- We often talk about aero gains as free watts.
Although, that's not quite true, because actually,
you're just going faster for the same power
rather than gaining more power.
But anyway, a lot of people, if they can afford it,
will buy a time trial specific bike
for time trials or triathlon even,
assuming that it will be faster, which it could be.
But actually, it's not just about the bike,
it's more about your body position.
You can get a really good aero time trial position on
your regular road bike with a time trial handlebar.
In this case, we've got the Control Tech Time Zone Aero Bar.
The reason for that, is they asked us to use it in a video.
In this instance, its range and ease of adjustability
makes it ideal for us to demonstrate a time trial bike fit.
For this video, I needed a volunteer, because it's a bit too
complicated for me to both talk and demo at the same time.
So, I need, well, a model cyclist (snapping).
Simon, thanks for volunteering.
- That's all right.
Not often I'm called a model cyclist.
In fact, it's far nicer than anything
Lordy's ever said about me, so I'll take it.
- Well, anyway, I'm sorry this is gonna be so boring
for you, 'cause presumably you've had hundreds of
time trial bike set ups and done loads of time trails.
- You say that, Emma.
I have never, in all my years of racing bikes, had a time
trial bike fit, so this is gonna be very interesting indeed.
- But, you have done time trials, though.
You didn't get through a whole pro cycling career
without doing a time trial, surely.
- Yeah, no, I did five. - Five?
- I did five of them, yeah.
Two of them were on a proper time trial bike,
but never one that had ever been fitted to me.
- Wow, this is incredible.
It would have been even more fun, to be honest with you--
- Tell a lie, it's seven.
I've just remembered two more. - Seven.
Still, you can count on two hands
the number of time trials you've done.
Not a total beginner, so it won't be quite--
- Eight, sorry.
I've just remembered another one,
Tour of King High Lake Pro Log.
Sorry, anyway, that's it now.
I promise.
- That's still not very many.
Although, like I say, it would have been even more fun
if you were a total beginner, because I wanted
revenge for the cyclocross semi humiliation.
But, you know.
(bleep) Ugh.
- It would hurt an awful lot more falling off a
time trial bike than a cyclocross bike, I think, Emma.
It's certainly not quite (mumbles).
- No, okay, but anyway.
I think this is gonna be super interesting.
Maybe we could even shave a few times off your local KOMs
if there was anything you were chasing.
- I'd be up for it.
And yes, as it happens, I am indeed chasing it.
(upbeat music)
- Now, I know you're raring to
hop on the bike and get training, Si.
But, before you do, let's just ask the fundamental
question of, what is the point of a time trial bike?
- Okay.
It's a bike that's gonna be faster than my road bike.
- Yes.
Riding on your own, specifically.
There's a few key things.
I think there's three key points
about a time trial bike to consider.
One is body position, one is the
bike frame and one is the handlebars.
- Okay. - Right.
- I don't wanna seem ungrateful, Emma,
but this is very clearly your bike and
there's a bit of height difference between the two of us.
It just looks a little bit small.
- Yes and I grant you, it may be a little on the small side,
but the thing is, with a time trial bike,
you are much better off going for a slightly
smaller frame than a frame that's too big,
because you have more degrees of movement.
The key thing about time trial position
is to get low at the front.
If the bike's too high at the front, and I'll be honest,
for me, for time trial, this frame, even though it's the
smallest frame I could get, would be too high
at the front for me to get a low aero position.
Whereas for you, it might be a bit too low,
but we can always go higher by putting a longer stem,
or a stem that slopes up.
- Okay.
- You have more degrees of movement
and we can definitely get you low and aero.
- Sweet.
(upbeat music)
- Let's start then with body position,
which, as I said, is the most important factor.
This is where you will save the most drag.
The most important thing is to reduce your frontal area.
Frontal area is your area as seen from the front on.
Fairly straight forward, really.
- Yeah. - So, you need to get low.
- Okay.
So, when we're talking about fit then,
is it gonna be this position here where
I'm gonna be spending most of my time?
This is the one we wanna get dialed?
- Exactly, yeah.
On the aero skis is the position you want to work for you.
You're only really gonna be on the break hoods
when you're breaking or accelerating out of corners.
And at that point, you're generally moving a lot slower,
or trying to slow down, if you're braking,
so you don't need to be so aero.
Now, there are some time trial courses where
that might be different, but generally,
that's where you're gonna be when you're going fast.
