(light drum beats)
- Right despite being constantly told over and over again
that we must stay in our Aero Bars at all costs
for a triathlon or time trial.
Do you find yourself fighting that and actually
constantly wanting to get out of them on the climbs?
- Well if so, you're certainly not alone,
because, well we all know the Aero benefits
of being in the tri bars when we're in the flats,
but what about on the climbs?
And when do those aero benefits swell?
Simply, go out the window.
- Well, today, we're going to be
taking a look into whether it is
better or faster for you to stay
in your Aero bars on the climbs,
or in fact, to just get out of them.
- So, the aero bars, well they need little introduction.
They do exactly what they say, make us more aero.
They allow us to tilt forward on the bike,
to rest our upper body on Aero bars,
and reduce that frontal area we present to the wind.
This makes a significant difference
when we're on the flat, we all know that.
- Yeah, but what happens when we hit a hill.
Do we stay in our aero bars?
Or can we actually lay more power down
out of the aero bars?
But of course that's going to
increase our frontal area though.
But then, does that even matter when we're on a climb?
Well, this is the dilemma.
So here's what we advise you do.
(light drum beats)
- On a rolling course where we're carrying speed
and there's not going to be any hills
that pick up sharply or for long a
(mumbles)
then we really should try and stay in our Aero bars.
And it is worth pointing out that drag
from wind resistance is starting at 15k an hour speed
and from 20 kilometers an hour,
that increases exponentially.
So, anything above that speed,
we really should be staying in our Aero bars.
- Yeah, for a rolling course it's likely
that were gonna be holding speeds
in excess of 15 kilometers per hour
for the majority of the course
including some of the climbs.
So, it makes total sense to stay in
those aero bars to really maximize those aerodynamic gains.
But, as the hills kick up
or a little bit more sustained
well, that is where things get a little bit more confusing.
- Now, from experience, being in the aero bars
for anything as long or sustained in distance
just feels wrong to me.
I don't feel comfortable.
I definitely don't feel like I can
produce the right amount of power.
But maybe this doesn't matter
because I could be gaining more
from those aerodynamic gains.
- Well, to counter that, I actually remember
Chris Froome go full aero in the hilly
time trial stage 18 at the Tour de France back in 2016.
Whilst a lot of his competitors didn't bother.
They decided to ride road bikes.
They didn't feel that aero dynamics
was as important for those hills.
Well, Chris went on to win that stage,
and he beat none other than Tom Dumoulin by 21 seconds.
So, he made it work.
Now, I think this is calling for
a bit of an investigation, Fraser.
- Time to give it a go, Mark.
Now, Mark has taken us to one of
his favorite hills in the Bath area,
of which there are a lot to choose from,
because to be honest, it's pretty much
the only way to get out of the city.
This is definitely one of your favorites, isn't it?
- Bannerdown Hill.
- Yeah, so we're just along the top
of the road from Bannerdown.
We're about to go down there shortly.
Tackle the middle section of the climb.
Approximately, 8% in gradient,
and actually, some serious sections getting close to 20.
- Now, the idea behind all of this
is to see whether there's a difference
in the effort that we're having to exert
for those different positions.
Now, I think it's gonna be the heart rate
that's really gonna tell the story here.
But it's also going to be really interesting
to see what happens to the cadence as well.
So, Fraser.
- Let's get going, huh?
- Here we go.
(light drum beats)
Okay then, run one, 400 watts.
I'm in the aero bars.
- Me in the hoods.
- Let's go.
- Yeah
(light drum beats)
- So I'll tell you what Fraser, that was tough.
- Yeah there wasn't anything you can say about that
was there Mark?
- No, I mean I just wanted to get out
with my Aero bars for the whole thing.
Although I did notice at one point. I almost
seemed to like, pull away from you as it shallowed out.
- [Fraser] You did and that was the
one point where I wanted to get
into my Aero bars because it was just that little
bit less steep and it would have been good for me
to be in them but as you say you were able
to pull away but I did notice that I caught quite
quickly back up to you as it got steeper.
- Yeah I was just really struggling to put the power
out as it got steeper.
But yeah, we just need to get our breath back now.
And then we'll go for run two and switch around.
(light drum beats)
Well I am pleased that's all over and done with and we
are sat in the warmth now.
- Sure
- And we can look at our results so first of all lets
take a look at the times and the first run we went
3:35 and the second run 3:33.
Basically the same really.
- Yeah, give or take.
- So I'm going to say now time are irrelevant but what's
going to be really interesting is looking at how our
bodies responded to these intensities.
So, first of all I was on the Aero Bars
and Fraser was on the hoods.
And I actually rode 385 watts, a little bit below
the 400 watts but simply because it was really hard
to put the power out in the Aero bars.
I had a heart rate of 141 and a cadence of 83.
- Yeah so as Mark said, I was on the
hoods for the first run.
My power was up at 393 actually, so it's a little bit
higher than Mark but I do weigh a little bit
more than him I'm not afraid to say.
