- Morning, Trainiacs.
I saw an awesome photo,
well, I was kind of part of taking
the awesome photo because the photo was of me
of the Ventum ride that I did in Boulder some time ago,
and the difference in the aerodynamics
between me on the bike now versus two years ago,
huge, enormous, but it was done
without very many changes in my position
and nothing that required me getting more flexible
or in a less comfortable position.
So after I do this swim and water run,
I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna show you
some of the changes that you can very easily
make to your bike that will make you more aerodynamic
without really having to change your body structure.
Simple stuff.
(upbeat music)
That was short and hopefully still quite effective.
I'm still trying to do one run a week
in this buildup to Puerto Rico is a water run
because A, I know that I'm a fairly injury-prone dude
as far as running goes,
especially when you start running four times a week,
so just subbing out one that's intense but lighter impact,
hopefully that helps,
and then B, I gotta test things
and see if I can recommend them to you.
On that note, four things that I tested and changed
that helped me get more aero
without changing my body structure
or really anything physiologically, no work.
Look at Mel, she's just in stitches over there.
What you laughing about?
- Can't say it out loud.
- You can't say on the camera.
It's pretty funny.
So, I'm gonna show you two pictures.
One is of my first bike fit,
and this would have been about a 1 1/2 ago,
and this was after a full bike fit
that I did at Alter Ego,
and basically, they got me into
the first position that I was comfortable with
on the Cervelo P2 that I used to ride.
And you can see from it that
there's a really big scoop,
like my arms and chin,
there's a big gap here,
and it's like a big wind scoop.
Now, take a look at some of these photos
from just last week that were taken in Boulder.
Now, you can see that the gap between my chin and my hands
is really only about four inches high.
Now, to get this, you might think, historically,
that I would have had to start slamming the front end here,
raising up the saddle, but that's the old way to do it.
The new way to do it is what we did,
which involves really no serious biomechanical stretching,
physiotherapy to be able to get into that position.
It was really just some very small changes
with modern bike fitting that allowed me to get
a fair bit more aerodynamic,
and the more we can close up that hole,
the faster we're going to be,
the more comfortable we're going to be
with, really, the same effort,
and this is pretty significant
When we're doing the How to Bike with Cam Wurf Masterclass,
one of the guys from
the Bike Dynamics Company that we're talking to
said that him personally, when they did the testing on him,
they were able to save 17 minutes on the bike
over the course of a full Ironman
with no extra physiological changes.
That's huge.
Let's dive into the few that I've done
that you can do quite easily.
So, historically, with triathlon bike fitting,
what people did to get more aerodynamic was
they took the stem and just slammed it
to the top of the headset in the bike.
They got it as low as possible,
and then they took the handle bars, angled them down.
We didn't do that.
In our case, we did two things,
and this started after Coeur d'Alene last year
because I had about three months
in between Coeur d'Alene and Half Ironman World,
which is enough time to adapt to the position.
I took 1/4 inch, just 1/4 inch,
out of the headset.
Now, when we're going from 12, 15 inches of gap
between my hands and my chin,
down to about four inches of gap
between my hands and my chin,
and we've really only changed this by 1/4 inch?
How do you do that?
Well, here's some weights.
Take off the shirt so you can see the gun show,
and I can demonstrate all of this.
The very first thing that I did
to bring that frontal area a little bit narrower was
I just moved the pads in one notch.
So again, we're talking 1/4 inch lower
and about a total of 1/2 inch tighter.
That's it, nothing too serious.
Now, in order to make this fairly comfortable,
I had to make a couple of small additions.
First, I had to change over to
these 51 Speedshop elbow cups,
and those are the cups that are from the Ventum,
and those are about the average size of
what comes on a TriBike.
So 51 Speedshop cups, you can see,
are about 50% larger.
The next thing that's the difference is
that's about the standard amount of holes
that come on a TriBike elbow cup,
whereas a 51 Speedshop cup,
quiet a few more holes.
