Originally Posted by
raydobbins
Hello everybody. I searched this topic but didn't find any related discussions.
When riding with only one hand on the bar, such as when you reach for your bottle and drink, where is the best place to hold the bar? On top or on the brake lever?
I've always thought that it's best to hold the bar on top, near the center/stem, mainly because if you hit a bump, you are less likely to cause a wobble. Also, I feel that braking with only one hand on the bar is risky because the load on the bar is not balanced.
So, how many of you agree?
Cheers,
Ray
In general the tops, near the stem. That's the generally accepted best place to hold the bars if you're riding one handed. If you want a good example of pro riders doing it look up "Madison sling". The rider giving the hand sling holds the bars at the tops, for stability. This enables the rider to give a really good shove to the rider getting slung into the race.
Here's an example where one guy is on the tops, one is on the drops. One hits the deck.
Here's where things go right. The race involves pairs of riders, one can sling the other into the race. The rider on the inside is the one pulling off, the rider on the outside is the one going into the race. Tactically a team can go much faster than a single rider so there are numerous hand slings at very high speed in any heated part of the race. In the clip below it's 5 laps to go in a 6 day event (racing over 6 days, which, back in the old days, meant actually pedaling for 6 days and nights, but now it's sort of like a 6 day stage race on the track).
If these guys could sling their teammate into the race harder using a different hand position they would. They can't so they hold the bars right next to the stem. It's absolutely the most stable position when riding one handed, for the reasons you mention (less prone to give mistaken steering inputs to bar/stem).
For the highest speed tucks on a descent holding the bars next to the stem is very stable. On rough pavement, in twists, etc, the drops are the best because it's very hard for your hands to slip off the bars, you have your brakes, and you have good weight distribution. The hoods are the worst on a descent.
In situations where you're already on the drops that could change, like if you're on a descent and need to signal a right turn. if you think about a typical hand signal it takes maybe a second and you don't cover that much ground in that second. Shaking a hand out, taking a sip, that's all fine from the drops in higher speed situations but again, it takes very little to move your hands and then do the drink or whatever.
Also, if you feel like you might need to brake and you need to take one hand off the bars for more than a second, you would want to have the one hand by a brake lever. However if that's the case then you should probably wait to take the other hand off.