DaveLeeNC

I do that all the time but I also (for training purposes) put gravel in my shoes, wear wool sweaters if it is hot (bare-chested if below 60 degrees), and if I am feeling strong will simply ride bare-footed :-)

dave

ps. Truly - that sounds almost cruel (particularly if there are steep downhills).

ofajen

Hah! Well, riding single speed on hills can be brutal. Ride that way for a couple of years and you will probably worry a lot less about all these details.

The frustrating part when I had to only stand was the flat parts, where the gearing wasn’t high enough to allow steady pedaling while standing. It was: pedal up to speed, coast, repeat. For that kind of work I really think an elliptical drive and wide range gearing is better.

Otto

livedarklions

Have you considered hooking up a generator to your wheel to administer shocks to you if your wattage goes too low?

rsbob 

I can’t find the story but there was a guy a few years ago who rode out of the saddle from San Francisco to L.A. Now that was one strong dude. Don’t recall if he entirely removed the saddle.

philbob57

Tim, It looks to me as if you think riding a road bike set up as a TT bike (probably with his saddle too high) is the way - perhaps the only way - to become thin. Biking has definitely helped me lose fat and weight and gain muscle and aerobic capacity, and apparently it's done the same for you. But becoming thin is still a matter of calories in being less than calories out. Being less aerodynamic and aiming for the same speed might help you lose weight. A couple of years ago I decided to stop at STOP signs so that the acceleration after (frequent) stopping would increase my calorie burn.

The bikes I get ads for seem to be designed for more upright riding than pre-1990? 2000? 2010? road bikes. I suspect that's because the designers are following the adult market, not conspiring to fatten the adult riding public. Most manufacturers make what they think sells. They may come up with something new (or largely forgotten). If it sells well, it gets imitated; if it doesn't, it gets dropped. I expect that the bikes that have the cachet of the pro peloton make up a small portion of the market in numbers of bikes sold.

Like most of the posters on this thread, I think you're doing yourself a disservice in setting your bike up the way you do. If you do a lot of miles with this setup, I expect you'll regret it in 20 years, but it's your bike and your body. I can't buy it. I ride for enjoyment above all. That and safety make me want to keep my head up with as little stress as possible - I want to see where I'm riding, and I want to see potential threats soon enough to do something about them - and even then, I sometimes get caught. Your position on your bike is more risk than I want to take on.

livedarklions

The most interesting thing to me about your post is the stop sign thing because I think it illustrates the whole problem with saying "x machine is the best for losing weight." What will motivate you to your highest calorie burn is a psychological, not mechanical question. he bike that's going to get me to maximize my effort is going to be the one I most enjoy putting such an effort into riding. That's an individual taste thing, not an objective "more (less) aero means bigger effort" formula.

BTW, I do the acceleration thing on a relatively sparsely populated MUP I ride on. I'll slow way down or even stop if I can't pass cleanly and safely, but then speed up rapidly after passing them.

To be clear, not arguing with you. I just think the way you described motivating yourself with stop signs was cool.

ofajen

Downhill wasn’t that bad. I was riding single speed not fixed gear, so I could coast.

Standing while riding fixed gear down hills would be a very bad idea. OTOH, I suspect fixed gear would be better on the flats for a lot of standing work than single speed, but I will defer to those with experience.

Otto

big john

Some people can stand for long periods of time and some never will be able to. Those who can sometimes train to extremes. There have even been races that prohibit saddles.

I rode across the valley here with a local pro racer, small guy and climbing specialist. It was about 10 miles, some slight grades, and he stood the entire time. I was pushing so as to not embarrass myself and he just rode along, chatting, checking traffic, etc. I didn't ask him why he did that.

Another time I climbed a 9 mile canyon with a friend who raced at cat 3 and he stood the entire climb. He said he was working on standing but I think he had it figured out.

ofajen

Also, a bike made just for standing but with circular crank motion, like the Elliptigo SUB, will have shorter cranks, like say 150mm. That gives a reasonable “step size” of about 300mm or 12 in. Normal 170-175 mm cranks give too tall of a step size to be optimal for stand up only.

Otto

timtak

I was heading that way when I saw, not Yowamushi Pedal (which I have only read as a comic/manga) a certain video by John Cobb who said a lowered set up was a comfortable "all day" position, for when you want to ride a bit harder, that we don't see much these days because companies 'want to make you comfortable (in a different way, clearly)'. I agreed, or at least found that it worked for me. I think I had also ridden that way when I was high school kid in about 1980.

In reverse order
I get the "only way" thing a lot.

A: Cycling is a great way to get thin.
B: Why do you think that cycling is the only way to get thin?
A: I don't.

I used to set my saddle up too high to be able to bend over my belly but these days it is not that high.

