Originally Posted by
clubman
The pro peleton still spends most of it's fast time in the drops. When you need to go hard, whether it be it time trialling, sprinting, leading out, chasing, or descending, you do it in the drops. Climbing may be an exception.
I like to re-watch
60 Cycles once in awhile to remind myself of what traditional road racing was like before the tech revolution. There's a lot of nuance to bike fit beyond what we've touched on in our discussion of brakes levers.
Sprinting and leading out, and descending I'll grant you, because that's when you need grip and control as well as aerodynamics. But watch the guys in breakaways. They're not in the drops. They're out on the tops of the hoods with their wrists resting on the bar and their forearms parallel to the ground. It's more aerodynamic than the drops, but it's harder to shift from = though you can, and I do - and you have less control than the drops.
Even more aerodynamic, and recently banned by the UCI, is the 'imaginary TT bar' position, where you rest your forearms on the tops with your hands out front, holding onto absolutely nothing. I believe, back before Dura Ace 7900 was introduced, they'd sometimes hold onto the shifter cables coming ouf the sides of the STIs.