 watts against Vision and 8.8 watts against the No.6 Anniversary. So this is not a direct comparison between the Seka Spear test and the new 52/58. It is a development story. The old platform was already competitive and the new platform moves the benchmark forward. That is the modern aero story: Not just deeper, not just wider, but matched properly.
The wind tunnel gave us the numbers.
The road gives us the proof.
No.6 was built to compete with the best, hypothetically, and in reality.
