Bike Positions of the Male Pros in Kona
We’ve had the race, now let’s get down to what it means for you and me. We’re starting with the positions of the male pros and the women will get their turn shortly. All the images you see here were taken for us by Aaron Palaian.
One thing I never thought would change is the bike position. The fundamentals of it. The major fit coordinates. And to a degree I think that remains the case, with an *, and I’ll explain this. What has changed about the position is entirely driven by tech. The top male 13 (at least) finishers in the Hawaiian IRONMAN World Championships were riding full-length-forearm aerobars, and out of the top-35 I can count on one hand those who weren't. While these full-forearm extensions have a terrific comfort advantage – when made and fitted properly – when designed well they provide an aero advantage.
What you see then – the biggest positional change – is the upward tilt of the aerobar. Whether this tilt actually provides an aero advantage is unclear to me. I suspect it does. My intuition says it does. But data rules and I have none of that. If you look at the pics here and compare them to images of top pros in this race from 2008, or from IRONMAN Oceanside 70.3 in 2017, I think you’ll see the difference in aerobar tilt.
The 3 images above show, highest up, Sam Laidlow, who set a new bike course record in Kona of 4:04:36. Just underneath is a pic of the overall race winner Gustav Iden. Just above is Colin Chartier and while he did not have the day he wanted in Kona he is fresh off a huge win at the Dallas PTO US Open race. What Chartier does not have is a set of these new-style aerobars. But I think if you look at these pics above – minus Laidlow – along with the pic below of Braden Currie, you’ll see a pretty similar posture aboard the bike. This is still the consensus position and if there are any changes it’s a very slightly more tilted aerobar.
However, back to Laidlow, he’s got something else going on. Forget the body tech for a moment, the aero socks and whatever else. Look at the transition from head to back. One of the behavioral changes we’re seeing among top athletes is the *shrug*, and attention paid to how air flows around and over the head and shoulders. Laidlow had a McGuyvered version of the new bar style, with liberal use of tape. What you also see from Laidlow is a slightly more stretched cockpit. The jury’s out on this. You don’t see this in the other images above but you see it from Magnus Ditlev below.
What you also see from Ditlev is a slightly higher front end. I think you can get away with this if you find aerodynamics elsewhere, which is in shape (head, back and shoulders), narrowness, and the value you get from aerobars that move the air away from the rider’s torso. Perhaps the best example of a rider trying his hardest to adopt a truly aero position is Jesper Svensson, below.
This isn’t the only position that appears to be wholly aero-driven. Below is a pic of Josh Amberger and I think you’ll see some similarities.
But Svensson and Amberger were outliers in Kona. It doesn't mean they were wrong. But a more representative position is the one struck by Max Neumann below, with a slight bit more of an upward tilt of the aerobars than you’d have seen in prior years, and a pretty much a right angle between forearms and torso. This is what we’ve seen from triathletes almost since the advent of aerobars in 1987. Neumann was one of this year’s big Kona surprises, with just a textbook traditional position.
What you risk with the extended cockpit is discomfort over a 112mi ride through having to hold up your upper body with your spinal erectors. Classic low-back pain among triathletes is due to overlong cockpits most of the time and this is why extended cockpits, with a more obtuse shoulder angle, remain rare even among the pros. Accordingly, the position you see here from Florian Angert is becoming more typical: no to a stretched cockpit, yes to an upturned aerobar.
Are armrests higher? Yes. a little. But I don’t think that means back angles have changed much. When you tilt the aerobars up the hands rise but the elbow drops, which mean the shoulders drop. Pads are pedestaled a little higher on these bikes and if you look at them in the bike rack in transition you’d think the positions are higher. But when you see the riders out on the road, I don’t think hip angles and back aspects have changes much. Of course, there’s Kristian Blummenfelt below.
I remember once offering a critique of Mark Allen’s position as it was back in 1989 when he won the infamous Ironwar. This was perhaps the greatest IRONMAN race of all time, certainly the best I ever witnessed. I caught a little flack from that. How could I layer any criticism on the man who just threw down the greatest race ever? Fast forward about 20 years and I was at a Cervelo Brainbike presentation by that same Mark Allen. He presented using a slideshow, showing images of his bike position from 1989 through to 1995, and how his position evolved from year to year, culminating in what he maintained was his final, optimized position which – ahem – I found to be optimized as well. Which is to say, maybe this is Blu’s best no-draft position. But in truth, he’s fairly new to the no-draft world, and we’ll see whether this is the position he maintains as his racing progresses.
We’ll end with a couple of positions, such as this one by Kyle Smith and if you look at Gustav Iden, Colin Chartier and Braden Currie you’ll see that this is *a* type if not *the* type of position we could claim creates a consensus among top pros. Below is the Oldie von Moldie (that’s a Mad Magazine shoutout) Tim O’Donnell with a very representative pro position.
Same as it ever was for Tim, except his aerobars are more tilted than they used to be. But in truth this isn’t recent. He had a pretty similar position back in 2019.
Seat positions, fore and aft, remain unchanged to my eye. The takeaway for you and me is that we need to pay a bit of attention to these new aerobar styles. When virtually the entire pro Kona field is using these, and altering (slightly) their positions to optimize these bars, we ought to take notice.
IMAGES: Aaron Palaian
Start the discussion at forum.slowtwitch.com