Hills & Aero

sskolfield

 I couldn't find the answer to this question anywhere so I figured I would post it here.  When riding on your TT at what point does it make sense to come out of aero and sit up to utilize more of your leg power when your climbing?  Do folks have a certain cutt-off point with MPH?  I have used 14mph as a guide but don't know if that is too early-to late?  Thoughts? Data?

 

Thanks

Peter Greagg

Hi Stan — in races I sit up at around 10 mph, as a change of position relief and not for utilising more power — because I want to ride steady and therefore don't want to spike my watts on the hill.

John Withrow

I don't have any real data to back it up, but I generally get out of aero below 10-12mph or so. Closer to 10mph on a hilly course, and 12mph on a flat-ish one. This is mostly about giving my back and neck a stretch for me. Sometimes if I'm doing a really long climb (like 20 mins or so), I'll drop down onto the aerobars every once in a while to change it up a bit for a rest.

On the other end of the spectrum, during races, I generally coast above ~32-35mph or so... In training, I pedal hard up until like 42mph on big downhills.

Brenda Ross

Not sure if you are using HR or power and pace, but I would also post this question in the power and pace forum.

Al Truscott

For those who enjoy equations and playing with variables, here's a page with all the relevant factors where you can play with this question to your heart's content. Dont forget the effect of wind resistance decreasing with altitude, the effect of road surface, the impact of drag coeficients - there're all in there, and more!

It looks way too complicated for me, so I'll just report what I do. First, Coach R has always said he sits up on climbs at about 13 mph. Me, I tend to be using gradient - when it gets steeper than 6%, I will start to sit up. For me, it's a comfort issue. The TT bike is designed to be more comfortable when ridden in the aero position than sitting up holding onto the cow horns. So I stay down as long as possible, just cause it feels better. I'm probably going 8-9 mph when that transition occurs.

Coach Rich

Yep, 13mph is about my number but also depends on the length of the climb, the length of the race, etc. More often than not, sitting up to change positions, stretch, use different muscles, etc wins over aeroness at the Ironman distance.

Related to this is developing the ability to stand on climbs and not spike watts. I actually stood quite a bit at IMWI'12 but I was totally chill, riding my IM watts or maybe just a touch more.

imc1792

Hummm, I never thought to use MPH/speed, I have always used cadence as a signal for me to sit up. I hope to chase down the wiki and other info too as IMC has a couple of long 20+min climbs and the rollers which are steeper. I have always done Richter pass in aero thinking it controlled by effort, now I got'em PT so real info at my disposal.

Coach Rich

Ideally you have enough gears on the bike so that you're not in a crazy low cadence on any of the climbs. Personally, I don't like like to see anything under about 70rpm in a race and will adjust gearing to avoid that, if possible.

That said, climbing in the aerobars can be a good tool to keep you from being stupid / putting out too many watts, as it's generally more difficult to apply power in the aerobars vs hoods or certainly standing.

sskolfield

Thanks folks for the information-looks like I wasn't to far off.

scott dinhofer

I find the crossover in the 11-9 MPH zone, typically uphill only. on flats one should always be in the aerobars.... Ii would defer to Rich's comment on switching up muscle usage, giving the back a break and about being harder to put out too much power in the aerobars...

Beth_S

On the very hilly IMWI course, when racing, I would stay in aero until I reached the zone of the hill climbing watts, and then would sit up and take in nutrition while climbing. This worked beautifully.

William Jenks

The reason to use speed rather than cadence to decide when to stand up is that the penalty for not being aero is related to speed. Roughly speaking, the resistance due to mechanical and rolling resistance is constant with velocity, but that for wind goes up with the square of the relative velocity of you to the wind. So somewhere in the 10-15 mph range is where the crossover point is that more resistance is due to non-wind factors (including gravity, when going uphill). (Al's link lets you play with the variables.) That said, if you have to get up because of gearing, I guess you have no choice... but one would hope that appropriate gearing would include the idea of being able to sit down on a hill if you wanted to and spin at a reasonable cadence.

I tend to sit up 80% of the time I break aero and only stand up on short stretches of steep hill.

Jump4Joy19

Posted By William Jenks on 01 Jun 2012 02:46 PM

 That said, if you have to get up because of gearing, I guess you have no choice... but one would hope that appropriate gearing would include the idea of being able to sit down on a hill if you wanted to and spin at a reasonable cadence.

I tend to think that's tougher for those of us with a lower W/Kg rating. I find that on some hills, I just don't have enough gears to keep my cadence up or HR down, and that's probably a function of not having enough power. Many of the guys here are much stronger for their weight than some of the rest of us, there's not always enough gears (and I'm riding a 50/34 with 11/28) for some.

Of course, I also live in a very hilly area. Just looking at the AmZof course for instance, the main hill is about the same size as the one we go over in order to get to most of the good rides around here. And then we come back over it to get home, with plenty of hills in between. So any ride I do usually starts and ends with a minimum 500 - 1000 foot climb.

In any case, on hills that go over about 8 - 10%, or are very long, I sometimes find it unavoidable to stand.

Coach Rich

Posted By Robin Clevenger on 01 Jun 2012 04:51 PM

Posted By William Jenks on 01 Jun 2012 02:46 PM

 That said, if you have to get up because of gearing, I guess you have no choice... but one would hope that appropriate gearing would include the idea of being able to sit down on a hill if you wanted to and spin at a reasonable cadence.

I tend to think that's tougher for those of us with a lower W/Kg rating. I find that on some hills, I just don't have enough gears to keep my cadence up or HR down, and that's probably a function of not having enough power. Many of the guys here are much stronger for their weight than some of the rest of us, there's not always enough gears (and I'm riding a 50/34 with 11/28) for some.

Of course, I also live in a very hilly area. Just looking at the AmZof course for instance, the main hill is about the same size as the one we go over in order to get to most of the good rides around here. And then we come back over it to get home, with plenty of hills in between. So any ride I do usually starts and ends with a minimum 500 - 1000 foot climb.

In any case, on hills that go over about 8 - 10%, or are very long, I sometimes find it unavoidable to stand.

 

Robin, that's fine. At some combination of % grade, w/kg, and gears, we ALL need to stand up just to keep bike going forward and rubber side down. But the EN athlete brings the right gears to the race so they avoid this situation until it can't be help. By contrast, many, many triathletes have no idea what gears they have, that they can be changed, and therefore stand or go to hard on everything. I can't tell you how many overgeared bikes I've seen on the IM courses over the years. Crazy stuff.