wheel brands are almost always dictated by sponsor obligations among the top pros.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

i think the bigger issue for many of them are the shockingly shitty parachute-like positions vs choice of wheels.

True, but I wish I could trade their bike times for mine!

Is this because if you're 5'4" your position doesn't matter as much as if you're 6'3"?

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/kj

http://kjmcawesome.tumblr.com/

No, but according to Steinmetz being short can make it harder to get in a great position.

I also wonder if something about head size, height etc makes it harder to not have your head sticking up above your torso.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

It always makes me feel better when you don't know the answer to a question I was going to ask:)

Jack,

I've always thought that women's heads were more massive in proportion to their body weight then men's but they lack the increased neck muscular associated with testosterone.......If that's true it would make it a lot tougher to ride laid out close to horizontal for 5 hours for a typical female just in terms of neck muscle tolerance.


Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

I always found holding the head lower to require less effort on the neck.

Just harder to see!

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Ha - I am 6'3 and my wife is 5'4. We were both fit by Retul in house fitters (pretty good fitters) and I'd say her position is actually a bit more aggressive than mine, or at the very least they are close. I always thought she had a git advantage because she is much more flexible than I am.

This is the position to AG winner Lisbeth Kenyon 45-49, bike 5.15 http://ttbikefit.com/blog/

It is a combination of height and long legs, long arms relative to short torso. If you can get a short athlete proportioned like that into a good position then the athlete probably has amazing flexibility and even then hard to hold for a full IM duration.

I'm surprised how few of them used their sponsor's deepest wheel up front. Rachel Joyce has a DA C35, Yvonne Van Vlerken is on an ENVE 3.4. It wasn't particularly windy this year, and these girls are all moving at least 22 mph on average, is there something else I'm missing here?

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Tim Russell, Pro Triathlete

Instagram- @timbikerun

With the weight of a few of the ladies having a deep front wheel could be dangerous with those winds. Granted it wasn't a "windy" year, but there was enough wind in spots to blow them around. For stability and handling of the light riders it made sense to go more shallow.

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Owner of a few Speed Concepts since 2011.

I bet a lot of men would kill to have Lisbeth's position. A perk of having a master fitter in the family.

BTW, I don't buy into the idea that women's proportions can't allow a super aerodynamic position. The fact that they are the best in the world doesn't automatically mean their position can't be improved. Some of the positions are limited by the fact it's hard to get elblows below the stem, speaking of which, it occurs to me that AX recently made a dropping stem that resembles a flaccid ... For others, it's just no excuse. There is 10-20 watts thrown away right there.

BTW, neck strength can be trained. It's not like all men are born with this.

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http://www.falcobike.com
https://www.facebook.com/falcobikeglobal
http://www.twitter.com/Falco_Bike
falcobike@gmail.com

you don't know how windy kona will be till you are out there.

and the drag difference between 404ish and 808ish wheels at pro women speeds is not big anyway.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

I'd say the issue with fit comes down to shorter riders on 700c wheels. Simply cannot get the bars down where they belong.

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The fact you can't afford it doesn't make bad. The fact you can doesn't make it good.

Unless she's on 650c wheels, she's also taller than some of the pro women. So, that plays into it a lot. Just about any female under 5'6" should likely be on a bike with 650c wheels. But, some sponsor commitments make that 'impossible'.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

Or, it's a lack of HTFU. Position is more than a good fit, it's also mentally focusing on holding that position. I drilled my mother to keep her head flush, and while I haven't yet managed to convince her to clean up the bike (nor to move the shifters back into her hands), at least the position is good. She held that for entire Ironmans:

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

Taller than pretty most women as I recall. And a pro for a long time.

It's certainly easier to get a good position for a rider who is 175-185cm, regardless of gender, than for a sub 170 rider. But that is where the fun comes in - fitter can be creative and find ways to work around.

For instance - Gina Crawford using a slamthatstem top cover with a -30deg stem and Felt Devox bars to get lower on a 700C bike.

It's not that small athletes can't get into great positions, but often it's the limitations in equipment and/or sponsorship obligations that prevent this.

Everything that is optimal for them, sounds so out there and extreme because it's not the norm...frame size, wheels size, crank length, power output, etc. You tell a female that is 5'2 riding 172.5 crank length that she should try a 160 (or smaller) it still sounds so odd to them. On ST, it's a no brainer to ride the shorter crank, but some are still lagging a bit in information or buying into the concept.

You also need to look who's influencing a lot of the female athletes. The "shut your brain off and don't listen to anyone but me" type of advisor, who has little knowledge in this area, is doing a disservice to their athletes. And, female athletes tend to gravitate more towards that style. Part of me wants to say that these professional athletes have no excuse to have a poor position when the "fixes" are out there and available to them...but, we all learn from different influences and perhaps the folks that athletes trust aren't up to par on this stuff?

Something else I've noticed is that a lot of woman tend to be more cautious than the men when it comes to position and equipment setup. I can look at the woman I've fit in this gallery and see where improvements could be made...it just comes down to whether or not I can convince them to try something different.

Helmets: If you take the smallest helmet a company makes, it's still quite large...throw it on a small female and it will look huge.

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Mat Steinmetz

51-SPEEDSHOP.com - instagram - @matsteinmetz - facebook

What if they just can't get comfortable in a better position for 112mi, or they put out so much less power that the drag savings weren't worth it? It's easy to point out the flaws when you don't have someone standing in front of you telling you their side of the fitting/positioning story and feeding you numbers. My Oly position was criticized as being too high when I posted photos, but the wind tunnel test showed that within a 3cm stack height band I didn't gain or lose anything, so I actually added height until I was comfortable. I had been riding the lower position for months, and struggled to keep my back from cramping at the end of a 30mi ride. It looked faster, but it wasn't faster, and power data and wind tunnel data validated that.

Quantitative data is worth more than qualitative data here. The eyeball wind tunnel doth occasionally deceive.

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__________________________

I tweet!

I personally fit the top 3 females and could still find improvements in all of their positions, so I'm not really being an armchair quarterback here. Take Rachel for instance, how is she going to get lower? Unless she switches to a 650 bike (can't because of a sponsor conflict with Shimano) she can't going any lower, so she is pretty much stuck where she is at until a new piece of equipment is available...ex. The new 48cm P3. Also, we are talking about professional triathletes...athletes that do this for a living. If they aren't trying to check all the boxes then they aren't doing their job to the best of their ability. So yes, it all matters.

And since you used yourself as an example, I would say that you at least tried another position and found that it didn't work for you.

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Mat Steinmetz

51-SPEEDSHOP.com - instagram - @matsteinmetz - facebook

But isn't it a coach's job to teach his trainees?

I'm not a coach, but after enough reasoning managed to get my 163cm mother from 172.5mm down to 165mm cranks. Sure, she could (and probably should) go shorter, but that was a huge improvement. Much reasoning later, and she also agreed to swap her 45mm rear wheel for something deeper - a disc (cover). It takes time to change engrained beliefs and habits, but if these women earn their living doing this sport, it seems trivial to get your equipment and position looked at by someone who knows this stuff.

Rinny gets a lot of flak for her upright position, but it doesn't seem that bad - not completely horizontal, but ticks most boxes and looks speedy. Her equipment choices are also mostly top-notch. Maybe previous photos of the more upright position were taken during climbs?

Yvonne's position screams for shorter cranks, but it's not until you get to Amanda Stevens that you start to see truly atrocious bike-fits.

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer