- As we look to improve our performance,
we often look for easy wins, ways that we can
go faster for no extra effort,
and why shouldn't you, it's sensible.
Why throw energy and effort away
when you could get into a more aerodynamic position
and save yourself a few watts?
But to do that, we often step away from comfort.
Do we sometimes go too far with this, though,
to the point that it is affecting
our performance and our power output?
I think it's time for a battle.
Comfort versus aero.
(upbeat electronic music)
We've all heard the phrases like,
you're gonna slam that stem, mate.
And for a while, many of us literally did that.
I'll put my hands up and admit
to folding myself in half to try and get more aero.
There's no questioning that aerodynamics
plays a big part in our speed on the bike,
especially within a non-drafting triathlon.
So the thought is if we can reduce
our frontal area by getting ourselves
as low as possible, then we'll go faster.
Well, it's not quite as simple as that.
See, can you actually hold that position
for much more than a few minutes, let alone an Iron Man?
And most importantly, can you actually
still put out the same power?
So here we are, sat in the middle.
How much slower is a relaxed, comfortable position,
if it is at all?
Is a super aggressive aero position
really that much quicker?
Let's take a look.
So I've set my bike up in a super relaxed aero position.
I think I can ride in this all day, to be honest,
but I'm gonna ride it at 300 watts
over a fairly flat four kilometre section of road behind me.
I'm gonna record my time, my speed, and my heart rate.
And then, I'll repeat the test through
on a super aggressive position,
and then, somewhere in the middle.
So this is my starting point, starting off with
a relaxed position, 300 watts, four kilometres, off we go.
(upbeat electronic music)
I really feel the wind in my face, just not used to this.
(upbeat electronic music)
Okay, now it's time to slam that stem,
and get ready for run number two.
(drums)
Okay, let's go.
(upbeat electronic music)
Whew, I feel like a missile!
(upbeat electronic music)
Okay, so that was the slam in aggressive position.
Now, for the next run, something in the middle.
(upbeat electronic music)
Whew, yeah, that felt really powerful.
And actually, I still felt quite fast
and aerodynamic, so I'm really interested
to see what the results say.
Let's take a look.
(mellow electronic music)
Alright, that's all the runs done and I really enjoyed that.
I've never actually played around
with my position quite like that, from one run to the next.
Now, we could've obviously changed quite a lot more
than just the height of the aero bars.
We could've changed the tilt, we could change
saddle position, but that's giving it
quite a good feel, a quite good gauge for things.
And before we do go into the data and the results,
I thought I'd talk about how I actually felt.
So the first run where I went for
quite a relaxed and comfortable position,
yeah, I felt like I probably could've
sat in that position all day, but
I did feel like I just had my head up
and I was just catching the wind.
It didn't particularly feel fast,
didn't really feel like I could put out a tonne of power.
So it wouldn't be my choice, but I do understand
that not everyone can get into an aggressive position,
and actually, it's quite a nice position, maybe,
to start out in, if you just want to complete
an Iron Man, for instance, it's a good option.
Then in the next position, we went for super aggressive.
Now, this is more aggressive than I normally go for myself.
And my initial thoughts were it just felt really twitchy
because, obviously, a lot of my weight
is forward on the bars, it was just moving around a lot,
and I couldn't actually see where I was going.
My head was down, I couldn't really
tilt it up to have a look.
And another thing is, when I'm normally in an
aero position, I'm trying to get my head tucked in.
And because I was so low already,
I was actually really struggling to get my head in,
so I'm not actually sure it was that much more aerodynamic.
And then, we went for the middle position,
which is probably a lot closer
to where I normally ride, anyway.
And yeah, I felt really powerful,
felt aerodynamic, I was able to tuck my head in,
so for me, that was a lot more in the right ball park.
So for the results, the first run
in the relaxed position, I averaged 44.3 kilometres
an hour over 4K at 300 watts in a time
of 5:26, so that's interesting.
Then, onto the super aggressive position.
And I averaged 44.4 kilometres an hour
for four kilometres, which is a time of
5:16, so quite a lot quicker.
And then, for the final run where somewhere in the middle,
averaged 45.2 kilometres an hour and a time of 5:18.
So the quickest run was actually
the most aggressive position, but,
and there's a big but, I really didn't feel comfortable.
I don't think I could hold that for
even an Olympic distance triathlon,
whereas, just for two seconds slower over 4K,
I felt like I could hold the position
that was somewhere in the middle.
Now, that is just for myself, it is very much personal,
but there is still quite interesting results.
I hope you found that interesting, I certainly did.
Now, it wasn't the most thorough study or testing,
but it's hopefully shed some light on
the pros and the cons of the different setups.
Now, if you liked this video, hit that thumbs up button,
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And if you want to see our clip-on versus non clip-on
aero bar video, just click down here.
And if you want to see how bike cadence
can affect your run off, click down here.