I do think however it is a good idea to set ones road bike up more like a TT bike. Before their were TT bikes, I think that road bikes were more hybrid,"roadTT" bikes. But then someone (Cobb? Cinelli Spinachi?) invented aero bars, these were deemed too dangerous for the peloton, and the TT bike was born and used in the individual stages. The "roadTT" bike, that I feel existed in the 1960-1990s changed to become the group-stage-road bike, and the Time Trial bike became so specialised, the handle bars so narrow and lacking brakes, that it is now difficult for amateurs to use it on roads with cars. So amateurs purchase group-ride-road bikes and tend to forget I think (or at least I do or did) that these were designed for group rides. We also forget I think (I did, or do) the extent to which group rides are massively different to individual rides due to the enormous but invisible effect of drafting. So we often ride along alone as if were were riding in a group (an imaginary peloton? an imaginary domestique). This is a bit like using a tennis racket for playing badminton -- a somewhat inappropriate use of sporting equipment in my opinion.

I also think that behaving as if we are in a group, with an imaginary domestique, is a common psychological trope that is representative of what going wrong with the world.

I agree entirely.

I quite agree with the point that calorie burn is primarily psychological. If you are motivated to stop and start, this will increase your burn. My feeling about the comfort/group bike compared to the TT-ified-road bike, or old-school "roadTT" (please see above) bike perhaps, is that it is psychologically more motivating for many. If one is too fat to use a 1980s bike (as I was when I started riding) then the comfort bike is a great boon. But I still think that riding a body lowering bike (which is what I think a "road bike" is, or was) to consume calories will often be more motivating than riding an unaerodynamic bike to use up calories.

I think that "road bikes" (also called racers) might also be called "body-lowering-bikes." It is not the thinness of the tires, nor the lightness, that makes them fast and exhilarating but the fact that their bars and rearward offset saddle encourage body lowering. A comfort road bike or anyother bike that does not result in body lowering, is a bike that looks like a road bike but isnt. Not that this matters. Lots of people get thin and healthy riding cross bikes, mountain bikes, urban bikes with narrow straight handlebars. But road bikes had their niche, but this niche is being eroded by the spread of living as a third person (like one of today's peloton on tv) and the attractions of "comfort."

I agree. I don't think that there is a conspiracy in concrete sense (of people hidden in a room somewhere whispering to each other about how to make people fat) but I think that there are feedback loops and mechanisms by which bad things happen.

The most obvious of these are the negative feedback loops that normalise being overweight. If everyone is wearing baggies, driving a big car, eating big meals, riding a comfort road bike (oxymoron!) then these things become normal and to do otherwise becomes stupid, monstrous, castrating. When Jacques Anquetil road his bike like he did it, was a pretty normal way of doing it but gradually "comfort" becomes the new normal.

I think that economics tends to encourage a tendency towards a short term view of merit. That is to say the market supplies that which the market wants now, rather than that which the market would want if it were to take a longer term view. A common "comfort" bike is more comfortable in the short term, but may become less comfortable in the longer term (not always).

And as I just mentioned, I think that there is something psychological, that encourages us to live as if we are one of the people we see on television. This "something psychological" is the self. The self is a self representation, not the lived experience of consciousness. There is a tendency to live in such a way that seems pleasing to the little person on TV, or that we imagine ourselves to be, rather than to please consciousness.

On the other hand, part of the market is the advice that we give to each other on purchasing and setting up bikes. We may keep aiming for comfort, with grand-fondo bikes (though we may rarely travel long distances) and mountain bikes (though we may rarely or never ride in the mountains) and gravel bikes (though we may mainly ride on roads) and group ride bikes (though we mainly or always ride alone) and soon (as suggested above) electric bikes. But at the same time the are people and practices that are inclined to point out and perhaps slow down this tendency, and point out the long term comfort of riding with a lowered body, such as hypothetically, the reintroduction of time trials on road bikes, or my, and others, posts to this forum.

You may be right. My old TT-Road-bike, funny bike, set up did not exercise my glutes and was bad for me in the end. I may crash into something by reducing my visibility in my current lowered position. At the same time, I find that on balance I am glad I have been riding in the way I have these past...it is about 15 years since I joined the forum, and I had been riding a bit before that.

Fair enough. Others have expressed the same misgiving. I am lucky in that I live in a provincial part of Japan where the traffic is lower than almost anywhere else in the country with many long straight smooth country roads with few cars on them. If I am not lazy, I can look up under my brow and see ahead for about 100 m.

I very much agree. Nonetheless I think we are quite similar in many ways, and that things that one person finds motivating are likely to be motivating for a considerable number of others.

I very much agree.

That was my most serious post. Jesus is our domestique, but if we treat him badly he becomes the other "light bearer".

tomato coupe

That's what makes it so unbelievably funny.

