I did a 20km TT today and towards the end I noticed that my vision was going a little funny. I was almost seeing double which I think came on from the text book “keep the head down and roll the eyes up” position.
Does this mean that my head is maybe a bit low and I should raise my bars a little? It feels OK other than that…
Thanks
I had this problem too on my M Trek SC with the 100/10 stem. I like to trail off the back of the large sat ride “in the bars” and had the same feeling. The eyes rolled-up does put a bit of strain. I switched to a higher stem and it’s been better. Though I’d like the guys/gals with more knowledge on the subject matter and low positions to chime in.
I did a 20km TT today and towards the end I noticed that my vision was going a little funny. I was almost seeing double which I think came on from the text book “keep the head down and roll the eyes up” position.
Does this mean that my head is maybe a bit low and I should raise my bars a little? It feels OK other than that…
Thanks
Yeah, ultimately it means you’re craning your neck and head too much for your current position. But that may or may not be a result of the stem and pads being too low. If you’re not riding with sufficient pelvic tilt and are curling your back to try to get low the angle at the back of your neck while trying to hold your head low may be too acute and making it hard to see up the road. IOW, your whole position from how you sit on the saddle through the head can come into play and based on your description there’s no way to know what you should work on.
But sure if you’re very happy with your overall position, ride fairly low and do so with a relatively flat back and forward tipped pelvis then it’s likely your pads may need to come up a bit. If OTOH you ride fairly square in the saddle and then curl through your lumbar region and have a pronounced hump in your upper back you may want to work on those elements of fit to help straighten your spine and make it easier to hold your head in a relatively neutral position while still keeping it low.
-Dave
You don’t need to keep your eyeballs glued up the entire time. I think most folks with low head positions practice what’s called “peeking”. You raise your eyes and/or your head (just a bit with the head) and get a look say 100 yards up the road and you look back down and lower your head and hammer for a few seconds. You keep repeating that process through the entire race. It’s not a huge raising of the head. It’s subtle … just enough to sneak a peek. If you’re wearing your helmet properly, the tail should stay tucked between your shoulder blades (assuming it’s one of the longer kind) and you should not substantially increase drag. But the variation in position, though subtle, provides vision and some relief for the eye strain and neck strain.
Head down:
Head up:
Perhaps you were pushing too hard (its a TT) and you started seeing double at the end.
I would not raise my bars to accomodate view. I think there are prism glasses for that now. For real.
Hello PepperMill and All,
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=4294746#4294746
Cheers,
Neal
+1 mph Faster
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I did a 20km TT today and towards the end I noticed that my vision was going a little funny. I was almost seeing double which I think came on from the text book “keep the head down and roll the eyes up” position.
Does this mean that my head is maybe a bit low and I should raise my bars a little? It feels OK other than that…
Thanks
You are probably fatiguing your eye muscle (superior rectus) which would result in double vision. How often do you stay in the aero position for that long? It could be a simple case of training your eyes to cope or you could raise your front end by a cm or so.