Positioning of Aero Bars

Sorry, is old news. 😄 His position makes "him" smaller to the wind. That's how it is.

Pendejo said:

Have any of you seen photos of Landis's new time trial position, "The Praying Mantis"? The bars are as close together as can be, so that his arms are touching all the way up from his elbows, and his hands are touching.

velochimp.comcloser look at the praying landisOpen ↗

Here's another interesting article:

competitivecyclist.comCCTOpen ↗

Has anyone here tried anything like this? If so, how unstable did it feel and are you planning on staying with it? (I'm sorely tempted to try it; and I'm sure I'll be sore after I've tried it.)

I've never seen it from the front. I always assumed he had something in his hands for stability, but that first pic makes it look like he's steering entirely with his elbows. :eek:

frenchyge said:

I've never seen it from the front. I always assumed he had something in his hands for stability, but that first pic makes it look like he's steering entirely with his elbows. :eek:

Wow, I hadn't even noticed that, Frenchy. I was too fixated on the angle and proximity of the aero bars. If he indeed steers with just his elbows, that's pretty radical.

frenchyge said:

I've never seen it from the front. I always assumed he had something in his hands for stability, but that first pic makes it look like he's steering entirely with his elbows. :eek:

I've located a front-on photo of Landis in a magazine, and he definitely is holding onto the aerobars with his hands, which is to be expected. I don't know what the story is in that photo in the link above.

Here's what I don't understand. If tilting the aero bars up 30 degrees lowers his drag, then doing so should lower everyone's drag. Yet in all other photos I can find, the other pros have the bars pretty much horizontal. Now it could be that Landis's position is too hard to tolerate for everyone else, but I would think that if it provided an advantage many other pros would learn to live with it. All I do is time trial, so I'm more than a little interested in this whole topic.

Pendejo said:

Here's what I don't understand. If tilting the aero bars up 30 degrees lowers his drag, then doing so should lower everyone's drag. Yet in all other photos I can find, the other pros have the bars pretty much horizontal. Now it could be that Landis's position is too hard to tolerate for everyone else, but I would think that if it provided an advantage many other pros would learn to live with it. All I do is time trial, so I'm more than a little interested in this whole topic.

You also have to factor in the restrictions from the UCI rules. Since these are absolute dimensions and don't scale with the size of the rider or bike, different riders may have found different ways to optimize their position within these constraints. Do you do UCI races?

Pendejo said:

Here's what I don't understand. If tilting the aero bars up 30 degrees lowers his drag, then doing so should lower everyone's drag. Yet in all other photos I can find, the other pros have the bars pretty much horizontal.

Apparently Landis' position is at the limit of what is acceptable to the UCI. Also Steve Hed tried to convince LA to position his aero bars tilting upwards (maybe not to the extreme of the "praying mantis"😉 but he refused. So there is still the component of personal preference.

What strikes me also, is that he adopts a 'half off the saddle' type of position. Especially on the second picture where he seems to be literally running over the cranks.

Pendejo said:

I've located a front-on photo of Landis in a magazine, and he definitely is holding onto the aerobars with his hands, which is to be expected. I don't know what the story is in that photo in the link above.

I suspect he lets his arms creep forward on the bars and releases hands to relax his arms and shoulders. I do the same thing occasionally, though I typically grip the very ends of the shift levers.

Pendejo said:

Here's what I don't understand. If tilting the aero bars up 30 degrees lowers his drag, then doing so should lower everyone's drag. .

That's not really a safe assumption, given different degrees of flexibility as well as different body types. I suspect most of the advantage of this position is in the Cd side of CdA. If this is true, it's highly dependent on the shape one assumes while tucked.

Pendejo said:

All I do is time trial, so I'm more than a little interested in this whole topic.

After some recent discussions of this on the BTR forums, I adopted a slightly-upturned bar setup when I built my old road bike into a tt bike (maybe 10 degrees, nowhere near Floyd's). The consensus seemed to be that the upturned bars made it easier to "shrug" the shoulders inward and drop downward. I've only ridden in this position a handful of times, but it seems to eliminate arm/shoulder soreness with just a little bit of neck soreness from holding my head/chest really, really low. It also appears to be fast.😎

Well, it's kind of frustrating being an amateur chump (or is it chump amateur) without access to a wind tunnel. I train very hard to improve, and spend good money for aero equipment, so the thought that just one session in a wind tunnel could help me kick the butts of my main time-trial rivals is a bit aggravating. (The fact that a wind-tunnel session would help them beat me is irrelevant!)

With regard to Landis's position, my hypothesis is that with the hands up high and the chin low, the air flow is diverted around the arms instead of piling up in the chest area. That would seem to be major. Landis debuted the new position earlier this year in the Amgen Tour of California, and won the 27 km TT by 30 seconds. His coach, Allen Lim, said at that time, "Floyd is a long way from full fitness, but his new position is so fast, he won anyway."