Jax Rhapsody

This.

Kapusta

The "thin" issue aside, the funny thing is that while he says he advocates a TT setup, his setup is drastically different from a true TT setup, In fact, is is less "TT-ish" than modern race bikes.

timtak

You have said this before. It is like you can only think in current UCI categories.

I am aware that my current set up is drastically different from UCI TT bikes, it is designed for riding on my own against the clock in an aerodynamic, less manouverable and with less forward visibility. This may resemble 20th century bikes but it does not resemble current TT bikes. But this does not mean it is not a time trial set up. There are non UCI approved ways of doing things.

WhyFi

Oh?

timtak

I am sorry I misrepresented you. I thought you were claiming that Mr. Cobb's recommendations were ridiculous for different reason than you were. I have amended the post to which you refer and added an apology.

I see no reason why other than that he does not present data, that the position recommended by John Cobb is ridiculous.

The set up recommended by John Cobb is different to the UCI time trial bike. It is extreme in different ways. It provides more manoeuvrability, and less susceptibility to side winds, but it is more constrained. I have no doubt the Cobb set up is slower.

However, in its applicability to those not pushing a competitive edge, since the the UCI time trial bike set up is more unsafe, The UCI TT is more ridiculous, imho, as a bike for use by "anyone not pushing a competitive advantage"

The pros are using a set up which would be ridiculous for us, or those of us who want to go fast on their own in a non-UCI time trial (for a Strava KOM, against the clock, for a good work out). It is in this sense that the pros TT bike is ridiculous. I find that recommended by Mr. Cobb to be quite usable.

In the context of the thread, the pros bikes are ridiculous because to the amateur speed is not everything. It also matters to be safe.

Kapusta

This has nothing to do with UCI regs.

There is nothing in UCI rules that I am aware of preventing them from running their saddle as far back as yours. They don’t do it because they would be slower if they did. UCI rules are what prevent them from running them even more forward (the opposite of your bike)

WhyFi

So the TL,DR could be summed up thus: "I was talking out of my ass and I continue to talk out of my ass, though I've changed tunes"?

Cool.

timtak

If it has nothing to do with UCI regulations why do you keep bring up what is and is not within UCI regulations?

The pros would go slower if they moved their saddle backwards as you say. They go faster because they have a forward, and narrow set up on their time trial bikes. This forward and narrow set up is allowed by the UCI but it would be inappropriate, or even ridiculous for the amateur rider ride regularly on roads with cars. So the forward offset position has its drawbacks for amateurs. It is a time trial position but another fast position is to use the seat back wards position in order to get low and aerodynamic, and go faster. This the Cobb recommended position is another time trial position. It is a time trial position, in that it is faster than a standard (current) road bike position and may be more suitable to some solo riders who want to go fast, don't need as much visibility a more upright position provides.

timtak

I would not go as far as to say I was talking out of my ass.

In the context of the thread the UCI time trial bike is highly (I would say) unsuitable to amateurs who are not pushing a competitive edge. I still believe that the UCI time trial bike is ridiculous, or highly inadvisable. The UCI time trial bike set up is highly inadvisable because while amateurs want go to fast, speed is not everything. There is a balance between as you say, a number of factors such as
aerodynamics
being or not being so constrained as to not be able to push the pedals
forward visibility
manoeuvrability and the ability to resist side winds

The set ups which provide motivating, health promoting, enjoyable compromises between such factors for the amateur rider, are neither necessarily those provided by the UCI, and in my opinion they are not in fact the compromises provided by the UCI

The UCI time trial bike is too extreme (arguably "ridiculous" -- not a word I would use unless you had used it) and the UCI road bike, designed as it is for group rides, is too relaxed for many amateur solo riders.

tomato coupe

Let's vote: I say yes.

genejockey 

Fixed.

Ironfish653

This is a case of "missing the forest for the trees" if ever there was one; focused so much on getting the bars ever lower, in the quest for ultimate speed (and thus thin-ness!) based on a mis-extrapolation of a 15-year-old YouTube video from a washed-up trainer, that he's missed whole generations of evolution in bikes design and geometry. Stuck in the Lemond era, as it were. (I'd even go as far as to say that even Lance's bike has more in common with Greg's, or even Eddy's, than it does with Wout's)
All the evidence that he gives for his method being "the true way" are based on his perception and belief in it. I have yet to see him provide any actual data proving it.
Modern cycling, for better or worse, is heavily data driven (marginal gains) something has to prove it's faster or more efficient or it gets left to the side.