This is the position we want to work on.
- All right.
- The most important thing, like I said, body position.
The most important part of your
body position is your head position.
It is very hard to tell for sure
what's fastest without a wind-tunnel test.
But, without a wind-tunnel test there is a rule of thumb
and that is to try and get your head
in line with your back and your bum.
So, first of all, get your back in line with your bum
and then, get your head in line with that.
Lovely.
You want a flat line from head to shoulders to bum.
We're almost there.
You could actually go a little bit lower at the front.
- Could I?
I've got a space under here?
- You do have spaces, yeah, fantastic.
The point of getting low at the front
is just to reduce your frontal area.
That's not the only factor in the drag of your body.
There's also the coefficient of drag.
- [Simon] What actually is your coefficient of drag, then?
- The coefficient of drag is just
a coefficient in the drag equation.
It doesn't any units as such.
It's hard to, it's not a physical thing,
but the way you can think about it
is about the smoothness of a shape.
Often, when we measure drag, we measure CDA.
That's what we talk about.
That has units of area.
But, CD is the coefficient of drag and A is your area.
We measure them together.
But, if you want to think about separating them out,
your front area, it's fairly clear what that is.
CD, well, it's about how smooth the shape of you is.
The more like a teardrop shape you are, the better.
Also, the smoother your surfaces are, the better.
That's why we get super high-tech, funky,
time trial skin suits at the Olympics that people
invest a lot of money into making them slightly lower drag.
That's why your position is about
more than just your frontal area.
Sometimes people find that they can get lower at the front
and get a smaller frontal area, but they're not
actually quicker in wind-tunnel tests or on the road,
because it might have changed their shape,
such that their coefficient of drag has actually gone up.
- Okay, so actually, you've got the hole that
you're punching through, the wind, but actually
a lot of your drag, correct me if I'm wrong,
is created from the turbulence at the back?
- Exactly, yeah.
- Your coefficient of drag is almost thinking
about everything that happens past here backwards.
And that could be your skin suit,
whether that's causing micro-turbulence.
It could be my bum, which causes
massive amounts of turbulence.
- [Emma] I doubt it causes, I think it's
gonna be a very tiny amount of turbulence.
- [Simon] You're too kind.
- The second thing that we think about with a
time trial bike is often having a time trial frame.
You can tell what an aero frame is by the way it looks.
It does save a few watts, but actually,
it's not that much compared to your body position.
So, we're gonna leave that for the moment.
We do have an Orbea Orca Aero, but I think
that's gonna be far less important to you
in your time trial gains than your head position.
Lastly, handlebars.
We often think about the handlebars as
being a way to get low in a time trial.
That is, of course, important, but the other thing
about the aero bars is not to get narrow and low,
it's also the fact that it's more comfortable
for long periods pushing at a high wattage
than holding yourself on the drops, for most people,
because you can essentially use fewer of your arm muscles,
which leaves you with more energy for your leg muscles.
(upbeat music)
Now we know what we're looking for.
Let's get stuck into the nitty gritty
details of sorting out an aero position.
First up is to get slammed, get low at the front,
because that's the first thing we're gonna look for.
That's all about elbow height, because your
elbow height defines your shoulder height,
defines your back height, defines your head height.
That looks actually pretty good.
- Yeah?
- Doesn't look super comfortable,
but it doesn't have to be at this stage.
Did it feel like you could pedal?
- It did.
It felt like I could pedal.
My puny, little shoulders were
starting to hurt a little bit.
- Really? - Yeah.
They're that weak.
And I feel like I'm a little bit crammed.
- Yes, so you'd like a bit more space at the front?
- I could go lower and I think I could hold
onto something other than my gear shifters.
(upbeat music)
Whilst we're adjusting the height of the bars
and the reach on the skis, what about the angle?
'Cause that changes obviously, soon as you loosen the bolts.
- Good point.
These bars have a huge amount of
adjustability, which is great.
Angle of the skis is mostly really about comfort
and how you feel like you can put power down.
Some people find that changing the angle will help them
to move their shoulder position and get more air into
their lungs, give them more space to breathe, basically.
But, generally most people go roughly horizontal.
And it won't really change your frontal area
and it probably won't change your drag that much.
Changing your elbow position outwards, so the width
of your elbows, that can make a bit of difference.
We've got three bolt holes here.
We could have actually gone quite
a lot narrower with your elbows.
