Tom D Fit question

Triathlon Forum
1

Tom… In a previous post which I can’t find now you mentioned that the top riders (ala Millar) are riding with considerable elbow knee overlap…

What do you think is the reason for this?
Do you think that it is a result of trying to get into a specific position, an inherent advantage, perhaps they can get more leverage from the aerobars with the overlap, or a consequence of his incredibly lanky body…

I would imagine there is a reason for this change. Any thoughts Tom and others?

2

Well,

There is probably no one reason why some athletes’ knee overlap their elbows at their closest point in the pedal stroke, but rather a conspiracy of several. Here are a few:

  1. Anatomical dimensions (morphology). Given an extremely long femur and a short torso it makes sense that the top tube of the bike and stem have to be relatively short. That leaves little room for the femur (thigh) bone as it comes toward the top of the pedal stroke. For some athletes, it almost appears as though their femur is nearly as long as their torso! On people with these dimensions- frequently females- this is pretty common.
  2. Look at the use of aerobars from a historical perspective. If you look at photos going back to 1989 when LeMond used them in the Tour de France you generally see very long reach dimensions. Raul Alcala had absurdly long reach on his aerobars as did Steve Bauer. As time progressed either through research, expereince and/or dumb luck riders began to discover that a shorter reach meant you spent less time on the nose of your saddle and the bike handled better with shorter reach- it was a more reasonable compromise of stability and response. Along comes a couple guys, one of them Dan Empfield, and starts building shortish top tube, steep seat tube angle bikes expressly for aero bars. Boom, shorter reach measurements. People were (and still are) learning how to use aerobars.

Those are just a few of the reasons. Having a reach measurement that is too long is one of the most common fit problems we see in here, and one of the most frequent design mistakes some manufacturers make in designing tri bikes. It is very unusual for us to correct a triathlon position by ADDING stem length, we are almost always shortening it by 1-4 cm, depending on the client.

Good question, I hope that sheds at least some light on it.

3

One more question…

One of the things that I noticed when I was being fit with a much shorter reach is that the base of stability was spread over a larger area when in the aero bars… In a mre stretched out position I felt that I stabalized my lower body through my lower back while with the shorter reach I felt the stabilty from my lower back and the upper back. My inling was that I was due to being able to pull up on the bars at a better angle using both the lats and my lower back mucles to really crank on the pedals.

I guess my question is has anyone else mentioned this sort of observation and do you think that the shorter reach allows you to “use” more of the upper body strength to add to your pedal stroke…

Arghh so hard to express in words what I feel