by Andy Shen
Try, if you can, to turn back the clock, before admissions of necrosis, positive drug tests, and tragic suicides, to the Tour of California. Floyd Landis was TT’ing with a radical new position, and message boards were crackling with speculation about the rationale behind the crazy position. Aside from the obvious raised forearms, the ‘Floyd’ also featured very close-set elbows. The elbow position was also adopted by David Zabriskie and Nathan O’Neill among others, but the raised forearms was unique to Floyd, at least until Michael Rasmussen picked it up. (We don’t really care how The Chicken TT’s.)
Craig ‘Smiley’ Upton was at the ToC and spoke to 7 time Australian TT champ O’Neill, who vouched for the tight elbows position. And since O’Neill is a frequent visitor to the San Diego Low Speed Wind Tunnel (often paying his own way), his opinion carried a lot of weight. Smiley passed the word along and Mike Sherry and I dutifully moved our pads in as far as they would go. This position put a strain on my shoulder muscles and took a while to get used to. It also made the bike a bit harder to handle, but ultimately it reminded me to steer more with my hips, which is what I should have been doing all along.
As for the upturned forearms, the common theory was that they somehow smoothed the airflow around the torso. But it was strange that only one rider would adopt a position that was a time saver. Yes, it looked dorky, but faster is faster. Surely Floyd couldn’t be the only rider willing to look silly to go faster? Smiley was in town just before the CRCA TT at Floyd Bennett Field, and he decided to use Mike as a guinea pig for the Floyd. Mike went on to win the flat, windy TT, in conditions that didn’t favor the 5′ 10″, 153 pounds rider. Did that mean the Floyd gave him a huge aero advantage?
I got curious and began messing around with the Floyd myself. I re-read almost all of biketechreview.com in a few days, as well as everything else about aerodynamics I could find on the web. Smiley suggested I take pictures of myself and measure my frontal area with Photoshop. I was pretty happy with my CRCA TT result, but my heart sank when I realized that I could have reduced my frontal area from .3878 square meters to .3251 m^2. The Floyd put me in a ridiculously low position, flattening my back and forcing me to duck my head. I also unconsciously narrowed my shoulders. Assuming that I had the same coefficient of drag (Cd), and if you believe in mathematical formulas, this reduction in frontal area constituted a 3 minute time savings over 40k! Now, if the raised forearms really did smooth the airflow, the Cd might be improved as well, yielding a double whammy of drag reduction. Next I needed to know if I could even ride in this position.
First rides with the Floyd were tough, to say the least. My forearms kept sliding down the pads, so I eventually took to wrapping my hands around the shifters and hanging on for dear life. Not surprisingly, Floyd does the same thing. The bike was even harder to handle, and it was tough to look up the road with my head so low. With my back level I was practically kicking myself in the chest, so I slid forward to open up my hip angle.
Smiley, Mike, and I started getting excited, thinking we were on to something. We did more frontal area shoots to confirm our area reductions. We figured we could do some rough and tumble tests at the Kissena track, so Mike and I enlisted fellow TT nerd Anthony Accardi for an afternoon of testing. We did one run each with horizontal and raised forearms for comparison, and I took shots during the runs to record frontal area. A truly rigorous test would’ve included runs at several different speeds, yielding a graph that would’ve given us our rolling resistance. But since we were in the initial phases, we just did one run and ignored rolling resistance.
We all went faster with the Floyd. I had the most dramatic improvement, going 28.6 mph instead of 28.3 while outputting 9 less watts (375 instead of 384). Obviously, we all had lower CdA’s*, meaning the Floyd gave us less drag. I computed our frontal areas, and found something unexpected. Our drag savings seemed to be totally the result of reductions in frontal area. Our Cd’s didn’t really change, so maybe this whole idea of the hands smoothing the airflow around the torso had no merit. So why does Floyd ride in this awkward position?
Right about this time Smiley started thinking about actually going to a wind tunnel. He counted among his clients two exceptional time triallists – Kristin Armstrong of TEAm Lipton and Bernard van Ulden of the Navigators. Kristin is the US national champ in the TT and road race, while Bernard is a solid contender for the upcoming Nationals. Smiley wanted to take them to the tunnel to put them over the top for Worlds and Nationals respectively. What started as idle banter soon became reality, and we were all booking flights to San Diego, to the very wind tunnel where Lance, Eki, Nathan O’Neill, and even Floyd himself did their testing. The San Diego Low Speed Wind Tunnel is also where Kraig Willett, creator of biketechreview.com, does his testing, and he would be on hand for our session. I wrote Ric Hjertberg of FSA and asked him for some aerobars. When you turn up integrated bars you expose the flat wings to the wind, increasing the drag. I wanted some non-integrated bars so that we could turn only the extensions upwards, thereby not creating excessive drag and influencing the results. Ric was kind enough to give us two sets of base bars and s-bend extensions.
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I grabbed one set of the bars and started road testing. The FSA bars come extra long, and you customize them by cutting them down. I found that by using the whole length of the extensions, I could dig the points of my elbows into the pads (instead of resting my forearms on them), giving me a bit more traction so I wouldn’t slip down. I could relax my upper body quite a bit more, making the position much more tolerable. With the exception of the carbon wings, these bars turned out to be every bit as plush and swanky as the TriMax Integrated bars I tested earlier this year. With these bars, the Floyd was really starting to grow on me, to the point where I couldn’t imagine going back to a conventional position. Even though it may not improve my Cd, it did get me much lower, and theoretically faster.
Smiley and Mike evaluate Bernard van Ulden, coming up in <a href=”http://www.velocitynation.com/article.aspx?id=1146&CID=1″>part 2</a>.
*Do a quick search and you can learn all about CdA. Real quickly, Cd is coefficient of drag, and A is frontal area. The two multiplied together gives you CdA, with which you can compute your drag for a given speed. You can think of Cd as how streamlined something is – an airfoil is very streamlined, and a parachute is not. Two objects can have the same frontal area, and the more streamlined one (the one with the lower Cd) will have less drag. Two objects can have the same shape (Cd), and the smaller one (lower A) will have less drag.
I heard floyds posistion is all about passing the uci rules and getting him way foward. Bullshit or what?
Also what does a trash bag over your jeasey do to your drag numbers?
This off of VeloNews Vuelta Live Updates:
Agence France Presse – Australia’s dual silver medal-winning Olympic cyclist Gary Neiwand was jailed for 18 months Tuesday after pleading guilty to stalking a former girlfriend.
Neiwand admitted a total of 11 offences, including stalking and telephone harassment.
The 39-year-old had already been sentenced in February to four months in jail for breaching an order to stay away from his ex-wife. The new offences were committed after his release.
The Melbourne Magistrates Court heard how Neiwand, who won cycling silver medals at the 1992 Barcelona and 2000 Sydney Olympics, began stalking his girlfriend after they broke up in May this year.
Prosecutors said he made numerous hang-up phone calls to the woman and her mother, and sent sexually explicit text messages to her employer.
Defence lawyers told the court that Neiwand was suffering from depression after his marriage collapsed.
Chief magistrate Ian Gray jailed Neiwand for 18 months, with a non-parole period of nine months, saying his offences were serious and a message needed to be sent to the community that such behaviour was unacceptable.
In addition to his two Olympic silver medals, Neiwand won bronze at the 1988 Seoul and 2000 Sydney Games. He also won the World Championships in both the keirin and sprint in 1993 and was Commonwealth Games sprint champion in 1986, 1990 and 1996.
So Andy, for the last time, STOP CALLING ME. Its over, man! I think too much time spent obsessing about this TT stuff is playing with your head…
That’s a lot of words to say nothing, Chris.
Karl, that’s my guess (part 2).
Does anyone know why Ulrich rides that weird anti-floyd position with his bars pointed downwards?
Jans position has to do with him pushing a bigger gear than most of the other riders. The downward positioned bars allows a little more leverage, especially when climbing, allowing him to stay in the aero positiion longer.
Seems like a elbow pad with a little riser at the back to rest the back of your elbow on would help so you wouldn’t have to hang on as hard with your fingers to prevent sliding down the bars.
Yep, we all talked about a cup shaped pad. It really seemed like a necessity when I was using my Oval bars, but once I switched to FSA I was fine. Greg, I would think you’d get less leverage with your arms straighter. Everything I’ve read says you don’t want your forearms pointing down, and Kraig Willett confirmed that. I have no idea why he rides like that.
Glad the log in’s are back!
I’ve fiddled around with the Jan set-up this season and I like it. I had a flat setup previously and my elbows were tucked in. Now I have the pads on the outside (oval A700) but I will see what happens when I move them in with the Jan set-up. I like it for some of the reasons that greg pointed out. I feel like I’m getting more power out of my push when my upper body is engaged with the bars in this manner. It may not be true and but when my arms are tensed up from pulling on the bars I tend to move the upper body less and when they are @ a negative angle it’s like a visegrip of upper body muscle tension that keeps me still and allows the body to do more of the steering as you’ve written here. Great article by the way.
Like the Landis, it took some getting use to but I really like it. Andy, your position photo on the trainer looks really extreme. Its almost like that Superman position that I’ve seen where these guys use specially configured bikes. Are you adopting this position? I only ask because it looks like the tail of your helmet swoops down into your back when I always thought that the tail of the helmet should start the curve that the apex of the back continues. Is the helmet less important than completely flattening the back? Do tell.
