If your bars are too low on a road bike your arms end up locked out, too high and you can’t get as low as you can. So the best point is some middle point. A recent inrng article (http://inrng.com/2013/01/cycling-position-change/) brought up how bar position has over time moved down. Our upper body position hasn’t really changed, but our arms have changed. (image from article is below: Wiggins with locked out elbows in the drops, Moser getting low with very little bar drop, Chavenel rides at 90 degree elbows but not in the drops) Some have made the argument that in the drops you should be able to ride in the drops, elbows and 90 degrees with a flat back. This gives the arms a significantly more aero shape and such. I understand the physics behind that logic, but what about the energy required to hold that position? It requires significantly less effort on my part to ride with slightly bent elbows than with 90 degree elbows.
If one can ride in the drops almost all the time with slightly bent lower elbows and weak skinny arms with minimal energy output to support themselves is this better than spending lots of time at 90 degree elbows, triceps get larger (seriously look at pictures of lemond and moser when in the drops their arms are not tiny!), arms get fatigued (this can be trained of course), and energy going to supporting yourself goes up?
I think it depends on your body type (long torso/short legs or short torso/long legs) and how much power you’re putting out. With a higher power output there is less weight on your hands as your upper body is used to balance the force applied to the pedals.
I don’t think of it as a question of aero or energy expenditure, but more of comfort. I prefer longer rides and for those I want as many usable positions as possible. Many people with a lot of drop almost never ride in the drops. They use 3rd picture you posted and also a more upright position, but almost never on the drops.
What isn’t communicated in these photos is: is the rider going hard (Merckx looks that way), or just cruising along. Look at Cancellara when he is off the front at the end of Paris Roubaix when he won: he is resting his arms on the bar tops like he’s riding a time trial bike.
I’ve been wondering about this a lot lately. I’m just shy of 6’5", 38 years old, and have been riding smallish frames for years. My roadie is 59cm with a 130mm stem and about 110mm of drop to the bars. I notice guys my size riding much bigger bikes and I’m wondering if I ought to try something a little more upright. Once at the track I had a guy comment that he’s never seen a guy my size ride with as much drop as I had. (I don’t know the drop of my track bike off hand) I don’t seek out aggressive drop at all. The roadie was custom built (and I didn’t really give much input on the geo) and I was fit to the track bike at the shop.
I do occasionally get low back pain, but I always have (even with less aggressive positions) and it seems to be something I “train through.” Anyway, no real point here other than this article strikes a chord with me and I wonder, as I get older, if it might be time to start raising those bars.
I think all but the sprint article were linked in the inrrng article. All excellent. There is something to be said for a position being sustainable though. For roadies with weak and spindly arms holding them at 90 degrees isn’t the easiest (my triceps are killing me after doing 2 hours into a head wind with elbows as bent as I could sustain). You can see that Moser’s arms are noticable larger than the others in that picture. I certainly think Gerard hits it on the dot when he says: “If a rider puts his hoods where his lowest comfortable and aero position is, then why not have flat bars?”
For me: Drops go at the lowest sustainable position, use a small drop bar so the hoods aren’t too much higher.
First of all I would expect your track bike to have more drop usually. Races are short and comfort shouldn’t matter as much as long as it is aero, you can hold it without injuring yourself and still have the required power output.
For me: Drops go at the lowest sustainable position, use a small drop bar so the hoods aren’t too much higher.
This. As speeds increased in the pro peleton, riders started lowering their bars to that they were more aerodynamic while riding on the hoods (where most folks tend to spend >80% of their time). Since the stem was lowered to achieve a lower hoods position, the traditional deep drop bar lost favor to the compact drop bar, so that the drops were still useable even with the lower stem.
Then some pro figured that if he rode a small enough frame and slammed his stem, he could achieve a flat back while on the hoods (arms bent of course), and found this position to be more comfortable than a flat back in the drops (notice I said more comfortable - not that this position would improve sprinting or descending, because I think it’s clear it is inferior for those purposes), and because comfort really is important to pros who put in sick hours on the bike, a new position was created.
Interesting look. So some people find flat back in the hoods to be more comfy than in the drops is what it really comes down to. Probably was also related to the improvements in hood ergonomics then.
I personally ride ~16hrs a week with probably about 80% of that in the drops. Don’t find much uncomfy about it.
