I finally had the wife take a short clip of me riding and I can’t believe how non-aero I look, compared to everything I’ve read/seen online. I realize I should have removed my towel for the video but does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve been fitted by a pro but from looking at myself I’m not sure I’m getting any real aero benefit from riding in my aero bars.
Could save a few watts just by getting your head down. Look through your eyebrows. But no, you’re less aero than I am on my road bike.
I had much the same issue when i was riding a road bike, in the end you’re limited by the seat post angle on road bikes not allowing you to get any more aero, it’s why there’s still benefit to TT bikes vs road in triathlon. There’s still benefit to being on the aerobars imo, you’re almost surely going to be more aero with clip-ons just due to the decreased distance between your shoulders and the handlebars, and for me being able to support the position with larger muscle groups matters more as race distance increases.
A good comparison would be to take some video from the same camera perspective not on the clip-ons, then you can compare angles and positioning.
I am on a TT bike…a pretty expensive one too :). I guess I need more help than I thought!
Not very, but I think that also misses the point (point being, you can only be as aggressive as you are bio-mechanically allowed)
There appears to be room for you to be more aero (at least according to conventional wisdom), but whether you could get there, no one knows.
Conventional wisdom may have you move your saddle up and more to the fore, but that may or may not work with your bio-mechanics. Unless one is really hell bent on getting aero, most fitters are really reluctant to get you in an aggressive position, as there’s higher chance of you either feeling uncomfortable or straight out hurt yourself.
I speak as someone who fall into the hell bent getting aero camp. I was already pretty aero (CdA of 0.205-0.210), but I wanted more. So I raised my saddle about 1 cm higher (from optimal height of 75 cm to 76 cm, measured directly from center of BB). At first nothing happened, but a few months in, my left knee succumbed to the additional stress of the adjustment. Ended up having to take four months off from any type of riding and almost two years off from training on the TT bike.
When I first started, I settled on a saddle position that was 2.5 cm lower than my optimal of 75 cm. I went to a fitter to get dialed in for the 72.5 cm position, and I was certainly comfortable in that position for TTs up to 30 minutes and for endurance rides up to 2.5 hours. But my quads would burn after 35 minutes of threshold work on the TT bike. Rode like that for 1.5 years, and I kept wondering what was wrong. I got refitted by someone else. The new fitter realized I needed to raise the saddle, and he raised it by 2 cm (to 74.5 cm). The last 0.5 cm I raised myself. In retrospect, I was quite lucky that the additional 0.5 cm ended up being the right call, as it could have been an increase that got me injured.
So it’s always a risk, though one that could be mitigated. I’d go slow, no more than 0.5 cm at a time, adapt, and see if your position improves. Make sure to do your stretches after workouts and keep yourself flexible (although the lack thereof may be a reason why your current position may be the best position, at least for now). You could also seek out another fitter (someone like the guy who raised my saddle from 72.5 to 74.5 cm), but it’s difficult to know ahead of time how willing someone else is to increase saddle height. Lastly, if you aren’t on 165 or shorter cranks yet, that’s likely a free 1 cm of additional saddle height you could take.
Good luck
What crank arm length are you using?
What crank arm length are you using?
I’m using 160mm cranks and my set is about as forward as it can go. I was thinking of perhaps sliding my saddle back to see if that would level out my back which appears to be very hunched right now.
It would be helpful to see the front of your bike.
It would be helpful to see the front of your bike.
I’ll try get another video without the towel and more angles
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A picture might work for now.
you dont need a wheel base on a kickr, and no you are not areo, that is a typical crappy fit.
First off, ditch that riser block. It’s the wrong match for a kickr and lifting your front end up too much. You really don’t need anything at all under the front wheel to be level on a kickr. This is a contributing factor as to why you look less aero in the video.
Do that and shoot another video with the towel removed. Then we can get a peek at how much adjustability you have in your cockpit to tweak your fit (if necessary)
Most importantly though, seek to achieve comfort, power, aero. In that order.
This looks like how many fitters put age groupers on bikes because of an old wives’s tale that age groupers should/can not ride an aerodynamic position.
You definitely want your front end to come down quite a bit. You’ll probably need a little more length when that happens. Since I can’t see the front of the bike I can’t quite say how best to accomplish that.
Your hip angle is open now, but you don’t want it to get closed off when you lower the front end. I think you’ll want to rotate your hips forward a bit and change how you sit the saddle. If you’re not on a split nose saddle right now, you may prefer that after you do that rotation. It might be the case that after the rotation you could raise the saddle a tad.
How tall are you? What’s the size of that bike?
First off, ditch that riser block. It’s the wrong match for a kickr and lifting your front end up too much. You really don’t need anything at all under the front wheel to be level on a kickr. This is a contributing factor as to why you look less aero in the video.
Do that and shoot another video with the towel removed. Then we can get a peek at how much adjustability you have in your cockpit to tweak your fit (if necessary)
Most importantly though, seek to achieve comfort, power, aero. In that order.
+1 on new vid without the riser block. I didn’t notice that before.
No.
I use a riser block more for protection for my wheel and floor than to actually get a lift. I’ll get some new pictures and re-post. Thanks everyone for the comments thus far!
I use a riser block more for protection for my wheel and floor than to actually get a lift. I’ll get some new pictures and re-post. Thanks everyone for the comments thus far!
It may be making it look worse than it really is. Everyone starts somewhere!
Use a level, and for next pic or video…get it right on the bubble of the level. Or use a phone level app. Then also make sure the recording device is pretty level also.
A couple degrees out of level on either of those can make your back angle or front end stack “seem” a lot different than reality.
Also, just for the video lose the towel so we can see how much stack you run. Or, checkout the ST fit coords you can setup in your profile and post those for the experts here to see. Saddle setback, saddle height, stack, reach, pad width, etc…
Also, it takes a while to get accustomed to a new more aggressive position. Patience once you make that change. I’ve got my TT bike probably certainly below 0.200 and I have ridden it 1/2 IM distance on a few tempo training rides. It took riding the bike a lot like that to get used to it, and make power doing so. But, I can now!
I mean, it’s a TT only position for pretty much 60min or less rides. But…I’ve done 3 hr rides on it where I felt I could be fine running off the bike. And I’m not a triathlete or duathlete, I just run a bit to balance out. I’m just that used to it now that I can ride it that far.
No.
Don’t beat around the bush…tell it to him straight!" Lol.
I think once you get us more pictures without the towel and without the riser it’s not going to look that bad (from what I can see of the top tube the bike is angled up pretty good). I think you need some more reach but that can be a personal comfort thing too.
Edit: Also you look to have the arched back physiology which makes the fit look worse than it is. Practice settling into your pads and flattening your back out. You can definitely learn to ride more aerodynamically on the same fit.
Good news is when you get it sorted out you should save a considerable amount of time in your races
Your position looks almost like a contest to see who can be the LEAST aero
Seriously it is really bad
But as I say better than if you were in the perfect aero position with no room for improvement
I enncourage you to take it slow and change things gradually you have a lot of room for cheap/no cost improvements.
Far smarter Leone than I to hell you with the particulars