An analysis of drop

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stella-azzurra
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by stella-azzurra

That would be the shortest distance from point A to B.
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HUMP DIESEL
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by HUMP DIESEL

If you do a Google image search of just the Rotundo 3T bars, you will see all different ways to set the bars up, especially with different groupos. I would also take a look at what Justin Spinelli was doing, and also Above Category. They both use and recommend the 3t classic bars and they deal with some high end stuff.

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djconnel
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by djconnel

stella-azzurra wrote:Andy is not a good descender, there tension in his body and it will be a lot more evident.

Andy riding uphill in training

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if45QUTDang;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (gotten from the pro cycling thread)


Andy looks terrible climbing: his arms are almost locked out they're so straight. He has to get out of the saddle and shift his weight forward to bend his elbows.

And I'll even say Nibali looks bad. Shoulders are strained and forward. He's obviously able to descend anyway, however.

Merckx may be on different equipment, but I was evaluating how his shoulders look. I don't care about the reason.

Here's Cancellara: relaxed shoulders. Compare and contrast with Nibali following:

Image

And again:

Image
Last edited by djconnel on Tue Mar 26, 2013 10:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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stella-azzurra
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by stella-azzurra

I don't know but Superman looks quite comfortable here

Image

But seriously I don't think you will get a relaxed position from Andy in a race.

Nibali looks fine to me descending or climbing.

Maybe you are not putting enough shoulder into it. Think about it when you do your next climb. :lol:
I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

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djconnel
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by djconnel

You'd think superman would have better hip flexibility.

KWalker
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by KWalker

Judging based off pictures is stupid. Its a simple snapshot of a series of events. Who knows why Nibali was strained above or how long that particular position lasted.
Don't take me too seriously. The only person that doesn't hate Froome.
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stella-azzurra
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by stella-azzurra

If you want to go down quick then this how most pros descend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=-kZ ... =endscreen

The type of descent dictates the position.
I never took drugs to improve my performance at any time. I will be willing to stick my finger into a polygraph test if anyone with big media pull wants to take issue. If you buy a signed poster now it will not be tarnished later. --Graeme Obree

Colonia
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by Colonia

tigoose wrote:To me Ryder's position looks fine but i ain't an expert. i think too many people believe a flat back is the perfect position for the back. think of the natural curve/s the the spine has then wonder why people get neck ache and soforth as referred pain from fatigued upper back extensor muscles. the upper back and it's muscles aren't going to be terribly comfortable after a few hours of extending the spine just so one can reach the bars that are too high and far away.
i think most people have bars too high to account for neck ache, but the tension generated in the upper back and scapula area increases the higher the bars go. the torso will know where it needs to be from hip flexion but is struggling to get there a lot of times because it's being held up by bars that are too high.
so after a while aches and pain sets in so people think they need higher brs again because they're aging, it's probably just an over use injury that can be rectified by massage, stretch and bring the bars down far enough to allow for natural curvature to take place in the spine which allows muscles to relax.
so maybe some people need to ride smaller frames and slam their stems provided that saddle position is correct and use massage and stretch to cure the old aches.
just my thoughts and opinions.

Muscles relax when they are out of the extreme ranges/limits of their movement. Bike geometry has hardly changed at all over the years, and bike fit was pretty well sorted back the late 70s (about all that has changed is shifter/brake position). There is no reason one should have to resort to massage and yoga to ride a road bike, barring some serious physical limitation. The primary culprit for fit and positional problems today is saddle height. It's very often set too high. This results in pain in the back, neck, etc., and it forces many riders to have more handlebar drop than they can handle (and more than the frame was designed for). As an example: according to CONI a 56 cm (c-c) frame was designed for a saddle height averaging about 72-73 cm. This would produce an "old school," fist-full-of-seatpost fit. Since hoods went up with the invention of integrated shifters, all that is needed is to drop the frame size down by a cm or two, and viola, you have a perfect fit with adequate handlebar drop, assuming your proportions are not freakish. Tweak the saddle height as needed. Kiss pain goodbye. Some pros still adhere to this type of fit; Eric Zabel's bikes always looked very close to this standard.

