thanks.


https://www.facebook.com/...p;type=3&theater


From the front, full race kit. Need a better fitting suit. And shoulder 4inches narrower.

i'll let you post that one, it's really...really easy.

Any tips on how to keep head always low and still see enough of the road to not crash?

do you raise the head frequently for few time to see what's ahead and then return to head-down position?

or in your current position can you maintain head-down for whole ride, sighting the road just enough?

use your eyes to look, not your head.

I always try to rotate my helmet back on my head so that I can feel it hit my back and then look up the road with my eyes as much as possible. The scrunching of the neck rather than extending it just takes practice and muscle memory.

How often I have to really lift up my head and for how long is totally dependent on the course/conditions. The worse the road quality (i.e. the more shit in the road you need to avoid) and the less you know the course and the more crowded the road is with other athletes, the harder it is going to be to keep your head down. But that's true for everyone.

The goal should be to raise your head up as little as possible and as infrequently as possible -- only when absolutely necessary.

Well he seems to have the open hip angle thing pretty well figured out.

I had seen you riding back then at races (coming back the other way) and your head position was excellent, so you're off the hook on that. The clinchers back then were dead slow compared to the old school tubies, especially those with latex. No choice on external cable routing and no choice on power meter. Your only sin was number placement, but I think pinning it to your skinsuit was better than it flapping around on a race belt:

13 years after you, I think you beat Stadler (2006) on pretty well all points and this is still the Kona bike course record set up:

Well, Fleck was already a local age group legend 10 years before ST even existed.

Keep in mind that Fleck was routinely running 3 hours flat off his 5 hour rides. What is most interesting seeing Fleck's picture from 1993 and pretty well every picture on this thread other than Chris Froome and a couple of others is that Fleck appears to be the only guy on this entire thread whose body composition was/is optimized for all three sports. Most of the pics on this thread, you guys are not seeing the forest from the trees. You're focused on a perfect position but hauling around 10-20 extra pounds and really way too fat to be fast long course guys. Those pounds are killing your aero drag and like a combined built in weight jacket while wearing neoprene insulation for the run. It's lose lose lose on all fronts.

By the way the Savageman Big Ring guy is a local former training partner named Greg Moore (local doc and fast olympic tri guy). He thought he was in his small ring and did not realize he was in the big. The guy also had/has Iliac artery endofibrosis and was still going fast up that Savageman climb. He said he was fine sitting up or standing but extended aero and his bad leg would shut off....so standing big ring at Savageman was a relief for him!

not long course, but what I'm working with

Ok now it is uploaded:

http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/...elodrome/&page=2

Or have some fun with the attachment:

i have not tested head up vs head down but anecdotally when i ride i feel like i go much faster then second i bring my neck and head down.

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2024: Bevoman, Galveston, Alcatraz, Marble Falls, Santa Cruz

don't have much from racing, but here's my final position coming out of the WT. I think I raced the rest of this year (2014?) in the castelli stealth top, and then for 2015 i got the pearl izumi suit.

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@adamwfurlong

Boardman agrees with you on the low head watt savings (Barcelona 1992). He always had head low in all set ups:



and before him Anquetil always had low head/head down:



But we already know this going downhill at high speed. Just get your head out of the wind and watch your speed go up (same input force assuming constant downhill grade...mgsin(theta) ).

Look at Fleck's position above. The moment that pic was taken is not his head position. When he is looking up the road his head is below his shoulders. We also know about this head position from every discipline of skiing....speed skiing, downhill, GS, slalom, Cross Country, ski jumping....get your head out of the wind. No need to figure out if that is faster or slower. It's been proven faster a zillion times in many sports through real world wind tunnel testing (skiers have the ultimate daily tunnel test). Skiers are always going to be on the forefront of what is aero fast in terms of upper body positions.

Your seat is too high

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blog

You guys are all losers, the best Cda I have ever heard of is from a 60+ year old AG'er. And it doesn't matter what the yaw is or how strong the wind is blowing, his position is flawless, and he has the equipment and tactics to take advantage of whatever Mother Nature throws out there.

You can now close the thread, Kevin Moats....

Just prior to IMC, still working on the head (and I will get that helmet fixed BBoehler ;) )

Brent

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DFRU - Detta Family Racing Unit...the kids like it and we all get out and after it...gotta keep the fam involved!

in that pic i would guess he is setting the baseline, so the tunnel is not actually turned on and testing is not occurring.

While I appreciate all the recent post I think we got a little off topic. How many of these guys could hold that position for 55 or 110 miles

Fleck and Stadler have proven those positions over 112 miles in Kona as has Mike Plumb (1989). I would say out of this thread, Fleck has the best one that was proven to be held over the course in Kona and he backed it up with a low 3 hour bike split. That's pretty well the gold standard on this thread that none of these guys have gotten to. If we get a position picture from Rob Gray from an Ultraman or Kona or Texas it will exceed Fleck's. These guys have proven to hold things in place for the duration and executed good runs after that too.

Fleck has announced many races and watches people wheel their bikes into transition with theoretically great positions and then been out there at mile 80 on the course announcing/watching with the majority of the FOP racers sitting bolt upright in beach cruiser mode.

data? here's some old frontal area stuff I did moons ago:


http://biketechreview.com/...tal-area-kw-position

http://biketechreview.com/...-and-tt-aerodynamics


a more comical one that made it on velonews:


http://www.biketechreview.com/...c/462-big-fat-helmet


later on I tested probably 125 or so folks in the tunnel of varying sizes and shapes at multiple betas...lots of them tested head standard vs head low configurations. Without querying my database, I'd say the head low vs std benefit is in the 3-4% cxa reduction range.


here's another video on head position folks might find helpful (turn the volume up):

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Kraig Willett
http://www.biketechreview.com - check out our reduced report pricing
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this is good info, and i've fortunately seen some of your attached links already as you've linked to them in the past. but you and Grill are both ignoring the fact that MOST long course triathletes have - quite simply - abysmal head positions. so while a competent TT'er/TriNerd may have small variance between what they/you consider "good" head position and "great" head position, the fact remains that most long course triathletes do not.

8/10

-1 for mis-matched kit
-1 for rear disc
-10 for anything wattie

And what you're forgetting is that if their positions are so bad as to have the dome ding them in the region of 25w, then no shrug on the planet is going to save them that while also allowing a view of anything other than their bottom bracket. A position that isn't feasible isn't one that merits discussion.

i'm not forgetting shit, you're just being obtuse. i didn't suggest 25w, my number was 15. And a GOOD head position vs. a BAD head position on someone with a position anywhere on the spectrum from .2 to .3, it is realistic to suggest that 15w is a reasonable number of potential disparity.

if THIS head position change is worth ~8w @ 25mph (from a good, sustainable long course head position to a TT of <20min (for me anyway) head position)...then again, I think many/most long course triathletes are leaving a decent amount of drag on the table with regard to their head position. And yet they remain focused on equipment, multiple retul fits, tires, etc. When a good head position is free and merely takes practice.