There is a lot more possible than what is shown in those photos!

I thought I had long humeruses or something, making it literally impossible for me to get my neck down close to my elbows. But when I really thought about it, it was because I got narrow by pulling my shoulders in and down. That sort of posture requires a lot of drop (or reach or both) to make the torso level. When I tried higher pads (like 10cm higher) and tried to "get low and narrow" in that position, it all clicked. Shoulders forward rather than down, head and neck low, hands at chin level (actually less reach than before). ~6% CdA drop, which is huge. And if I raise my neck and pull my shoulders down, I can "sit up and beg" too without changing my contact points.

Some of you may have read it already but if not, TriRig just posted a very relevant article detailing the results of Matt Russel's trip to the wind tunnel on his new Omni.

Definitely go and read the whole thing but here is the summary of their results for high hands:

Quote:

This isn't to say we've discovered a "rule" for tilt angles. Just the opposite. We've found that for this individual rider, on this rig, 5 degrees was good, 10 degrees was bad, and 15-17.5 degrees was excellent. So what's the advice for the age grouper who can't run these tests in a tunnel? Do whatever is most comfortable. That will likely be the most powerful position, even if it isn't the fastest.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
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This is the conclusion I’ve come to with my fit philosophy and practice. I’ve conceded that Desert Dude is right, high hands at yaw is not always best, but I’ll take the hit for the comfort and other downstream effects.

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Glad you guys saw the article! I tend to agree with you Eric, but thought it was well worth clarifying that it's not necessarily an aero panacea the way some people think. It turned out that for our rider, it was a very good thing, but only when we found the correct angle(s) of tilt.

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Thanks for testing that and for sharing! in the OP I linked to an article on Jim's blog where he found 15º to be money and if you watched the Live last night Eric and Brian mentioned how 15º was best for Eric's position too. FWIW, I happen to be at 15º as well......trend?

Nevertheless, it's not merely about tilt and i'm curious if you have the 5º and 15º profile and head shots from the same perspective that you might share? Looking through the gallery there isn't a good comparison between 5º and 15º, at least not that I am seeing.

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How high of an angle did you test up to?

The chart says 17.5º ;)

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Maybe I misread it I thought he said they found their best results between 15 -17.

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Ok, but why not test higher then.I am well aware that the alpha x and alpha one limitations are somewhere in that 17 1/2 degrees range but if we're truly chasing the best position aerodynamically why not try another option or do we get into a whole other discussion about sponsorship.

You must be from Murica! MORE, MORE, and MORE!

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It's a logical question. If you saw that it was good at 5 and then you hit a dead zone till you hit 15 maybe you hit another Dead zone from 17 to 20 but what about 20 to 25 I'm not saying it would be comfortable but don't discount that there might be gains to be made there just because you don't like the thought of going higher.

This was from 8-9 years ago, there's a sweet spot for sure.

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So much going on here...

Firstly, I'm not discounting anything but tunnel time is super expensive. San Diego is more than A2 and you're talking $10/minute at the latter. So, yeah, would it be cool to go out to 30º rise, sure....but why? What is there to be gained? If it's not comfortable than why even try it. If one thing I learned last night is that right angles work. I might have not seen it before, but damn if it wasn't there all along. So, as you mention it not being comfortable why even look at it if you can't use it when it will cost you a boat load of cash to see.

I don't dislike or like anything in terms of fit. I have and am willing to try different things, I don't adhere to any dogma or orthodoxy and move in a direction that I am curious about if I think it might benefit me. Also, I don't discount any thing, but what I do know is I tried very high hands, aka Mantis style and it was very, very unsustainable.

But who knows maybe Xavier will chime in as I am sure he has tested the angles you are looking for.

To be clear we are talking pad angle and not hand angle. for reference my pad angle is 15º and my hands sit ~22º

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Might is the keyword. It might not be comfortable it might be comfortable. And I understand budget that's for sure.

And yes we are talkin Pad angle.

Yeah that's a big point to keep in mind. Your effective arm angle depends on the extensions used, and how you're holding them.

We tested what we could, on the day, with the time available to us. In the future, I'd love to indeed test more hand angles, by way of different extension shapes (since, as others have mentioned, we maxed out the Alpha One's range). I also wanted to play with his pad stack just a bit, but alas we ran out of time.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

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We are talking hands here, correct? If so, that's a great data point there that perhaps answers Fishbum a bit.