KWalker
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by KWalker

One thing I see a lot more than too much drop is too much reach. Drop to me has a pretty huge range just depending on how your shoulder blades retract when relaxed and also how you end up self selecting your position when on the rivet. Honestly, if I rode as much as pros did I would probably drop my bars another 20mm so my arms were much more locked out while riding tempo simply because it would save on upper arm strain over many hours in the saddle. Sure Gerard Vroomen doesn't think its super aero, but whatever, it'd be more comfortable.

Excessive reach also tends to thrust the shoulders forward a lot more. The way I think of it is track sprinters vs. Pozzato. His bars are so far away that he has to rotate them to some weird angle just so his wrists aren't in pain when he's gripping them. If you watch him race he also has a huge transition from seated to out of the saddle riding to get over the pedals. if you look at lots of track sprinters, or even someone like Cav, they use quite a bit less reach for their height and with their hands positioned more below their shoulders have more leverage during a sprint.

For years I had people telling me I ran too much drop so I raised my bars. I felt cramped and uncomfortable so these same fitters said to just increase my reach. Handling suffered and I had more upper back pain than ever. Even at 6 feet 2 I only use a 120mm stem, but my drop from saddle to the bars next to the stem is 12.5CM and I run classic bars so my drop to the grips is around 14cm and a lot more comfortable, better handling, and more stable. My shoulders and upper back are more relaxed and I can actually use leverage on my bars during a sprint.
Don't take me too seriously. The only person that doesn't hate Froome.
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HUMP DIESEL
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by HUMP DIESEL

Zabel did and still does look great positiong wise on the bike. Go back and watch the video of him scouting out the Milan San Remo course. He looks so relaxed and fast!

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HUMP DIESEL
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by HUMP DIESEL

Do we also feel that cyclist are trying to ride smaller frames and that has led to this shoulder shrugging always in pain scenario?

What is CONI?

HUMP
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tigoose
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by tigoose

I've been through similar experiences as KWalker just mentioned above. I have had as little as 5cm of drop at one point but reach was about 2cm longer than now and still couldn't 100% comfort.
Now i have arounf 13cm drop and a pmp seatpost which has 14-15mm of setback with saddle pushed back from centre say 5mm. Frame has a 54.5cm top tube and stem measures 125mm. All this goes against most recent fitter saying i'm too big for such a set up. I am comfortable.

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djconnel
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by djconnel

To me there's two types of fitting guidelines: functional and dogmatic. If you look at Steve Hogg's recommendations, they're almost all functional. The fit is based on things like rider balance, rocking hips, an rapid acceleration in the knee at bottom of stroke. These are things which are unambigously bad. I'd put tense shoulders in that category. The other type is more dogmatic: KOPS, a certain knee angle, a saddle height of 102% trochanter length. These may be good or even excellent guidelines but they're not directly based on the desired result. I think it's safe to say, though, if a rider looks tense and stiff it's not good. Lennard Zinn in the video I posted earlier looks like he lives on the bike.

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KWalker
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by KWalker

That's semantics IMO. Lots of Steve Hogg's stuff is dogma especially his magnetic fields and materials junk. Biggest waste of an hour of my cycling life was spent testing every thing on or around my bike with magnets and sure enough didn't help a god damned thing.

As Hogg has also said, lots of pros might appear to have bad fits, but sometimes thats as functional as they can get with the riding and racing they're doing. Not everyone is going to look perfect on a bike.

At a certain point all fitters have dogma they cling to otherwise they wouldn't know how to fit a bike. There's relatively few things about fit that have any sort of scientific proof. I think Hogg's balance test is a smart idea, but know from working with one of his certified fitters that most people have no idea how to use it or what point in the fit process and can actually pass it in many positions that they shouldn't be riding in. If only Hogg and a handful of people around the world know how to correctly use it I'd consider that a lot less helpful than some basic ballpark guidelines found in a fit book.

When I got my first road bike I used some formulas to set it up. After 4 fits with 4 different fitters with every training known to man under their belt low and behold my seat height is the same, setback is 5mm off, cleat position is identical, and the only thing that has significantly changed is where they put my bars. By far my worst fit of all time was by someone that uses a lot of Hogg's ideas in terms of appearance, comfort, and performance. So one could argue I spent a lot of time and money basically moving my bars around and trying out different seats that didn't work since I'm still on the same one.
Don't take me too seriously. The only person that doesn't hate Froome.
Gramz
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