Originally Posted by elcruxio

It all depends on what you need. By moving the cleats back you gain foot stability but lose peak power. I don't personally need peak power and I can still crank out high enough power if I need to. For me long term stability is more important. For a trained individual (such as Pantani) the stability issue is much less of a concern. Not many typical riders are trained to nearly the same level. I also do not like the idea that I'd need to train certain muscle groups so that I can graduate to ride in the fashion I prefer. If there's a shortcut with caveats that don't concern me, I'm taking it.



In my experience the issues caused by too much reach begin manifesting when you start having your saddle in a position that allows for balanced recruitment of the quads and hamstrings. If get to that point and start adding excessive reach, there comes a point when you start tipping forward, placing more weight on the hands and all that fun stuff. Affecting factors are arm length, pelvic stability, and as a big factor upper body mass, among other things. Bigger hunks can tolerate less reach and vice versa.

Typically adding reach doesn't just mean you move your hands forward into a more vertical position. More often it means leaning the whole torso forward and that's really why adding reach for most people doesn't remove weight from the hands but does the opposite.

I believe in the pro peloton they have shorter reach these days because it's easier for the rider to achieve lots of drop instead of lots of reach. Added drop doesn't move the CoG forward as quicly as added reach does. There's also no inherent advantage in adding reach beyond the required amount.

What I do find interesting is the relationship of weight on hands, balance and back angle. It seems to me that to a point more forward lean increases balance and lessens weight on hands. I have no idea why, but I imagine it's different muscles taking over the balancing of the torso. Or it could just be me.