So yeah, a little bit more adjustability.
And why that makes a big difference is,
if you've got more adjustability,
you can really customize the front end of the bike
so that you can just get all of your weight
on those elbows, and then,
here's where you start getting really aerodynamic.
If you can plant all of your weight onto those elbows,
you can all of the sudden just start
leaning into the front end of the bike
with all of your weight
and slowly start bringing yourself down
without slamming yourself.
It's just that you've got so much weight
positioned on those elbow cups,
you get lazy in the hands, lazy in the upper back,
lazy in the neck, so you're all of the sudden
more aerodynamic and more comfortable.
Next thing that we changed was with the extensions here.
So these 51 Speedshop extensions,
they come out and up a lot more
than traditional aero bars,
which used to just go straight down.
Now, the problem with those straight-down bars is that
if your hands are angled this way,
it creates tension all the way across
the front of the forearm, up into the shoulder,
creates just tension everywhere.
Next thing is that, if your hands are down here,
you've got a big wind scoop that is all of the sudden
just allowing air into your frontal plane.
So you get these 51 Speedshop extensions,
and by the way, this is not an ad for 55 Speedshop,
there is eZip, there's whole bunch of
other front-end bar systems that can do this,
apparently, Ventum is coming out with a new bar system.
But if you have your hands a little bit further up,
it's gonna close up that hole, and then,
the thing that we did in addition to that was,
I actually machine that on an angle
in a video that we'll link to just up here,
and what that allows me to do is, again,
bring those bars further up,
again, narrowing up that frontal plane.
Now, the final change that you can make
that I am about to make is with the crank length.
So, here.
We have this new Dura-Ace crank,
and let me explain here,
I haven't even opened this,
I hope this is a Dura-Ace crank.
Oh yes, it's a Dura-Ace crank.
It would have been an embarrassing video,
very anticlimactic.
So this here is a 165-length crank.
Now, what a 165-length crank is
is its shorter distance from the center of the pedal
to the center of the crank.
And why this makes a difference is,
typically, bikes come with a 170, a 172 1/2,
a 175, and basically, physically,
you can put out the same amount of power
with a 165, a 170, a 175.
The difference is just a couple of things.
Number one, if you have a shorter crank,
think about the pedal coming up here,
that means that your saddle height can all of the sudden
go higher than bringing your back a little bit flatter
and a little bit more aerodynamic.
Second thing is that, if your crank is shorter
at the top of the pedal stroke,
the pedal is all of the sudden now lower.
That opens up your hip angle
so you aren't in quite the scrunched position.
So even though you are actually getting,
basically, a flatter back, your hips are more open,
which is going to result in
you being fresher when you get off the bike.
So those are a few of
the very easy changes that you can make
to get significantly more aerodynamic
without having to change your body structure
or put yourself into a position that is uncomfortable
because what's been found is
the more comfortable you are in your bike position,
the more you're going to stay in that position
throughout the duration of the ride.
So that is actually going to
result in being more aerodynamic
than getting absolutely as possible.
It's also going to result in you feeling better
when you get onto the run,
so it has a doubling effect of
being more total aerodynamic on the bike
and allowing you to be faster on the run.
So those few things that you can do.
Just narrow up the elbow cups a little bit,
get that bar system,
the aero bar extensions a little bit higher,
position those elbow cups so that
you can put all your weight right on your elbows,
shorten up your crank length,
and all of this is going allow you
to get five, 10, 20, 30 minutes faster
over the course of a Half Ironman or an Ironman
without really being that much more fit
or that much more flexible.
If you want to go through a full understanding of
bike fit position with saddle height,
with saddle forward and back,
with stack height, we have a full playlist
that talks about it in four videos down here,
and I forget what the URL is,
but we'll put a URL right here
for a free guide that you can download
for how to just settle into your personal bike position,
and that's free.
Just put in your email address, and you get that.
All right, gun show.
Later, Trainiacs.