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In Search of Power

Pantani finds his power in the drops. Photo: Tom Able-Green/ALLSPORT

It’s no secret that I’m prone to riding in the big ring as much as possible, mostly on account of my not being a giant sissy. In accordance with the ISO Non-Sissy Standard, I also never read instruction manuals or ask for directions when lost. I make sure to only rarely ask my VMH to turn up the radio when Adele comes on, usually followed quickly by an ernest explanation of how I thought it was Metallica, and how Rolling in the Deep ripped off the opening to Enter Sandman. The record does show, however, that I occasionally fly into hysterics when surprised by an insect or amphibian – but that’s just good common sense.

Pantani’s in-the-drops climbing style has always impressed me, but he’s only one of the riders who won races going down in the drops looking for more power on the climbs; Jan Ullrich was often climbing in the drops as well as our mate Johan Museeuw – not to mention Richard Virenque and so did Frank Vandenbroucke. Looking at that list, I wonder if the UCI should explore adjusting the test for EPO to examine time spent climbing in the drops.

Riding the route of Liege-Bastogne-Liege with Johan last Keepers Tour, I noticed a pattern in his riding style. Whenever the gradient increased on a climb, instead of changing gear he just moved his hands to the drops and rose out of the saddle to casually push the same gear over the steep. It looked so easy, it was impossible to resist trying it myself. At first, there is a strange sort of sensation, like you’re dipping your nose into the tarmac. But then when you switch to the hoods, you notice an immediate loss of leverage. After practicing it, it becomes second nature.

Someone once told me that the key to going fast is to try to break your handlebars, and that’s just what I’ve been trying to do lately although I hope I’m ultimately unsuccessful. Since gleaning this trick from Johan’s riding style, I’ve been staying in the big ring longer and climbing out of the saddle in the drops, pulling hard on bars and feeling them flex. Its not always faster than spinning a low gear but it has the benefit of taking the load off your cardiovascular system and putting it on your muscular system – a handy thing if your form is missing something or you’ve got massive guns (which I don’t).

This has brought another notion to light: the lower the hand position, the better able you are to find the leverage you need to turn the pedals. This is one of the principle issues with the sit up and beg epidemic, apart from it looking crap and being less stable. But hand height seems to impact power; I’ve noticed that when I’m climbing on the tops, I can breath easily and I’m able to maintain a speed well, but acceleration is difficult. To accelerate or hold a pace up a steep gradient (which is almost the same as accelerating), I’m better served riding on the hoods where my position is a bit lower. But when I really need power, I go looking for it in the drops.

All this brings into question the current trend towards compact bars and flat hand positions between the tops and hoods, with the drops only a bit lower. Compare that to the deep drops ridden in the past, in the style of Eddy Merckx and Roger de Vlaeminck where the hoods were halfway between the tops and the drops. The modern bar shape and hood position seems to reduce the riding positions to as few as possible, while in the past, they were designed to provide as many as possible.

In any case, big sweeping drops look the business and I’m pretty sure they are in complete compliance with the ISO Non-Sissy Standard.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

Teocalli says:

Apr 15 2014 at 5:51 am

@unversio

Just imagined track and field sprinters trying to start from a position with their hands on their knees "” not much to leverage fast-twitch muscles. Starting as low as possible (lower center of gravity) allows position and power to get the body up to speed. Fortunately for us (Velominati) a frameset allows this position and power to continue with speed "” floating.

I think your analogy is flawed. Sprint starting is about falling over without actually falling over so to get maximum "fall over bucks" aligned with maximum "fall over prevention" both being in the direction of travel then you need the centre of mass (CoM) as far advanced from the feet as practical conversant with "gun power". The practical consideration of this is take a person at age 25 staring from a set of blocks and apply the same CoM to Feet position and the same CoM rise to upright then at age 80 they will fall flat on their face! Anyway in cycling we do not need to project our CoM forwards as we move in the same was as we do running. The other analogy here is why toddlers sit down when they start trying to walk as they have not yet learned that they need to fall forwards before keeping pace with their feet. Power on a bike is completely different but just happens to require us to use legs that we normally use for running/walking.
Teocalli says:

Apr 15 2014 at 6:00 am

@The Grande Fondue

@freddy

Also using negative rise stems with compact bars seems to be gaining popularity as riders spend a lot of time on the tops.

Taylor Phinney's 15cm, -17 degrees stem on his BMC GF01 for Paris-Roubaix.

But Andrey Kashechkin is famous for his stem. He had a custom 17cm stem for a long time, but some are reporting 20cm now. Not sure I believe that though.