I'm also unsure (as are we all). why a TT style mount is the ideal for a solo recreational rider. I don't live in a sparsely populated japanese prefecture with wide flat straight roads, so visibility and manuverability are factors too. TT bikes are meant for going as fast as possible over a closed course ​​​​​​. There's a reason why TT/TRI style bikes are not welcome in group rides (or group -start races) is not because they're too fast; it's because their limited manuverability and visibility makes them unsafe for others to be around.
If all I wanted from cycling was to ride as hard as I could, for as long as I can, I'd be on a spin bike in front of zwift or something like that.

When you're out on the road, often times your average speed is dependent on factors outside of your control, no matter how 'fast' your riding position is. I have a bunch of RWGPS data from when I used to commute to work on my bikes. Three of my top 5 fastest times were set on the bike with the slowest top speed of the three bikes I used. (Moving avg was only 0.5 mph slower despite a 18.5mph max, to the fastest bikes 25; fastest time was 48 minutes, door -to-door, the rest fell between 52 and 58, for 12.5 miles)

* Disclaimer: I am a non-Xtian, and my fastest bike actually was banned by the UCI

timtak

Thank you. I have tried other methods of going faster, and/by improving the aerodynamics of my bike such as aero bars (long and short), a more aero helmet, tight lycra, narrower road bars, and rider position.

You mention bike design (frame design?) as another option but quoting bikegremlin
"Roughly, the average rider power requirements on a course with a zero net elevation gain is broken down into 60% rider drag, 8% wheel drag, 8% frame drag, 12% rolling resistance 0.5% wheel inertia forces and 8% bike/rider inertia. " "rider aerodynamics dominates the power requirements of racing bikes. "
In other words, a really super 2022 aero road bike, such as the Treck Madone aero bike may decrease the drag of the frame of my 2007 road bike by 50% (do you think so? It is a lot.) and thus decrease overall drag by 4%, for a cost of, a lot of money. However, if I could decrease the drag of my body by only 10% I would achieve an overall reduction in drag of 60/10 or 6%, possibly for free. It is for this reason that I my answer to the topic of the thread is "yes."


I tend to lower my bars less than the amount recommended by Mr. Cobb so "extrapolation" sounds inappropriate. Mis-interpolation?
I don't think Mr. Cobb a "washed up trainer." He was, but is not now employed by the current elite pros. Since he is not longer paid by the best of the best, some (but not me) might describe him as washed up. But I think he remains highly relevant. His most famous advice was to Greg LeMond, using wind tunnel, on especially how to win a time trial on an adapted road bike. These days the pros have dedicated time trial bikes so advice on how to adapt a road bike to a time trial bike is not required.

But to many amateurs, who ride road bikes on their own, thus without the massive effects of drafting, aiming to go fast, against only the clock, while not wanting to bump into cars, the advice that Mr. Cobb gives, on how to convert a road bike to a solo riders fast bike (or time trial bike?) is very important.

I agree, but for the reasons stated above, I don't think it matters to me at least, or to most other amateurs.

Yes. I agree. He has used data in the past, and was the first to take cyclists into the wind tunnel but he gives no data in the video I like.

I think you are talking about modern professional cycling. I find myself persuaded by Cobb's suggestion that if you are riding in a time trial on a road bike you are going to need to adapt it in the ways that he suggests. I am not sure why I would need data. His reputation, and past clients are not even necessary. When moving from a race where one can ride behind others reducing ones drag by up to 96 percent, and on average 80 percent, it stands to reason that one should attempt to reduces ones frontal area. There are only so many ways of doing this, predominantly by going low or going narrow. Going narrow results in steering issues.

First of fall, when I say a "TT style", I am referring to to those of us that race only the clock, aiming in part at least for speed, without anyone to draft on their own. I am not talking about UCI TT bikes because as you say, most amateur riders want to have more manoeuvrability than UCI TT bikes provide.


I agree entirely. I would not want to use a UCI TT bike on roads with cars far less in a group ride. However, I do realise that my rides are all solo, against the clock, with no one to draft, and thus similar to time trials, and thus demanding of a more sui generis time trial style of bike.

Yes.

I am not sure of the relevance of this paragraph, but I agree entirely.

Tim

Kapusta

YOU brought up UCI regulations, here, not me.

What you keep calling “UCI Time Trail” riding positions is really just “Time trial” riding position. You are dragging UCI into this in a failed attempt to confuse the issue.

Yours is NOT a time trial position. NOBODY doing time trails on a competitive level with much success shoves their saddle all the way back like yours.

Further, you say that the proper Time Trial positioning is inappropriate for amateurs do to visibility and handling reasons (which I agree with), but then go on to recommend something just as awkward that you yourself needed to have special glasses made for to see. There is NOTHING safer or more user friendly about your suggested setup as opposed to a proper Time Trail saddle position. Its just slower.

And since you whole premise in this thread is that amateurs want to go as fast as possible, it is a silly recommendation.