To answer another question, I primarily do National Senior Games time trials around the state of Florida, 5K and 10K. These are age-group races starting at age 50. First and second (age-group) places in each state qualify for the national finals. I've placed second and third in the state finals the past three years in the 55-59 age-group. As a matter of fact, I turned 60 today and so am now in the 60-64 age group. I'm probably the favorite in that group now, but since I don't accept the concept of ageing (at least as it relates to me), I don't like to get beaten by anybody who is participating in the same TT as me. (It doesn't stop them from doing it, though.)

Pendejo said:

Have any of you seen photos of Landis's new time trial position, "The Praying Mantis"? The bars are as close together as can be, so that his arms are touching all the way up from his elbows, and his hands are touching.

Has anyone here tried anything like this? If so, how unstable did it feel and are you planning on staying with it? (I'm sorely tempted to try it; and I'm sure I'll be sore after I've tried it.)

didn't he break his hip a few years back maybe his flexibility is an issue and this is what works

he did pretty well with it in the prologue considering he missed his start by around 8secs!!

I think Floyd must be "one with the bike" because I can barely steer with my bars tipped up so high. It might be a combination of his tallent and the position that works (aerodynamically) for him. ...the position on the saddle, however, just makes me think of Mr Garrisson's Thingamajig (South Park reference). Ouch!

I watched the Prologue closely for aerobar positions, and all but Landis had the bars pretty much horizontal, and many of the bars looked like they had quite a bit of space between them.

Pendejo said:

I watched the Prologue closely for aerobar positions, and all but Landis had the bars pretty much horizontal, and many of the bars looked like they had quite a bit of space between them.

Steve Hed and John Cobb (who have worked together at some point(s) in the past) both state straight out that wind tunnel tests show that about a 30-deg. angle is superior, aerodynamically. However, as others have pointed out, the personal factor is significant. In general, the other pros are quite well convinced that they ride better with the bars roughly straight out. And being convinced of that, they probably do, because so much of time trial performance is in the mind. Perhaps they think they have better leverage, allowing them to apply more power. Whatever works for them. Ullrich takes that to an extreme; check out pix of him in TT's; his extensions actually point down, and he's probably skirting the UCI reg. that says the angle at the elbow can't be more than 120 deg. Landis has also said that he's adopted that position because the UCI regulations prevent him from moving his seat further forward. I'm a little unclear on the connection there. Almost everyone rides way forward on the seat in a time trial, mostly in order to get more directly over the pedals.

Ken Gant said:

Landis has also said that he's adopted that position because the UCI regulations prevent him from moving his seat further forward. I'm a little unclear on the connection there. Almost everyone rides way forward on the seat in a time trial, mostly in order to get more directly over the pedals.

I think the connection is that with the bars tilted up, there's something to lean against. Riding off the front of the saddle with an Ullrich style downward tilt has got to be one sweaty palm away from a face plant. It's possible that the lack of enthusiasm for the Landis position in the peleton is that it may be harder for some people to breathe with their elbows pulled in like that.

artmichalek said:

I think the connection is that with the bars tilted up, there's something to lean against. Riding off the front of the saddle with an Ullrich style downward tilt has got to be one sweaty palm away from a face plant. It's possible that the lack of enthusiasm for the Landis position in the peleton is that it may be harder for some people to breathe with their elbows pulled in like that.

Hmmm ... I've seen mention of the elbows and noticed them in the pictures, but I thought most of the "controversial" aspect of his position was about the angle. Keeping the elbows together certainly helps close the pocket formed by the body, and I'll bet that everyone keeps that in mind, but I imagine that it's a tradeoff between blocking the wind and, as you say, being able to breathe. Still, the upwards tilt should provide some aero advantage.

That being said, it's actually kinda tough to get a combination for myself that balances the regulations and recommendations. For instance, I have a pair of Profile T2 clip-ons, and even if I lower my handlebars (moving my spacers to the top of the steerer), the regs and recommendations conflict for me. The extension of the bars is "fixed"; I have it set to fit my forearms, and they're not changing length, I hope. If I set the clip-ons at 30 deg., they extend above the level of my saddle. And so, of course, if I lower them so that the ends are even with the top of my saddle, then their angle is significantly reduced. Of course, I probably don't have to worry about getting busted on UCI regs any time soon. 🙂

One other thing about the seat position; in some, if not all cases, there's also an issue of avoiding squished privates. A TT position is typically tilted down more, leaving the crotch pressing harder against the nose of the saddle.

Ken Gant said:

Landis has also said that he's adopted that position because the UCI regulations prevent him from moving his seat further forward. I'm a little unclear on the connection there.

I think it's

1. The upward bars drop his shoulders, similar to what a longer or lower bar position would do,

and

2. If he were to adopt the longer/lower position, he would have to move his seat forward due to his injured hip.

Ken Gant said:

Hmmm ... I've seen mention of the elbows and noticed them in the pictures, but I thought most of the "controversial" aspect of his position was about the angle.

Raising the angle also brings the elbows further forward, which allows them to be closer together (narrower) without constricting the chest.

In case no one has been watchng the Tour, UCI made Landis change his bars out just prior to the individual TT....reason: Too high.

Interesting that they allowed it in the prologue, then whacked him just prior to the TT.