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Yep, back in my triathlon days so didn't care/know to measure pad angle (although the bars we used were clip on profile designs, so everything was tilting together)

*plenty wrong with that trip to A2 (i think there is a thread on it deep in the forums where we point out some of it) so of course nobody take any gospel from it, except that a few degrees can matter quite a bit.

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We’ve done aero testing (wind tunnel/indoor/outdoor velodromes) on over 750 riders now. It is very individual and there is no magic bullet in terms of arm angle. We had a rider who’d had a session with us before come and spend 2hrs just on arm angle once as he was concerned that he didn’t have it right, and dead flat arms was faster for him every time we retested it.

Our head of engineering is a triathlete - this is his position:

https://www.instagram.com/...;igshid=w99ioxj16jsm

And any higher than that is slower on him. Conversely we have a sponsored road TT rider and higher is better for them (as high as he can ride comfortably is what we settled on without it making the bike twitchy - in the UK we don’t have a tilt limitation under our TT rules). Just be wary of a one size fits all philosophy, aerodynamics is individual as there’s a lot more going on in terms of the airflow at the front end than just “arm angle”. Your shoulder width, helmet choice, upper arm angle, knee location (ie how close/far away your knees are from your elbows) and aerobars all have an impact.

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Embedded pic of Andy:

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Thanks for chiming in, I was half joking when I tagged you. ;)

In regards to higher hands, one thing I have taken away from talking with Eric, and having Dan analyze what it is we are trying to accomplish, is that our angles remain ~90º. Which is something that Dan has found athletes to gravitate to for comfort and support over the long haul. Your Chief Engineer has a larger angle than that and I wonder how sustainable your athletes have found that larger angle over multiple hours? e.g. during 12 hour TTs or IM

It has been mentioned many times in this thread and Eric made a good point the other night of describing what he has found beneficial (and I have too), is that stretching out permits the shoulders to elongate and pull forward narrowing and reshaping them. Now, we are both assuming that this is helping in Cd. And the raising of the hands in concert with increase in reach is really done to maintain the aforementioned right angle to support that added reach. The conclusion, or at least the hypothesis, here is that the benefit in terms of drag reduction comes from the shoulders being reshaped and not the hands being higher. In other words, the hands being higher are a consequence not a prescription for the reduction......wow this is a long winded way to ask a question....Does AeroCoach raise hands with no further changes or are the high hands a result of a positional change in terms of pad stack/reach?

FWIW, I find it hard to hold my shrug with level arms if I maintain my reach. I have yet to reduce my reach to see if this allows me to shrug as effectively.

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Interesting graph.

5° tilt is OK
10° tilt is worse
15° tilt is very good
17° tilt is even better (apart 15° yaw)

Question is : why this curve go down (from 5° to 10°) then up again ?

5° OK because fore-arms flat ?
10° not OK because fore arms not flat (more drag at the fore arms) and not yet synergy with the head/rest of body ?
then
15° and 17° generate more drag on the fore-arms, but synergy with head / arms / shoulders / torso ? And this synergy deliver global gain ?

Something to think about and a question for guys like Xav and Brian who have seen a LOT of people get aero tested.

What % of folks do not reduce their drag by "turtling" / shrugging / whatever term you use. Any? I ask because in my (obviously much more limited) experience that's the "big" gain in most people's tunnel data. The problem is, "turtling" generally isn't natural and unsustainable from the position they are in.

If practically everyone sees a drop in drag by turtling, then that's much different than things like hand height/position, stack, reach, etc... it's a constant benefit. (again, making assumptions)

*if* it's a net gain across the board, doesn't that mean that, especially outside of formal testing, we just put our cockpit in a position that puts the head in a "natural" turtle and make everything else a compromise to that end? (if need be)

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Now that I've seen a few results regarding forearm angle (and my own recent position change and testing) I'm see a trend regarding how it works. If the head/neck/ shoulders are scrunched down, getting your face near the pads, then bringing your hands up enough to close off the gap (hands up at least to chin level) is usually beneficial. This position has little drop from saddle-pads, and shoulders are up, forward, and in. If on the other hand the rider has more drop, with shoulders pulled in and down, the distance from his elbows to his face will be greater. It would take a lot of forearm tilt to close the gap and even then it would probably be ineffective, because the "parts" of the system are too far from each other (ineffective drafting and streamlining). In that case level forearms will have the least drag.

Thoughts?

^^^ yep, I think this is important too.