So I’ve been riding around with a highish stack height on my Road Bike for a while - due to hip impingement and flexibility issues.
I’ve been working super hard on my mobility and lost a few lbs over the last year.
I got a new road bike and I’ve been slowly extending the stem length and dropping spacers.
Now I’m reading I’m supposed to keep the stack height high?
wtf is going on? should I stop with dropping spacers? I’ve been cutting my steerer tube every time a drop gets comfy enough should I cut that out?
as I understand it, the aero-hoods position with forearms parallel is the fastest while you’re in it…but does a lower stack overcome the ease of getting into that position (since with a lower stack you’re lower the whole ride)?
my terrain I ride the most is somewhat flat but small rollers.
I think that the goal is still to get as much of your body out of the wind as possible, so lower is often still better, BUT since people have been adopting the aero hoods position, they’ve been able to raise their bars and keep a similar back angle as when they had lower bars and straighter arms reaching for the drops.
Ultimately, the goal is to be low, but not so low that you lose power or are unable to stay comfortable for long periods of time.
It depends on what position you’ll ride in the most. If you’re doing crits, you need to be comfy in the drops for the whole race and in the aero hoods when on the front or off the back, but these aren’t very long so you can usually tolerate a fairly low stack height. If you’re doing long group rides, then you’ll mostly spend most of the time up in the hoods, so a low stack height also makes sense. Solo TT type riding, races with long breakaways, etc, then the higher stack height makes more sense to be able to stay in aero hoods position for long periods of time.
The reasoning for this may be what is often called modern or progressive bike geometry or fit.
These days you can often read about a desire for steeper seat tubes and a more forward saddle position. These two go hand in hand and both will create a necessity to raise the saddle slightly to keep the same distance from the BB.
With the raised saddle, your body will go up and your handlebar will ideally follow this, to keep the drop from saddle to handlebar the same (and move forward ever so slightly to keep the same distance between bars and saddle)
But that’s all in the range of millimeters, nobody will go from fully slammed stem back to a full stack of spacers
so right now i’m at 25mm of spacers and I’ve been trying to keep going lower. “problem” is it’s just irreversible once I cut it. I can “test” 5mm at a time but then I gotta cut.
just don’t wanna ease my way down to 10mm or something and realize I should be higher to be faster.
most of my rides are 100% solo - so I’m not really racing or time trialing. I do “time trial” now and then but just for fun. but yeah I know power is the true measure of how good of a workout you got is but I like to see the speed number creep up on the same routes. that is my version of racing and what makes cycling fun for me.
As much as this has turned into the default answer to most questions related to cycling, but it sounds like a bike fit might be due.
A decent fitter should be able to tell you if there’s an advantage to you going any lower given your current setup and constraints (flexibility, body measurements, injuries, etc) and if they use a rig to do the fitting, you can also try it out without cutting anything.
You don’t want to be sitting totally upright, but you don’t need your chin on the stem to be aero. As others have said, the aero hoods position has proven to be faster than a lower position in the drops. A part of that is the flat arms, but the aero hoods position also makes it easier to get narrow (which is often more impactful than getting low).
Yeah, don’t be afraid to ride with some spacers above your stem until you’re 100% sure of your fit. I know how eager you are to trim the steerer, but you will live for a few weeks.
Also, why is getting every drop of aero so important to you? Do you race often?
I’d put comfort pretty high on the list otherwise. It’s amazing how much more fun I have on bikes that are comfortable, regardless of how “fast” they are.
It doesn’t get easier; you just go faster. How fast do you need to go?
Depending on the amount of spacers, the material of the steerer tube and the design of the compression plug, this might not be the best idea. It should work for a little while if no strong forces are applied, but there is a chance to damage a carbon steerer tube if stem and compression plug don’t align very well.
And on some of the more modern bikes with integrated cockpits, it might not even be possible anymore to have more than a few mm of spacers due to the design of the cockpit and how it attaches.
The modern fit is not just higher cockpit, it’s also narrower, longer reach, saddle pushed forward. Essentially you are getting closer to a TT skis position — TT bikes have a steeper seat tube, and the hand position in the skis is narrower, farther, and higher than the bullhorns. So you shouldn’t just change one of these parameters without touching the others, at least not if the motivation is modern aero optimization.
Also if you are solo you should probably be optimizing for whatever position you can hold all day. The modern aero fit is meant to be easier to hold due to reduced hip impingement, however the aero hoods do require a lot of core and upper body strength compared to straight arms on hoods or drops. In bunch riding you often only need to hold it for a few seconds or minutes. But if riding solo all the time, you might prefer lower bars and straighter arms (same back angle) despite the slight aero penalty.
I have similar hip issues and had back surgery 7 years ago. I had been thinking about going shorter cranks for a while, Phil Burt confirmed it in a bike fit, first ride today and he’s right the front doesn’t feel so low any more. Something to consider.
Not sure noodling is a useful term here. Whether something feels like a light easy effort is all relative to the individual’s power duration curve. Related to weight but also age. Two riders may be riding at 200 watts, one finding it easy, and one working fairly hard. Same external load, different internal loads. Plus I would also say to someone who says 200 watts is noodling; go ride that steady average wattage for 16 hours or more with no stops and tell me it is still noodling at the end.
I get the point about less power / force through pedals , more weight on the saddle.
I would also say to someone who says 200 watts is noodling; go ride that steady average wattage for 16 hours or more with no stops and tell me it is still noodling at the end.
Point taken.
I’ll refrain from using the term “noodling” from now on.
Lower stem does not automatically mean more aero; I learnt this when I visited the local bike fitter (who happens to be fantastic at his job). By raising the stem 1 cm, I was actually so much more comfortable and relaxed on the bike that I sat visibly more aero than when the stem was slammed.
should I cut that out?
