Originally Posted by
andr0id
Sit in a typical dining room chair with your feet on the ground in front of you. Lean forward 45 degrees. Lean forward 60 degrees. Lean forward 90 degrees with your chest against your thighs. Stick your arms out in from of you. Go back to 45 degrees. Go back to upright. Your arms should be pointing straight up now.
Did you have to put your hands on anything to do that?
It's maybe a bit simplistic, but your bicycle is no different.
Bracing our feet on the floor, or on the pedals, allows us to use the core muscles to keep less weight on the hands. Pedaling harder, less weight on the bars or saddle. With your experiment, if I pick my feet up, straight up a couple of inches, I tip over. The saddle position helps us balance against our pressure against the pedals, saddle and bars, with the core muscles as the main mechanism for that. As I see it.
I sometimes rest with my forearms on the ramps while holding the hoods (does anyone else do that, or is it just weird?). I really wish for aerobars those times, and feel like that's enough reason in itself to install some.