However, there's normally not much point going a huge amount
narrower than your hips, because if you think about your
shape from front on, if your elbow's in line with your hips,
then that's one shape for the air to flow around.
But again, that's the kind of detail that's
really hard to measure without a wind tunnel.
What your elbow really does affect
is your stability and cross winds.
I've found, we've found that I was actually slightly more
aero with my elbows really close together in a wind tunnel.
But, I couldn't ride it on the road, because the slightest
gust of a cross wind and I felt like I was gonna fall off.
In fact, I probably almost did once.
So, I start with slightly wider elbows just because I could
be safer and put the power down without getting scared.
There we go, we've taken out this one-centimeter shim,
which has got you slightly lower at the front.
We've also moved the aero skis forward,
which gives you a bit more space in the
chest region where you're pedaling.
How does it feel?
To me, it looks really good.
Your back's really flat.
I think if you wanted to keep your head lower you could.
Doesn't feel great on the neck, I admit.
But, just for first impressions, how does it feel?
- Good.
It actually feels remarkably comfortable.
A bit like you kind of adopt that position on your
road bike where you're balancing on the bars.
It's just, you've got so much control and you
actually feel quite secure and you can really lean on it.
- If you did want to go further forward we have
another stem, but if you feel okay, we'll probably
leave that with the shorter stem for the moment.
- Yeah.
I find it slightly weird that I'm riding
a 47 with a 90-millimeter-long stem.
- And you look pretty good.
- And I feel remarkably comfortable.
- One thing that's worth noting here, while we're talking
about elbow height, when we've got you pretty low and I
think you look pretty good from a frontal-area perspective.
We're also thinking about elbow position for aft.
I always used to time trial
with my upper arms roughly vertical.
If I went any further forward, which in some cases
was more aero when we did wind tunnel testing, I felt very
unstable, because my arms were quite extended then and it
felt like I was gonna get blown around in the cross wind.
I would come to head position, which is absolutely crucial.
Of body position, head position is the most important thing.
How low you can keep you head is crucial.
That's to do with how long your neck is
and how flexible, how big your eyebrows are (chuckling).
- Yes, I did notice actually that I can't really see,
because my eyebrows are getting in the way.
- Yes, and being able to see is really, really important.
I can't stress this enough, it's one thing
on a turbo, but safety is absolutely
the most important thing out on the road.
For most races the roads are not closes.
You need to be able to see where you're going.
No aero gain is as important as making sure you're safe.
- Yes, yeah, no, I consider science to be
of paramount importance when I'm cycling.
- There's a way of getting the head low and being able to
see where you're going using a sort of S-bend in your neck.
It's extremely uncomfortable. - Yeah, it is.
- Yeah, it's horrible.
You only need to look up just enough to be able to see.
I would find at the end of a really hard time trial
my eyeballs would hurt, because I'd be
looking up so hard through my eyebrows.
This sounds fun, doesn't it? - Yeah.
I suppose I'll have a visor on my aero helmet,
so the fact that my forehead's gone all crinkly
doesn't matter, 'cause that's actually not causing--
- These wrinkles have not come from nowhere (laughing).
- Uh, right, okay.
- Do you want to try it with an aero helmet?
- Yes, please. - Perfect.
(upbeat music)
I know I keep going on and on about head position,
but really it is the single most
important factor in your aero position.
I know, because I've seen the numbers in the wind tunnel.
Just a centimeter can make a huge difference
in your drag compared to everything else.
Now that Simon's got the aero helmet on we can see
another point, which is that if he even looks down,
for example, the point of the helmet sticks up.
That is not optimal.
Whereas, if he looks up through his eyebrows
in his carefully-trained position,
that keeps the point of the helmet down.
The tail of the aero helmet effectively smooths the gap
between his head and his back and that's what we want to do.
That's the point of the aero helmet.
There's no point in wearing an aero helmet
if you don't keep the tip low at the back.
That's something that you should also go out and train.
It's not particularly comfortable.
It's not particularly fun.
Nobody really likes wearing an aero helmet
in training, but it is really important.
I used to go out, for example, with a magnet
stuck under my jersey there and a 10-piece
stuck in the tail of my aero helmet.
I'd have to clip them together and ride around like that.
- Are you serious? - Yep.
It wasn't very fun.
- I'm starting to think time trialing isn't very fun.
