Corsaire

Getting hip to a higher position
Dear Lennard,
I am a 47-year-old new Cat 4 racer doing road races and hill climbs. I just had my bike refitted for my aging body (a 57cm Bianchi titanium XL Reparto Corse with an Easton SL fork) at the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine. They replaced my flat 120mm stem with a 110 stem with a 15-degree rise and placed the levers high on the bars. This has resulted in a fit where holding the levers is the most comfortable and default riding position. While I was skeptical (this is not the set up of the Category 1-3 riders I see), they insisted that this more upright position will give me more power and avoid back pain. Then, while watching the Tour de France, I noticed that Floyd Landis appears to ride with a stem with a rise and the hoods very high on the bars. My questions: Is Landis unique among pros in his use of a stem with a rise and hoods placed high, and second, is this position preferred over the classic long flat stem with a long reach to the hoods? Finally, if so, why are most of the pro bikes still fitted that way?
Terence

Dear Terence,
Most other riders in the Tour are not nursing a broken, necrotic hip. Floyd can't tolerate that low position. I think that other Tour riders would benefit on mountain stages from a higher handlebar position, but I think they may be right in running their bars low for flat stages due to the demands of racing on the flats at the speeds they do. And since none of them ever want to change their position, they'll use it on the mountain stages.

If you've ever ridden with a power meter, you would know that it takes a lot more power to ride at 30 mph than at 25 mph. And that increase in power is a lot greater than the one required to make the prior 5 mph leap from 20 to 25 mph. So doing everything possible to hide from the wind may be a must, especially for domestiques. The team leaders are only at the front when the road goes up; they need not worry about cranking out 30 mph with their tongues out at the front on the flats. The one time Floyd had to do that, on his long solo breakaway, he cut the wind resistance by resting his elbows on the bars to bring his arms in out of the wind in an aero-bar position without an aero bar.Lennard