SWBKRUN- Miles and Miles ahead!!!! CLOSED (Page 81)

Video works also, can stop it and measure on the screen.

The vid is too big for the site, do you mind if I email it to you?

Sure.  [email protected]

I leave my computer for 2 hours to paint my daughters room, and this happens?? Ouch.

Hey Joni Mitchell too.

**>>>Uh,uh,uh you guys are talking about aerobars still right?****

LOL....Now thats FUNNY!!!  In my schoolhouse when students do that we call those "Word Choice Errors" and YES...definately AEROBARS

Sending the bike position video failed.  I uploaded it to my album, anyone who can help with recommendations please feel free to gander.

Thanks

Well I haven't had a chance to freeze-frame it but as soon as I saw you sit on the bike I figured you were going to be stretched out.  To begin with you want your forearms and biceps to be at a 90 degree angle from one another.  That way your weight is being supported by that 90 degree angle.  (whatever the bone under you bicep is called).  The way you were positioned you would be holding yourself up with your core muscles/lower back. 

How far up can you get the saddle.  If not too far you might need to look at a fast forward seat post they have a bend in them that will move you forward more.

When you take pictures make sure you are wearing cycling shorts and shirt.  Tough to make some measurements with loose clothes on.

Will do a bit more measuring in a bit.





 

I am by no means in a perfect position in my album but to give you an idea of the bicep/forearm position look in my album at the NJ TT pictures.Obviously tougher on a road bike with clipons to get perfect position but the closer to 90 degrees you can get the more comfortable you will end up being on longer rides in aero.

Edited by dalessit 2010-01-09 5:40 PM

I think you'll be safe with just about any of the major manufacturers bikes.  I ride a Giant OCR 3 with stock everything and it does great.  I can crank hard enough to make it jump a gear, but if I'm conscious of my acceleration I can avoid it.  But 99% of the time it's great.  I'm 6' 9" and currently about 275 lbs so I stress the crap out of it I'm sure.

Hi there, I hope you don't mind if I chime in with a few thoughts...

First, your leg angle at the bottom of the stroke (well, actually, at the point where the crank arm is in line with the seat tube) is probably a little more than you'd want. As Tony mentioned, it's difficult to tell with long pants on, but it looks to me like you'll want to lower your seat a bit. Without a video of you actually pedaling, it's also tough to see, but you do a semi-stroke at about 1:13 in. Your hip appears to rock to the extended leg. Ideally, you'd like that hip line to be rock solid without any rocking. If you could upload a video with you pedaling for a little bit, that might be helpful.

Second, you definitely appear overly extended in aero. Moving your saddle forward will help a little; the front of your saddle is well behind the bottom bracket. There's only so much horizontal adjustment you can do when adapting a road frame to tri, so it might necessitate a shorter stem, different seat post, or some combination thereof.

I like to see the angle formed by the greater trochanter (it's that bumpy protuberance at the top of the femur that sticks out of the hip/pelvic bone region... you can easily feel it when you're in aero position), the shoulder and elbow to equal 90 degrees. I don't think it's imperative that the forearm/bicep angle is exactly a right angle , however. You can have your forearms parallel to the ground and your arms forming a slightly oblique angle, as long as the angle I mentioned above is close to 90. You don't need to have your back perfectly flat, either; this is often determined by your flexibility.

For example, let's take a look at Chrissie from last year. Granted, I don't think many people would say this is a great aero position, but you can see what I mean about the trochanter/shoulder/forearm angle being pretty dang close to 90.

Picture

Okay, let's take a look at someone who I think has a pretty good position: Chris Lieto

Finally, here's Stadler overtaking Llanos

Granted, it's tough to tell with a single picture, but it looks to me like Stadler's upper arms are more vertical, but he's also got more drop from the seat to his aerobars, meaning his hips/GT are higher than Llanos', and therefore he's still maintaining that 90 degree angle.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like more analysis or if you've got a video of you pedaling.

He All....

I am having tire issues with my CT.  I melted one a couple of weeks ago and chalked it up to a defective tire. The last couple rides my CT has been noisy, like a thud.  So I check the tire and it is happening again.....I tend to crank the heck out of the tension and usually ride above 3.0. Would that cause the problem?  I have an early ride and am hoping it holds up.  I am totally out of 650s.

