Originally Posted by canklecat

Same here. I usually coast faster than most people in group rides, and end up going around them.

Best I can figure, it's a combination of optimal body weight (around 160 lbs seems to be the sweet spot) and aerodynamics. I'm 160 lbs, with toothpick legs (no amount of muscle work will develop those legs), thin and longer than usual arms, average torso. Even wearing a casual fit jersey and baggy shorts, even riding my hybrid with flat or riser bars, I tend to coast faster that most folks around me.

On fast rides I can feel the difference in air flow around my lower legs by shifting the angle slightly. Knees tucked in too far feels less aero, about the same as flopping those knees outward like pickup truck mirrors.

The trick of riding the hoods low with forearms parallel to ground level seems more aero too, although it's physically more demanding on my old school road bike with minimal hoods. That technique is better suited to more contemporary bikes. I can feel more drag when I'm in the drops, so I mostly use the drops for a change of position and for climbing or brief sprinting, not for long rides on flats into head winds -- doesn't seem to help there.

During yesterday's group ride I had to sit way up just to stay off the brakes, but it helped only a little -- too much draft from the slower folks ahead of me.

Given similar aero and conditioning factors, heavier folks will coast faster, but slow down on climbs. Over the course of a long roller coaster ride groups tend to stay in ragged groups.

I enjoy blasting downhills at full gallop, while most sensible folks coast or soft pedal. Alas, it doesn't translate to the flip side. I usually get dropped on climbs by other reasonably fit men and women riders in my age group (50+). So all my Strava top tens are are segments with reasonably fast downhill bits, or tailwind assisted over distance. I suck on climbs. Literally, sucking wind like a wheezy congested meatbased humanoid thing. But I've improved from dead last on climb segments, to middle of the pack last year to bottom end of the upper third this year. Only reason I suffer hill climbs is for the flip side, the downhill blasts.