Seems like a elbow pad with a little riser at the back to rest the back of your elbow on would help so you wouldn’t have to hang on as hard with your fingers to prevent sliding down the bars.
Andy, I’m not saying I agree with the position but from serveral ex-phys and bike fit people I’m in touch with that is the apparent reasoning behind it. Jan feels he gets more leverge on slight rise, go figure?
not that I know anything about TTing properly (pretty much used clip-ons once, other than that strictly cannibal) but I thought one of the big problems with putting the elbows very close together was that it caused many riders to have a harder time breathing?
I agree with George – Andy, that is definitely the superman position, you look a bit like Chris Boardman (meant as a compliment). Not that anyone checks this, but is your seat legal? It looks too far forward.
I’ve seen other T-Mobile riders with the Jan-position as well. It does seem strange, you would think it would catch air like a funnel, but maybe it gives smoother airflow around the body. I have fooled around with my bars pointed downward and I have to say that it is more comfortable.
The Floyd position reminds me a lot of downhill skiers who do tons of work in the wind tunnel (albeit at higher speeds). Downhill and superG skiers used to tuck with their hands forward and forearms parallel to the ground but they have all been moving their hands up and closer to their faces (a la Floyd) over the past several years. There must be something to it if its working in two sports that focus heavily on aerodynamic testing.
Ben, just moved it back a smidge, so now I’m legal. I’d be scared to slide forward with the bars down. On the road my position’s not nearly as aggressive, but I’m getting closer with practice.
Mandrapa, I have girl shoulders so it’s no problem for me to narrow my elbows. I can’t feel a difference in breathing.
Greg, I prefer to relax my hands, rotate my hips, and use my glutes and hamstrings more. I personally don’t think it’s good to yank with your arms and engage your back. But who are you going to listen to, me or Jan? Ha!
Joel, the advantage of the flat pads is that you can shift up and down to get comfortable. Cups would be nice, but not really necessary for me.
Lee, I have no data on the helmet/back thing. My back is pretty flat, so there’s no curve for it to transition to. Willett said it’s good to have the helmet down on the back. A gap is ok for helmets that have open bottoms.
Both the staff at the MIT wind tunnel and the LSWT in San Diego highly recommend at least flat forearms based on drag numbers. Also biomechanically, and overly open elbow angle doesn’t allow the bicep fibers to have the best line of pull because muscle filaments lose some of their overlap and can’t effectively contract. While you may feel like the muscle is contracting firmly it’s not generating as much force, stability or leverage even though the sensations might be there.
I was just looking at pics of Jan U. to figure out what he is up to and I realized that the distance from his nose to his front wheel is really short. While this isn’t really a meaningful reference, it shows how low his upper body actually is on the bike. His bike has an incredibly short head tube which is probably part of how he gets so low.
In looking at the Floyd position, the real benefit that a rider gets looks to be the lower body position achieved by getting your elbows lower than they would be if you had your arms flat (look carefully at the overlay photo of Andy and look at his shirt sleeves and elbows as reference points.
I wonder if the hand position is less important than lowering your head and shoulders. With your hands up in the Floyd, you are cupping air into your turbulent leg area (look at Accardi’s frontal shot) versus the Jan where you are cupping air into your chest. In either case, if your elbows are in the same position, whether your forearms are up of down shouldn’t actually have any impact on your frontal area.
The Floyd may be a cheap way of getting much lower without having a bike built with a super-small headtube, but I still can’t figure out why the hand position is important, holding all else equal.
Also Ben, Jan uses an adj. stem to get his position lower as well. Perhaps maybe the theory behind Jan’s position maybe rooted with the same concepts that oval concepts adopted with that new carbon fork and aero bar that is designed with air slots simular to Bi-plane wings. The idea being to let the air past through the torso instead of creating the helmet/hands point profile as the Floyd presents. The Jan may have a higher Cda # but the lap times show faster results. I guess one has to have some faith in the fit of their TT kit to really implement this effectively.
Sherry has a point about the leverage, stability, power comment. The thing is with the Jan is that I feel pretty comfortable and the upper body FEELS stable, however, when I really want to punch hard I move my arms a little bit more forward to get lower further sacrificing stability and relying mostly on the body for steering corrections. If a gust of wind occurs I put them back. That’s what I love about it. The flexibility and comfort while still maintaining a decent aero tuck.
One of the effects of the sloping elbow to wrist position is it attempts to relieve stress between the shoulder blades. One of the issues you would have to be careful with is putting the core under too much tension. If the muscle of the abdomen/ diaphram area are under tension this will inhibit your breathing. Out of the 20-22 muscles in that area we use about 18 of them to breath so staying relaxed through the core is also a goal.