Weight Weenies

that sure is a fiery defense of a whack-ass riding position

in other news, I'm surprised to have not seen this article discussed here yet.

http://pip.sagepub.com/content/early/20 ... 6.full.pdf

basically out of all the "normal" hand positions on the road (tops, drops, hoods) riding the hoods with bent arms and parallel (to the ground) forearms is more aero than the drops. and dropping your head (but not your shoulders) was shown to actually increase the CdA, interesting stuff.

and quite predictably, the mock aerobar position is the most aerodynamic. well in the case of the study they were using stubby aerobars but the position is more or less identical.

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The article has some problems, namely that they used a lower upper body position on the hoods than in the drops - I would have preferred a similar one for a fair comparison. Noone rides in the drops with extended arms when he's trying to go fast.

Regarding the helmet, lowering the head with a long-tail helmet will increase frontal area -duh. That's why noone uses these anymore!

Or they just keep looking in front of them as is sensible anyway.

KWalker wrote:I sit on the saddle in the proper location and roll my pelvis forwards.

While having mostly understood what you meant with that from looking at the example pictures, I just didn't have the right feeling or coordination to do it myself. Been playing around with positions, and realized that instead of mostly focusing on getting the upper body (head, shoulders) low, which lead to a hunched back, I just need to flex the lower back and stick out the buttocks like Kardashian taking a belfie, when riding a bit harder. I don't know what it was, but suddenly I just felt I had been approaching it wrongly all the time. Pressure on the perineum is ok, with some more practice and getting used to, there shouldn't be an issue. This also fixes my problem of having very little reach, despite my body height.

Even if it took a dozen pages to work out, I'm really looking forward to the coming season. Currently snowed in. Cheers KWalker and everyone.

Oh and regarding going to see a fitter -- you can always pay someone to do your garden, refurbish your patio, or unclog the sink. But if you have the DIY gene, there's much more satisfaction in working it out for yourself.

@HillRPete - congrats for finding your key to better aero. Like KWalker and others, I do the same and is why I ride flat saddles as curved saddles cause over rotation in my hips and pressure on my perineum ... great transition ...

"Pressure on the perineum is ok" ... in my experience (read MY experience), my pressure issues went away as I became more flexible. Put another way, once I achieve full rotation of my hips, I longer compensate my lowering my body onto the saddle, including lowering my perineum onto the nose. I also found cut-outs did not compensate for my lack of flexibility. With some luck, increased flexibility will ease your pressure issues.

Cheers.

AHC