Very circa '89. Your thoughts and do any of you ride like this ?
The quote says “wonky handle bars” but i think not, that is the way he likes to TT…and he is faster than everyone here.
My shoulders hurt looking at that.
t~
Effectiveness before style.
I love how the front wheel is tucked so close to the down tube. Speaking of his position, looks like his stem was a little loose and he hit a pothole and yanked up on the bars a little too hard!.. lol
It’s interesting how this is the antithesis to the Ullrich ‘pointing down’ position circa 2003. Both are respected TT’ers. What does this mean to us and will will see more triathletes copying this one ?
I wonder what Cobb (et al) think about this …
I noticed in pictures form the opening TTthat his pad were very close together. I thought the current trend was to go a little wider - I don’t know if this is a resualt of the Mantis postion?
Do you not think this position was born from a wind tunnel? I’m sure it’s very effective for Floyd’s anatomy and power output. These guys don’t cluelessly throw their bikes together, take pics, post them on some forum and ask equally clueless forum denizens for their position “advice”.
Nah, what’s interesting is that just like with Ullrich’s position, people will radically change their current position despite having no knowledge of their aerodynamic or wattage profile and no way of knowing if they’re actually causing harm or good.
Hence, style before effectiveness.
Seat too high? (someone had to say it!) 
it’s the “Landis Mantis”
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Here is the coach that set him up: http://arniebakercycling.com/handouts/hev_wind_tunnel_testing.htm
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When I had read that Landis had fine-tuned his aero position in a wind tunnel, I thought ‘thank goodness, he’s finally gotten rid of the horrible looking TT position he had last year’. Ooooops… I guess not!!
Yes, every ’89-ish aero bar positioning. I would guess that having the forearms pointing upward like that and elbows positioned close together, allows much of the wind that would hit a riders chest in the ‘Ullrich position’, to be deflected. The riders head and chest ‘hiding behind’ the outstretched arms if you will.
To me it looks fairly uncomfortable and un-powerfull. A person’s arms and shoulders have very little power/leverage at that kind of angle.
JB**
I’m beginning to think that bike position is like a golf swing or a batting swing. There are certainly players on the PGA Tour that have swings that may not be textbook but they find a way to make them work. I don’t follow baseball but I’m sure the same could be said about batting stances.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2006/feb06/california06/?id=california063/Tour_CA_stage3-19
If you check out this photo, what’s interesting to me is how his position would seem to block air from getting in around the torso. I’m no aerodynamic expert, but it would seem the “pocket” formed by the torso and hips would create a lot of air disturbance. But Floyd’s position, with his forearms together, would force air around that pocket.
But how the heck can he breathe in that position? I’m all shoulders. I’d need all kinds of theraputic massage and probably accupuncture to get over riding for an hour in that position. It doesn’t look comfortable to me at all.
Bob C.
Well, you pedal with your legs, not your arms.
Don’t forget, Obree broke the hour record with the Praying Mantis, and the only reason the pros aren’t riding that way is because of the UCI ban. Floyd modified it, and it seems to be working well.
Obrees position was way different and was generally called the egg. Everyone in the 80s was riding like Landis, pretty much until Boardman came on the scene at the Olympics.
If its at all comfortable I think a lot of people would be better off mimicing Landis. Not that its ideal, but i think less can go wrong with the mantis than with the current vogue.
Styrrell
I was just in the wind tunnel with him last week, and we were determined to get those bars flat, but for whatever reason this just works for him. I have to say that in the last 6 years I’ve been to like 20 tunnel tests of both pro and amateur athletes, roadies and triathletes, and this is the only time I’ve ever seen a bar position like this work for anybody. Just like the manager of the wind tunnel said, ‘It wouldn’t be a wind tunnel test if we didn’t discover something that completely went against everything we thought we knew’…
We all had our bars angled up in the late 80’s, early 90’s, but much of that was because we were also using massive risers under the pads to get the front end high enough to be comfortable. This was a result of putting aero bars onto funny bikes with 24" or 650c front wheesl and tiny head tubes. If you look at Lemond’s Kronostrada from the 89 tour or any of the Indurain TT bikes you will see bars at about 30 degrees, but with 2+" of pad risers so the effective arm angle was maybe only 10 degrees or so. I’ve definitely seen angles between 0 and 10 work for people as it has a way of flattening out the back a bit for some folks, but the Landis position would not seem to work for most people.
The only caveat to the entire discussion is that the obvious difference between a cycling TT and triathlon bike leg is that in triathlon, you have to run 5K to 42K after riding.
The fact that one wants to to be as aero and powerful as possible - AND conserve energy with some sort of muscle suppleness (?) for the run, makes our bike set-up a somewhat different kettle of fish (apologies to Paul Sherwen).
No one has mentioned this, but I think the handling would be terrible with your arms like Landis’. I mean he is a pro rider and his handling skills are much better than any of our’s, but for the average person I definitely think handling would be compromised.
George also happens to be about half a foot taller than Floyd…
Man that wheel is pretty far from the cutout.
Styrrell