Part of it is getting comfortable having your head pointed down a bit vs. having it tilted up enough that you can easily look down the road. You end up almost looking over the tops of your glasses to see down the road. This take a lot of pressure off of your neck (and even all the way down the back of your legs..it's all connected).

If you look at someone like Kienle, he's riding with his head pointing down quite a bit to keep his neck relaxed.

Lots of this:


Avoiding this:

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Hello pigpen73 and All,

Here is a fairly aero position that appears to prevent neck strain and avoid Shermer's neck syndrome.



However unless you memorize the course and have a team car advising you ......

Check out www.view-speed.com and Cyclops glasses to see where you are going with your head down.

I have used them in several Ironman races .... neck feels fine and you will go faster.

.

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Cheers, Neal

+1 mph Faster

Glasses with no top frame or a shield sometimes really helps. Smith Pivot locks are about the best choice IMHO.

Or no glasses at all. Save dem watts.

Oakley jawbreaker makes it comfortable to see the road with head down.

Sunglasses with top frame drive me crazy in aero. Can't keep my head pointed down with eyes looking ahead.

I really enjoy aero helmets with tinted visor for this reason

Thanks for the response.
Will look into these options.

Helmet without a "tail" is better if you look down. Many options out there.

Raise your armpad position 2cm.

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Anne Barnes
ABBikefit, Ltd
FIST/SICI/FIST DOWN DEEP
X/Y Coordinator
abbikefit@gmail.com

SLOWTWITCH HERESY!

BURN HER!

But I do not weigh the same as a duck!

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Anne Barnes
ABBikefit, Ltd
FIST/SICI/FIST DOWN DEEP
X/Y Coordinator
abbikefit@gmail.com

I have the same problem. Solutions are:

Rimless eyeware. I use the Tifosi Podium. If dropped, the lenses tend to break in half at the nose piece due to lack of frame. But they last a season or two.

Keep your head down and look over the glasses. Look often.

Also, I'm not 100% sure this is correct, but seems like switching from extensions to bullhorns often, for example riding in traffic and needing to be on the brakes a lot, I'm not sure but it seems like that makes the neck muscles more sore. Best to just stay in aero and not move around too much.

Tight fitting jersey that has no give or stretch to it (if anyone still has such a thing) also can cause muscle tightness and pain.

A super cheap option is to buy a pair of glasses from lowes by dewalt. I paid $8 for them 2 years ago. Rimless, light and easy to replace.

A bit of (regular) rehab on the neck goes a long way. If you can block your chin (I use foam, tennis ball is also OK) and do some reps chinning down. Also the chin tuck with back against the wall. There are several PT moves for "forward neck syndrome" - they all apply in this case.

It's simply not a neck friendly position - how could it be??

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Could be just because when there's a lot of reasons to switch to base bar there's also a lot of reasons to be looking up and this strains your neck.

I had that photo as my computer desktop for a long time. Awesome position.

After watching that very ride in the ToC a few years ago I adopted the "head down with occasional look up the road" method and found that it does help reduce neck soreness.

I talked to a chiropractor about neck strain from aero riding.

Seems there are two ways to look ahead from that position.

One is to curve your neck back -- that one hurts and stresses your back and neck.

The other is to pivot your skull (not neck) slightly at your jawline while leaving your neck in a neutral position. You do have to point your eyes up a bit, though. It takes some practice and patience to get used to, but this adaptation made riding aero a lot more comfortable.

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Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018

"After watching that very ride in the ToC a few years ago I adopted the "head down with occasional look up the road" method and found that it does help reduce neck soreness."

Great, just the kind of advice we need on this site -- not. You can probably get away with that in a TT where riders are sent off every 30 or 60 seconds but this is a tri site after all and that's a recipe for disaster in the much more crowded environment of a tri. Tri bike legs should be pretty safe events, but between squirrely slow riders that don't stay to the right and FOP riders whose handling skills don't yet match their engines and do stupid things like unsafe passes or overcooking it on turns, they are much sketchier than they need to be.

I'll be blunt: Don't be an idiot. It only reduces neck soreness until you impact a solid object.

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...g_death..._P4659686/

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____________________________________________
Don Larkin
Reach For More
http://www.reachformore.fit/
USAT Lvl1 Coach, NSCA-CPT, NASM-CPT, BS Exercise Science

Me too.
Drilled a small hole at the top to get a little air in, as they tended to fog up a bit.

Gee, thanks for the advice.

I was assuming the OP was sharp enough to understand what the look up the road was for.

Okay, I'll make it a bit clearer. In races that are over crowded or draft fests, you need to keep an eye on where you're going more often.

For most other events where everyone is going in the same direction at similar speeds, this can be an effective method to reduce neck soreness. Don't forget to look where you're going though.

That's a good tip. I think you can start with chin tucked, head back/neck in line with torso (as if standing against a wall). Then do the ever so careful, head rotation up - but still keeping the neck in line.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
FM Sports: http://fluidmotionsports.com

I have never been in a triathlon race that was safe to ride in that position.

Practice riding with your head down. My tip is using the white line as a guide. The white line should be run in between your right aerobar and your right brake lever. So when you ride, look up every 30secs or so then tip your head back down. When looking straight down, just keep the white line between the aerobar and brake lever and you know you are going straight.
Practice, Practice, Practice.

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Jeff Abbott - @run1fast
jabbott@headsweats.com
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