Isn't all this length stuff missing one fundamental point in setup (unless perhaps you are on a track bike). Our setup is our setup given an anatomical position for our given Leg/body/arm length combination suitable for extended periods on a bike. The fundamental reason that pros have long seat tubes and long stems is that they use frames that us average Joes would not be sold as they are too small for them. Interestingly I bought a second hand winter bike in the autumn and that was a good frame size for me set up for someone probably 6 inches taller. Riding that with a longer stem that was right for my setup just made the bike unstable as I ended up with my CoM too much over the front wheel. As soon as I shortened the stem the bike became massively more stable. This was most noticeable when standing on the pedals.
Steve-o says:

Apr 15 2014 at 6:08 am

@Chris Transgression noted, never to be repeated. I await my penance. I love the sound of Italian, but please, no Lo Sceriffo!
Buck Rogers says:

Apr 15 2014 at 6:53 am

@Daccordi Rider

Heres me Pantaniing a KOM point in a race. It was a brutal headwind and I'm convinced the fact I can climb in the drops helped me win that one. Plus I look fantastic, please excuse a couple of minor rule transgressions.....

You RACE with an EPMS? Is this a strava "race"???
Buck Rogers says:

Apr 15 2014 at 6:57 am

@scaler911

Man, I don't know. There's very few people that can assume this position for an extended period (pro or amateur) effectively. I'm not saying don't try it on for size for awhile, and if it helps, fantastic. I suppose it's about showing people options that they haven't thought of before to break up the glorious monotony that's being a "climber". I've put some considerable time into trying to emulate Pantani, and it just doesn't work for me.

On the tops, or hoods worked for these guys, so it goes for me.

Like most articles, I skipped the written part of your post @scaler911 but I must say that any article that elicits the posting of these photos (bar the last one) has earned its keep (Keeper)!

Fucking AWESOME photos!
freddy says:

Apr 15 2014 at 8:15 am

@ChrisO

@Puffy

@frank

Do both and get good at both. But climbing in the big ring is very good for building leg strength and that pays off on the long run.

You think there is at least, and I would have agreed with you until I read this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24550843

That's very interesting, both for the article and for your charmingly naive idea that science and logic might have any impact on Frank's pre-conceived and utterly unshakeable beliefs.

On the article it is certainly against the grain - not just in cycling but many strength-based sports believe that low-rep-high-resistance training builds muscle strength.

No doubt the experiment was properly done but I wouldn't be prepared to jettison decades of empirical results on the basis of a single study.

Having said that it also highlights a disconnect in what Frank and others are talking about - powering up a short sharp climb in the big ring is fairly standard but it isn't low cadence strength building. 10 or 12 times for 5 minutes each @90% power, and alternating with high RPM in between at similar power - that's a low cadence workout.

Low cadence interval training at moderate intensity may not improve overall cycling performance in highly trained veteran cyclists, but I'm pretty sure it improves low cadence performance in general, which, in the big ring, looks fantastic.
freddy says:

Apr 15 2014 at 8:24 am

Let me rephrase that:

Low cadence interval training at moderate intensity may not improve overall cycling performance in highly trained veteran cyclists, but I'm pretty sure it improves low cadence performance in general, which, in the big ring and the drops--while climbing, looks fantastic.
scaler911 says:

Apr 15 2014 at 9:09 am

@frank

I grab the hoods a la The Badger, and Coppi. I've had deep drop bars before, and that made it worse. I guess it's that I feel like I can't breathe all hunched over like that. It's reflected in my normal riding style too: Belgian. I'm only ever in the drops to change position dying a long haul, or when winding up for a sprint. I also feel like I have better tactile sense of my "flight deck" that way.
unversio says:

Apr 15 2014 at 9:22 am

@Teocalli

@unversio

Just imagined track and field sprinters trying to start from a position with their hands on their knees "” not much to leverage fast-twitch muscles. Starting as low as possible (lower center of gravity) allows position and power to get the body up to speed. Fortunately for us (Velominati) a frameset allows this position and power to continue with speed "” floating.

I think your analogy is flawed. Sprint starting is about falling over without actually falling over so to get maximum "fall over bucks" aligned with maximum "fall over prevention" both being in the direction of travel then you need the centre of mass (CoM) as far advanced from the feet as practical conversant with "gun power". The practical consideration of this is take a person at age 25 staring from a set of blocks and apply the same CoM to Feet position and the same CoM rise to upright then at age 80 they will fall flat on their face! Anyway in cycling we do not need to project our CoM forwards as we move in the same was as we do running. The other analogy here is why toddlers sit down when they start trying to walk as they have not yet learned that they need to fall forwards before keeping pace with their feet. Power on a bike is completely different but just happens to require us to use legs that we normally use for running/walking.

[ A Space Odyssey HAL 9000 voice ] "I understand now, Dr. Teocalli. Thank you for telling me the truth."
pistard says:

Apr 15 2014 at 9:45 am

@frank

@freddy

@TommyTubs really blew my mind about the 17deg stems being a cm longer than advertized, but he's right - I measured mine and the 14cm I've got on the Graveur is actually 15cm. Which is why the bike fits.

It's not so much that the stems are longer than advertised, just that 3t uses proper ISO specifications, despite their nomenclature. The reach, as measured perpendicular to the steerer, is 14cm, even though the extension (as measured along the stem) is around 15cm. This disparity becomes more pronounced with longer stems and more acute angles -- basic Pythagorean theorem. Unfortunately, different manufacturers use different measuring standards. (Traditionally "length" only referred to the part of a quill stem that inserts into the steer tube.)