Watching the giro d’ italia TT , I came out with a doubt regarding the pros aero position, especially Garmin transitions bike setup. How is it possible for guys like david millar to have such a high elbow position with about 4 inches of spacers and still have the flatest back ever?
I’m guessing because their elbow position really isn’t that high given where the spacers start out on many of the new superbikes. I saw someone’s Shiv built up in a local store the other day and it had at least eight spacers under each pad with a “spacer bridge” to keep the two stacks stable they were so high! He still had some drop from the saddle.
Some folk just have tiny upper arms too - Levi barely rides with any drop from his saddle but his position is still insane.
Everyone is morphologically different.
Bikes have to fit people with a range of leg, torso and arm sizes, but, generally, as bikes increase in size through a manufacturer’s range, the seat and head tubes will increase at the same rate as the top tube.
So, someone (like myself) with long arms and legs and a relatively short torso, needs a shorter top tube relative to the seat and head tubes. That’s fine for me, since I can buy whichever bike I choose to get something that works.
For the pros, they have to ride what they are given - in Millar’s case, this is a Felt, which might not suit him, but it can be made to fit.
In days of yore, this meant that there were often bikes with stacks of headset spacers - now, with the advent of disappearing stems, a more aerodynamic solution has been found - the stack of armrest spacers.
A lot of the new superbikes are built with very low stacks (since it’s easier to add spacers than go lower). Given how flat basebars are, the pros set the base bar where the want it (deep drops position) and then need lots of spacers to get the aerobars up (near where the tops of road bars would be). Triathletes tend to put the basebar closer to the tops/hoods position.
super-short head tubes + low profile base bars + trying to ride a slightly “mantis-like” tt position while still being UCI-legal
UCI now forces the riders to have their extensions 100% level to the ground, except for the grips (or hand contact points, as the officials might call them). so what millar and co. do is sporting superlong grips with a approx. 30° upward bend. thus their lower arms will point upwards while still being UCI-compliant.
as a result of this mantis 2.0 position the ellbows usually are below the pads, so the effective pad drop is bigger than it might appear at first glance
A number of the Pro Tour guys may also be riding a size smaller than they would if they were triathletes to allow a short enough top tube to get a FIST-like position while adhering to the 5cm behind the BB rule.
Smaller size for a shorter top tube probably means shorter head tube/lower stack.