The 2000 Olympics are soon to be on us, and for at least a moment or two the world's attention will fall on Triathlon. In the spirit of it all I attended a lot triathlons and even set a personel record of doing five of them myself. Racing allows me to empathize with the undertrained age-group racers out there.

It also gave me the opportunity to watch you-all on your bikes. I like to try to figure out what causes some of you to choose certain riding styles--seated forward or rearward; aerobars high or low; or long versus short leg lengths. Many of you test different positions to try to find the balance between comfort, power, and speed. Pros do that too. Lately, though, some pro triathletes have been thrown into a new style of racing--new at least to them--since they probably came into the sport from swimming or running, and the bike racing they originally learned was the no-drafting style. So the Olympic-style racers are in much the same position you-all find yourselves, except in reverse: They're trying to figure out how to properly road-race.

John Cobb working with Lance Armstrong in the Texas A&M wind tunnel prior to the 1999 Tour de France. More on this here.

The big difference in the ITU (Olympic Triathlon Union--triathlon's world governing body) racing is that drafting on the bike segment is allowed and even encouraged (with different equipment rules for bikes). As an age group racer I'm against this, as a spectator it has a certain appeal, as a guy whose goal is to make racers go faster I see a whole new set of challenges and areas to explore.

I don't think there are any two people who have believed in and preached the virtues of "forward geometry" more than I and Dan Empfield, the publisher of the ezine you're reading. He might be considered the pied-piper of triathlon geometry, and I've re-positioned hundreds of athletes for triathlon riding, while spending hundreds more hours in wind tunnels and physiology/bio-mechanics labs to fine tune and learn more about the position itself. We have achieved great levels of comfort for long distances--yes it's possible to be comfortable--and race times have come tumbling down as bike splits get faster. We've positioned pro and age-group racers alike, both for triathlon and for bicycle time-trial racing.

Yet for all the success we've enjoyed in getting people to understand the benefits of tri geometry versus the road positions they previously used, now we're seeing the opposite problem among the ITU-style pro racers. In their zeal to find a position that both allows them a road race draft-legal position, and to have an aero position available to them (ITU racers can use little teeny aerobar clip-ons, roadies cannot), I often see some of them compromising their speed while enjoying zero comfort. Suddenly the "retro" European pro cyclists have become important to study, they've been drafting a long time and some of them have learned how to pedal pretty fast. No triathlete, not even cycling juggernauts like Spencer Smith or Jurgen Zack, can match speed with these elite road racers, and until you've seen these top pros really crank you just can't imagine how fast they are.

Last spring I had the opportunity to go to Holland and do some wind tunnel work for the Rabobank team. I think they were at or near the top rank in the world as a team, but their time-trialing was way off. They decided I might be able to help them. This was an honor for me because not to many outsiders are allowed to get involved with these teams. Insofar as I speak "southern-slow" they must have been real desperate, since they still wanted me after they called and spoke with me. I'll always remember that first caller saying "Are you really the real guy who does wind tunnel work?" and "My, you do talk slow..."

We got over all that and off I went to Holland to work with the team. Their physiologist supplied me with SRM data of all the riders for various distances and then, as we gathered drag data from the tunnel, I could plot improvements for them. It all worked out and they all went faster over the season. I had also done a lot of work with Lance and U.S. Postal on time trialing positions in the winter (that obviously worked out very well), so I had the opportunity to check, measure and test twelve of the top riders in the world. I was surprised at how low these riders run their seat heights when road racing, to help relieve--they say--pain in their hamstring muscles. Their seats are also pretty well slammed back during the road stages, although they do ride up on the saddle nose when time trialing. How does this relate to ITU racers? Those triathletes aren't time-trialing anymore, now their road racing.

Our new crop of ITU triathletes are going to need to learn to spin more and sit on the bikes better for improved aerodynamics and biomechanics. If you look at various pictures of the "worlds" in the magazines, you'll notice the ITU riders' arms are almost straight down, forming a big scoop on the front of the bike. Shame on you if you do this because it takes a lot of power to push through the air this way and it makes an even bigger wake behind you for that drafting guy to be in. So.....what we gonna' do? ITU racers ought to consider learning to sit further back on the bikes, say, at 71-72 degrees seat angle, and run lower seat heights, maybe 42-50 degree knee bend. I will assure you that on the first couple of rides you aren't gonna' like it but if you'll keep on and really work on your spinning then amazingly soon some new speed starts showing up. It's a strange feeling but you can soon feel the speed on your bike, your quads really get into it when it's time to get in the big gears and go.

An ITU racer may rightly counter with the argument that their style of racing is different from a road racer--an ITU race is a lot more like an American-style criterium. Criteriums certainly are mass-start road races, but bike set-ups usually include a steeper seat-angle (say 74 to 75 degrees), and maybe slightly lower handlebars, than the average Euro road-racer would use (the Euro road-racers ride shallower, and with a lower seat height, to protect their hamstrings during long, arduous road stages). But guess what? The Euros go faster in their much long classic races than Americans do in their shorter criteriums! And remember, ITU racers need to protect their hamstrings from tearing and overwork as well, since they have a 10K to run after they're finished riding!

For years triathletes have been telling road racers how to time-trial better, and the roadies are incorporating a little--sometimes a lot--of what triathletes are doing. But ITU racers ought to consider watching these Euro-pros a little more carefully. They may be able to pick up a thing or two.

How does this affect you, if you're an age-group no-draft racer like me? There are many times when you'll want to do your riding on a road bike, like early in the season, or during easy days, or during group rides. And who knows? You may decide to hone your skills as a cyclist by jumping right into the fire, and get into road racing yourself!