In a way Jan’s a bit wierd. He’s the only guy who climbed Alpe de Huez TT in last year’s TdF in full aero position with what looked like the lowest cadence. He came in a full minute behind Lance but still beat all the other pros for second fastest.
I could be wrong, but wasn’t stage 12 the stage that Lance saw the effects of severe dehydration? It was Lance’s position that lost the time to Ullrich…in fact, if you look closely at the picture posted, you can see the salt crystals surrounding Lance’s mouth…
Lance wa well documented as being dehydrated that day. I doubt Ullrichs ‘superior’ position was the main dictattor. besides a week later at the rain soaked TT to Nantes before ullrich crashed there was only 3-4 seconds between them. If a windtunnel and the likes of Steve Hed and John Cobb can’t see the merit but Ullrich out of a controlled enviroment anecdotal apaprently does ? well, what can you say ?
There is alternative opinion here though. Most riders who had been riding Walsers all had this feature (Rich, Peschel and Ullrich being 3). Did Walser bikes know something the rest of us didn’t ?..
Suffering severe dehydration…yes; from trying to catch Jan. 
Funny how Lance switched to those “cut-off **non-**aero bars” the following year tough. Yes, that’s what Lance is known for. Switching to stuff that doesn’t work.
Lance wa well documented as being dehydrated that day. I doubt Ullrichs ‘superior’ position was the main dictattor. besides a week later at the rain soaked TT to Nantes before ullrich crashed there was only 3-4 seconds between them. If a windtunnel and the likes of Steve Hed and John Cobb can’t see the merit but Ullrich out of a controlled enviroment anecdotal apaprently does ? well, what can you say ?
There is alternative opinion here though. Most riders who had been riding Walsers all had this feature (Rich, Peschel and Ullrich being 3). Did Walser bikes know something the rest of us didn’t ?..
Oh…how the times have changed: Notice how it’s the Lance/Jan position now.
From Velonews Q&A with Mr. Zinn:
Wrist action
Dear Lennard,
The Lance/Jan aerobar position with more-or-less straight extensions has been out for quite a while now and others (Tyler, Bobby Julich, Michael Rich among others) are using similar style bars. I have several questions about theses: Does their aero advantage come solely from having the wrist turned down? It seems like this is a rather small change. With the wrists turned down I am curious is riders are still able to pull on the bars as they would in the wrist up position (or if they were in the sweet spot on the drops on regular bars) if so, would the flat extensions be more suited to some courses than others?
Nick
Dear Nick,
According to Armstrong’s past and present aero gurus John Cobb and Len Brownlie, there is a slight aerodynamic improvement as well as a leverage advantage when pulling, especially with the elbow pads closer to the wrists.
Lennard
Interesting how everyone’s opinion changes once Lance starts doing it. He is, as we all know, the holy grail and final word on every technical aspect of both bicycles and training. I mean…
You could compromise the ability to polish the bishop with that position.
Most riders who had been riding Walsers all had this feature (Rich, Peschel and Ullrich being 3). Did Walser bikes know something the rest of us didn’t ?..
A guy called Andreas Walzer did use the first straight extensions i have seen '97 on his Walser bike when he did win the german tt champs.
“ask Mr. John Cobb. (why they ought not to be that way!).”
You mean that dude who made a big deal about how un-aero straws from front-end drinking systems sticking into the wind are?
I had the pleasure of spending a couple days last month with Uli Schoberer, founder of SRM power meters. Uli does testing for many euro-pros at an indoor track near his home in Germany (Jan is a long time friend and client). I asked Uli about this very subject and his reply was simply: the best position is to have the forearms flat, parallel to the road, but for Jan, this position was more comfortable and gave him more leverage and the aerodynamic disadvantage was very negligable and worth the trade-off for him.
By the way, he does all his testing at this indoor track, not the wind tunnel, so that the riders experience “race condition” stress, meaning that under load at 400 watts and maintaining balance etc, a rider tends to have a different position than sitting in a wind tunnel, even if pedaling hard.
There is still a huge difference between Lances position and Jan’s position. Lance has his forearms parallel and is using the “s” bend rather than the straight extensions. Jan has his forearms angled downward at what looks to be a 30 degree angle from the horizontal using completely straight extensions.
Jan’s inability to win the tour is more due to his tendency to devour too many beer and brats in the off season than his position. It works for him even if it isnt “slowtwitch board approved”
Jan’s inability to win the Tour has been proven wrong in 1997…
When Jan used that position with Bianchi in '03, this board was filled with questions about straight extensions, angling the bars down, etc. People were very accepting of the position, and there was even a question in Triathlete about whether or not that position would be good for triathletes to use. Now people are ranking on it.
Jan is apparently comfortable and powerful. Who are we to knock his position? He’s one of the fastest cyclists in the world. His real problem is not his TT position, but his lack of team management and, quite possibly, his offseason conditioning.
RP
I believe that bar angle has nothing (edit: little or not significant) to do with aero benefit. It’s the hand position which you get with the straight/s-bend bar ( less (all though small) frontal area). The bar angle is rider comfort and power (leverage; per Gear Fisher).
Depends on the race type and distance !
Jan is apparently comfortable and powerful. Who are we to knock his position? He’s one of the fastest cyclists in the world. His real problem is not his TT position, but his lack of team management and, quite possibly, his offseason conditioning.
RP
His real problem is he doesn’t post or lurk on this forum. If he had, it would have been Jan and not Mr. Armstrong who has been on the top step for the last few years.
I always get a kick out of it when people write that so i thought i would do so myself 
B.Obot
don’t know what all this leverage talk is about. You folks must be outputting wads of power if you need to pull on the extensions while riding on the flats.
rtm
Yes, Jan and I were talking about our wads of power the other day while we were out riding…LOL
But, seriously. Flat course I agree. However, the straight bars are nice for any rollers or hills that come along though.
Even without the straight bar you would naturally want to “choke-up” on the bar for leverage will hitting a roller or hill. Like Lance was doing in 2003.
If I remember correctly, in 2003, Slowman stated that all the Bianchi riders looked very good during the team time trial. I guess we can discuss this stuff all we want, but we can’t argue with the results. Jan is fast. That’s all that counts.
RP
Jan has got a completely new custom made Gaint TT bike this year, so he doesn’t ride a FES TT bike from Berlin or a Swiss made Walser anymore. Last year he rode a Walser rebadged as a Giant. The 8 kg Giant TT bike costed 25,000 € to develop.
Read about Ullrich’s new Giant TT bike here (in German):
http://radsportnews.net/2005/ullrichrad.shtml
http://www.radsport-aktiv.de/sport/sportnews_34828.htm
http://derstandard.at/?url=/?id=2098079
Walser bikes: http://www.walser-cycles.ch
FES bikes: http://www.fes-sport.de/radsport.htm