THanks
Suzy

There was a lot of discussion at one time about using different muscles when on a tri-bike that would save your legs for the run portion.  I believe all that has been thrown out the window/debunked/was never really even said by anyone with any data to back it up.

Basically getting your body more aerodynamic will help you go faster using the same amount of watts (or same speed using less watts).  One thing the aerobars do is to get you into that aerodynamic position and to get you in a more comfortable position for riding longer distances. 

Yes a tri-bike is harder to control.  And fitting a road bike with aero bars can make it even tougher to control sometimes from what I understand.  I rode with clip-ons my first year and didn't really have any issues with control but YMMV.

See in your avatar picture you are a parachute at that point, chest right into the wind.  If you get in your drops you will be more aerodynamic you should be able to slip through the wind.  Moving to aero-bars would get you as low as being in the drops if not lower and also a place to rest your arms so your weight is not having to be held up by your arms/core.

Getting a tri-bike/road bike with clipons, etc isn't going to make you go many mph faster but in some cases every little bit helps.



Edited by dalessit 2010-01-09 8:26 PM

Although it may appear that you're moving everything over the front wheel, what you're actually trying to do is "rotate" yourself around the bottom bracket. Think about your hands, head, and butt, and how they relate to your cranks. On a road bike/in a road position, your hands are typically a little higher, your butt a little lower, and your head is "further back" in relation to the cranks. Now rotate the body like you were turning a dial: your hands drop down, your butt comes up, and as a result, your head moves toward the front of the bike.

Now think about a line from the center of the cranks straight through that greater trochanter I was talking about earlier. The steeper that line, the more forward you are. Typically, this is pretty close to the angle of the seat tube. Tri bikes have a steeper seat tube angle, hence allowing you to get into the above position easier without creating the issue you talk about, namely too much weight over the front wheel. This is typically what happens when you put clip-on aerobars on to a road frame. It could create handling issues, but it shouldn't take too long to get comfortable with the slight change in how the bike steers.

The important part about this "forward" position is that it allows you to be in an aero position while allowing you to keep your hip angle open. If you're down in your aero bars and you're too far behind the bottom bracket, at the top of the pedal stroke, you quads are going to be very closed in relation to your body and hips, and it's a difficult position from which to begin to generate power.

As Tony also mentioned, I'm not sure where the prevailing thought is on muscle group utilization as it pertains to the run. At one time, it was that the tri position saves the glutes and hammies for the run, placing more stress on the quads. My experience is that a road position is more balanced among the muscle groups, and is therefore easier to climb with.

Might be the extra pressure.  If you aren't getting any slipping, no sense in wrenching it down that tight.

LOL, I use my race tires PR3's on it and never have any issues.

You could always get one of those trainer tires, just don't ride outside with it on. 

I'd try backing it off and calibrating closer to the 2.0 they recommend. I could see how increasing the tension would cause greater hysteresis and deflection of the tire, causing increased wear. You basically need enough tension so that there's no slippage between the tire and the roller/flywheel assembly; increasing it should not result in increased resistance, since that's controlled and adjusted by the magnetic component inside the CT.

Edited by ryanp100 2010-01-09 10:49 PM

 
I have no idea what those words mean, John can you wiki them? 

AMEN!   lets all say it together now.  and never ever again suggest that increasing the tension will increase resistance.  thanks ryan.

tony -15 and cleaning erasers for a week for even joking like that.

Just make sure there is plenty of stuff in the background for us to make fun of. 

Hey everyone!  I hope everyone had a great week.  As most people go back to work, I get my time off (wonderful life of a golf pro).  A couple weeks ago, I found Setup Events was adding this new tri that was about ten minutes from my house and got really excited, but now, a little nervous after reading an email they sent with a description.  Check this out:

Paris Mountain Triathlon - April 17, 2010 - Greenville, SC
Ummm, anyone got a extra road bike, say in a 56??  Yikes!

I read a couple posts a few pages back about bike fitting.  If I posted a vid, would you guys be willing to critique my setup?  I'm curious as to how I look.  When I got my bike last spring, the guys at the LBS offered to properly fit me after I rode it for a couple weeks to make sure I like it, but I got to busy and never went back.  Luckily, I've developed a pretty good relationship with them and they offered to fit me at any time since I got my bike from them.