My heart rate is at 156 but again I'm not so surprised
by that number and my cadence was 90.
- Yeah and then we switched it around and this is where
things obviously get interesting because I was on the hoods
and I rode at 396 watts so really a lot closer to that
400 watts we were striving for.
But my heart rate remains at around that 150bpm mark
so that was interesting and my cadence was at 84rpm.
- [Fraser] Yeah, and second run I was riding Aero
in the bars my power dropped just a little bit
390 but significantly I find that
really much harder to do and that's evidence
by the fact that my heart rate spiked up to
162 which is a reasonably higher number.
That's purely because I was uncomfortable, didn't
like to have to be stuck in that position
It's not the type of riding style
I prefer to have on the climb.
Pretty much unaffected cadence just dropped down to 88.
- [Mark] Well that's actually really interesting,
we've kinda got two sides to the story there so
in my case I actually had a difference in my power
but my heart rate remained the same so I
suggest the hoods is actually easier.
But for yourself your power was
pretty much the same give 3 watts.
But the heart rate was different and it was higher
for the Aero bars.
- It was and that doesn't really surprise me because
personally I just much prefer to be out of the Aero bars
I'll probably be out the saddle be climbing with bikes side
to side, you know I'd just be much comfortable, more
comfortable rather, in that position.
So it really doesn't surprise me that
the heart rate spiked up.
- Yeah then finally obviously we've mentioned the cadence
already there was so little difference in our cadence
between each rep that yeah, that's a non-factor really.
- [Fraser] Sure
- Now there is actually some increasing evidence from
research that kinda backs all this up from one in
particular is from Medic'ordi from the
English Institute of Sport or EIS.
And they found that cyclists had a significantly lower
critical power for the time trial position.
So when they're in the Aero bars, in addition whilst
in a time trail position their performance decrease
during each trial and with that decrease in power output
but with greater trial duration.
- Sure but how is this important?
Well in short we do know that
riding in Aero bars drastically
improves our aerodynamics but there might
be a slight drop off in power.
Whilst riding at higher speeds then the aerodynamics
plays a huge part but once that speed starts
to drop there isn't really such a big factor as opposed
to perhaps the power output that we're
actually putting out, right?
- Yeah so if our power is decreasing due to our position
and being in the Aero bars then
you know, maybe it makes more sense to get out of those
Aero bars for certain times.
And there's actually some more research so it
kind of goes along this trend and has been looking into
the gradients and our aerodynamics.
So as we mentioned earlier, aerodynamics becomes less
of a factor below 15 kilometeres per hour.
And this for elite cyclists or good cyclists tends
to be on a good gradient of around 7.5%.
Obviously for a lot of other riders, you're non-elite
good cyclists then this is going to, well the speeds
are going to start dropping off at lower gradients
and this can be anywhere as low as 4.5% and this is
particularly important for us triathletes who are doing
long distance events, we're gonna
be pacing the ride really well.
We're not gonna be hammering up every climb so you're
maybe gonna be traveling at slower speeds up the climb
so yeah, it may make more sense to get out the Aero bars
because you're not going at a
fast enough speed for those climbs.
- [Fraser] Yeah sure Mark but this doesn't mean that
we're actually suggesting that we should always be jumping
out of your Aero bars because like we said
with rolling terrain, if you're on a slight
incline and you can still hold that that
greater than 15k an hour pace, stick with it
Stay in the position because it is
providing you that aerodynamic benefit.
- Yeah and I guess that kind of answers my Chris Froome
debate I picked up earlier because I actually have the
stats from his ride from the Tour de France here for that.
So he did 17 kilometers in 30 minutes and 43 seconds
so that is an average speed of 33 kilometers per hour
And I'd imagine given the length of the race just
17 kilometers he was going pretty hard on those climbs
and probably wasn't allowing his speed to drop off to
much so aerodynamics would have been a
big advantage to him that day.
- Yeah absolutely and I suppose what we can close on here
is that it's really just practice practice
and more practice.
Specific to what you're going to be riding
in your race whether that's a triathlon or a T T specific
bike or a road bike with some clip on Aero bars.
You need to be comfortable in that aero position that
you've got, so when you're riding into hills or slight
inclines stay in that aero bar position,
see where your limit is with finding that speed that
feels comfortable to you and gauge how that works for
that 15 kilometer limit that we've been talking about.
- Yeah and personally I just really like it, it's a
good excuse to get up out the Aero bars, stretch
my back out mid-race because we can be in the Aero
bars for an awfully long time during some triathlon races.
Now if you like the video today, do hit that thumbs up
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click on on the globe and subscribe.
And as always do get involved in the comments section
below, let us know your thoughts on using the Aero bars
on climbs and your experiences in the past.
And if you'd like to see some other videos,
I've got one where I literally slam the stem on my Aero bars
and went for a very aggressive position versus a very
comfortable position you can see
my comfort verses Aero video by clicking just here.
- And if you wanna see another video on how to ride
in the Aero bars you can find that here.