My eyeballs are hurting. - Sorry.
- I thought there'd be different ones hurting,
but no, it's my eyeballs.
(loudly laughing)
- Now, have you noticed, Si, that because
you're on my bicycle you have 165 cranks?
- I have, I have noticed.
Not because of the way they feel necessarily,
because I haven't pressed on the pedals yet,
but because with 165-mill cranks, you've got quite a lot
of extra crank at the end that you're not actually using.
Haven't you?
- So I have.
I hadn't realized.
I haven't ridden longer cranks for quite a long time.
Now, this is a bit of a bodge because you're on my bike,
but a lot of people do actually find that it's worth
trying out a shorter crank for time trials, because it
keeps your knee lower at the top of your pedal stroke.
- [Simon] If at six-foot-one, say 185 centimeters,
I'd be considering 165s, what would you consider then, 155s?
- I've tried 155s.
They didn't go so well for me, actually.
I don't think I ever quite got the coordination.
But, I know lots of riders taller than me who've gone
for 155s and riders my height who've gone for 150s.
I think you could go longer, actually.
Funnily enough, my first ever World Championships time trial
my team, who were fantastic, they put my time trial bike
together for the World Championships and they put a longer
crank on it, saying to me, we've put a 175 crank on your
bike, Emma, so that you get more power for the time trial.
I was totally confused, because I thought, well, one,
I'm pretty sure longer cranks don't give you more power,
they give you more torque, it's not the same thing.
And secondly, if they give you more power,
why wouldn't you use them in a road race, too?
Because, you want power also in a road race.
Anyway, it's a myth that longer cranks have more power.
They have more torque.
But, I think, for time trialing the key thing
is being able to hold the position and pedal well.
If you need a shorter crank, don't be scared to try one.
(upbeat music)
While we're down in the bottom-bracket region,
let's talk about Q factor, Simon.
Not always discussed in bike fits,
but it can make a significant difference
for aero gains, because basically Q factor
is about how far apart your feet are.
When you think about frontal area, that can make quite a
big difference, especially as your feet are spinning around,
because they're actually creating even more turbulence.
You can reduce your Q factor by using cranks that
have a smaller Q factor, that are closer to the bike frame,
by using pedals with a shorter spindle.
- [Simon] You can move your cleats in, I guess.
- Exactly, yeah, you can also move your cleats in.
That is the simplest way of doing it.
However, you don't want to end up with your shoe
rubbing on the crank, because that is generally
a poor way to transfer power to the bike.
- There's also, presumably, a (mumbles) on your
actual bike fit from a comfort perspective, because Q factor
has a real bearing on knee pain because of your IT Band.
- Huge, yeah, exactly.
A lot of people go as aero as they can
in terms of narrowness Q factor and then
find that they get knee pain, hip pain.
You have to be very careful with these things.
Tiny adjustments around pedals and cleats
can make quite a bit difference to how you feel.
- You could basically, for one big event,
massively reduce your Q factor and then
not walk for a couple of months afterwards.
- You could do.
I wouldn't take that risk, personally.
I think you're health's more important (chuckling).
Well, I think you're looking pretty darn good there, Si.
How does it feel?
- Well, I'm quite positive about how much power
it feels like I could put out on this position.
So, that's good.
But I'm not gonna lie, even in this short period of time,
my shoulders are giving me a bit of jip.
My eyeballs are definitely giving me a bit of jip.
Probably my neck as well.
So, I think I'd need to spend quite a bit of time
in this position, actually just getting used to it.
Whatever.
Thank you very much for taking me through your bike.
To be fair, I am genuinely quite
motivated to do some time trialing.
Partly, because you've filled me with confidence,
you said my position looks all right, and partly because
I'm still relatively competitive and it seems like another--
- I think you would absolutely nail it.
I really want to see you do a
time trial just so you can smash everyone.
I think this is a GCN video in the making.
- Well, there we go.
Watch this space whilst I train desperately.
- Also, you could take a good
10 minutes off your commute, I reckon.
- Well, that's even more appealing, isn't it?
- More time in bed. - Nice.
And, wouldn't I look darn cool,
as well, on a low-pro bike going to work?
- So cool. - Yeah, right.
Well, thank you very much, Emma.
Please use a big thumbs up.
That's some serious insight there.
And also, if you are gonna want to do some of those
core exercises, Emma, you took us through that.
- Yep.
- We have a video on that very subject.