Elbows on cups, shifters in hand, more reach and extensions angled up worked for me.

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What's your CdA?

Thanks

Are the elbows on cups and shifters in hand just a way to get the more reach ?

tilt and more tilt.....drops pads, elbows on pads, adjust reach out and seat forward a touch

Tilting the bars up seems to be the easiest way to do this.

Then the problem becomes what happens at yaw?

We're finding that >80% of the people are slower at -5, -7.5 & -10 yaws with the hands angled up in the tunnel. sometimes it's double figures worse which is a lot of watts to give away. We've been able to test this on 5-8 riders who have velodrome tested then tunnel tested. Almost all were slower with hands up as the yaw swept out. Probably nothing to worry about for those 5-6 w/kg guys since they are going very fast and not seeing higher yaw angles. Probably something to worry about for those 5:00 and slower riders though.

It's a tough question for sure. IDK what the absolute solution is. Most likely there isn't an absolute solution but a varied solution for every individual. Maybe you go up 5 degrees get some head down, the rider is more comfy and it's neutral at yaw or 2w worse. Do you go with comfort there? Maybe/probably actually. What if it's 5w worse at yaw? What if you don't start to see declines until you sweep past -5?

I'm not caffeinated yet so I suspect there are more issues around this I'm not thinking about. Those are just some first thoughts.

Hope that helps.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

Not a fitter, but going up 1cm gave me more comfort and better visibility which allowed me to put my head lower relative to the new position.

That helps a lot. In this case he is a > 5w/kg guy on sub 1hr TTs so seeing less yaw.
But after 3min his head comes back up. He can't hold it.

We are still in the processing of measuring everything and then deciding what to do. We know the impact of his head down and it's huge. We just need to figure out the cost of getting there. If cost < benefit, he's in a better place.

you're missing the point. Raising hands for the sake of raising hands isn't the objective. It becomes more apparent why this is important if you go through an iterative process on a dynamic fit bike.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

It's different for everybody and there's no one answer, but getting the head out of the wind is important. There are a lot of different ways, and it depends on the athlete. The best way to find out the answer is doing an iterative process on a dynamic fit bike, experimenting with the options, and waiting for the magic to happen.

Having said that, there are a lot of synergies that happen when you do certain things on a fit bike... sometimes a low head is a byproduct of something else seemingly unrelated.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

Why was he unable to hold it, that's the main question. Perhaps stretches/working on flexibility/core strength should be a focus for a while?

[pink]
Position a tv with favorite trainer material on it, or zwift, in the desired place.Positive reinforcement.

Or hit him with a stick if he pops up. Negative reinforcement.

[/pink]

Well my first response would be to ask why you are raising your head in the first place. It is dumb answer, but it starts the thought process for diagnosing the problem. Is it to see up the road? Are you arching your back because of saddle discomfort?

If your spine is basically flat, which requires decent hip rotation, then it should be nothing more than pulling the chin forward and looking up through your eyebrows. Sometimes some extra reach helps. Having my hands closer together than my elbows reduces neck tension...

I am going to guess it is a saddle problem. If you aren't going to commit to a new fit, try the following. Get some video form the side sitting on the trainer and look at your back. If it arches up in the middle, pull the saddle back and down 1cm each (maybe only 5mm, but 10 should be a big enough change that there will be a very noticeable difference), then tilt the nose down 5 degrees. Video again and look at how your back and head position changed. Also consider if the seat is more comfortable.

I'm like a broken record on this point. But my assertion is that the speed of the rider is a secondary factor in influencing what yaw angles are seen during a race. The primary factor is the speed and direction of the wind.

My case study is a TT I did on my district course. I averaged 29MPH with a considerable amount of time over 32MPH - kinda fast - 2nd place in the P12 TT at the SoCal district champs - but never saw yaw less than 5 degrees, and the distribution had two peaks at 10 and -10. (according to BBS, fwiw).

This wasn't with heavy wind - around 7.5MPH steady. Probably less at hand-height.

Granted, this is not a typical course, apparently. Because it's very different than what we saw from Flo, etc. But if you *know* your course is going to bring massive yaw regardless of how fast you think you are, it's useful to know about things like the effect of bar tilt on drag-at-yaw.

Edit: *almost* never yaw less than 5 deg. I see BBS put a sliver of lower yaw there.