This is Brad from back in his Cofidis days: Elbows and hands quite wide.
And here he is in all conquering Sky set up: Elbows and hand very narrow.
Tony Martin during the early days of HTC: Elbows wide, hands narrow.
Tony Martin now: Super narrow.
David Millar in 2003.
David Millar more recently.
It's also interesting to see how Matt Bottrill's position has changed from his days before his involvement with Simon Smart:
To that after hours of wind tunnel testing:
The original theory used to be that having the elbows wider meant that your knees came up into a low pressure point behind the elbows. However, for the majority of the pedal stroke, your knees are out of the low pressure anyway.
I believe we're seeing more a trend towards this kind of a position as more and more information is coming from wind tunnel testing. A journal published last year (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22084053) stated that "Data statistical analysis clearly shows that the hands positioning on shifters and the elbows joined together are significantly reducing the cyclist drag force.". Narrow elbows presents as small a frontal area to the wind as possible and allows less air to get between your legs where it can get disturbed.
There will always be exceptions to the rule: Cadel Evans has always ridden a very wide and open TT position
But what are the down sides? Well, flexibility for one. Not everyone can just drop into a super narrow position and maintain it. Another aspect is whether a narrow elbow position detrimentally effects your breathing. Therefore, I think elbow position is something you should experiment with. Start reducing the width in stages and find where it starts to feel uncomfortable. Try riding a few weeks in that position and see if your body can adapt to it with increased flexibility. Time your self over a set route a number of times and average out the results.
Narrow looks like it's the current theme in the professional peleton, let us know if it works for you?
No comments:
Post a Comment