Ever an advantage to NOT being aero?

i think we argued discussed this point a while back, may want to search the forum.

I think we came to the conclusion that yes it would benifit, but your ground speed would have to be less then the wind speed.  So if you are cranking out 23 mph and the tail wind is only 15 mph, then you are actually seeing a 8 mph head wind, and the aero position would be prudent still.  Also if you ever did see a wind speed high enough for it make a big difference, the sections you have to ride into it or with it as a cross wind would slow you down a hell of a lot more then you would gain from it as a tail wind.

that being said, I've done some club rides, inlcuding a half century, in 30 mph winds.  This was in flatsville Indiana where a long stretch of the ride was straight into the wind, a short section was cross wind and a long section was with a tail wind.  With the head wind I was lucky to pull 14 mph but with the tail wind we were cranking out about 25 mph.  Now this was on standard road bars and no aero position.

From what our TNT cycling coach has said, a prime time not to be in aero position is when you are climbing a hill ... insomuch as you want to open your upper body up in order to take in more air.

My aerobars purchased from All3Sports 3 weeks ago are still sitting in the brown paper bag I walked out of the store with, so I'd take that with a grain of salt.

Daremo - 2006-02-23 10:53 AM Since there are only a handful of people in the world who can really maintain a true fully aero position for extended periods of time, then there must be an advantage to "not" being aero.

What the heck does this mean?  Anybody with a proper fit and who works on it should be able to maintain an aero position for an extended period of time.  What is "true fully aero"?

In my opinion ( I have no real data to abck this up) being in an aero position will be most avantageous when the main resistance to your going forward is drag, ie. at high speed on a straight course on flat ground.

After that, other factors come into play like steep hills and tight corners. You'll probably climb faster sitting up in some cases because gravity is a bigger limiter of forward speed than is drag.

As for a tailwind, I still think that drag is a bigger limiter than the wind push is a propelling force.  I don't think that sitting up in a non-climbing/non-technical situation is ever gong to be advantageous over staying as aero as possible.

OK, I agree with that as long as you are defining "true fully aero" to mean the most aerodymanic position possible irregardless of comfort. 

But for our purposes here, comfort & aero should not be mutually exclusive.  Especially since we're generally riding a bike without any UCI restrictions (as part of the discomfort comes from riders moving forward onto the tip of their saddle--ouch --to get more forward than they are allowed to set up the bike).  A "proper fit" for a triathlete ought to allow for a fairly aero position that is comfortable enough to maintain for a long time (not many 112mi TT's for the pros) and still maintain power.  And as triathletes are essentially always riding TT, they should be able to put enough time in the saddle to maintain a pretty aero position.

As for top triathletes, most of them are not top cyclists so aero or not they will lag the pros.  And they go slower in part because they just swam hard and still have to run hard.  Many of them could go faster if they were just going to ride a TT (though only a few could come anywhere close to hanging with pro cyclists).  Certainly this also causes them to have to balance aero and comfort to a greater degree than a pro cyclist.

They're different sports.  I guess I just don't like your definition.