What's the point?

You are probably wondering why I made my previous post. Maybe you aren't. I'll tell you anyway.

As we were riding this morning, the group was cruising along at about 26mph. The lead changed and I was second in line. The new leader assumed the aero position and rapidly slowed to 24mph and bailed out. Why?

He was aerodynamic! He was low. He should have been fast.

Here's the fact: Each time he turned the crank, he was spending more effort overcoming internal resistance than pedaling the bike. As the crank moved towards the top, his hip would go to maximum flexion. However, the crank still had to go over the top. Since his hip was in maximum flexion, he compensated by rotating his lumbar spine to give the crank enough room to cross top dead center.

Where does the effort come from to hoist the leg up and rotate the pelvis and trunk? It comes from the leg that is pushing down! The pushing leg(for lack of a better term) is suppose to be pedaling the bike, not altering posture.

Here's another issue: Each time the center of gravity shifts on the bike, you have to steer to keep the bike underneath you. If you are contantly steering back and forth, you are taking a longer line from point A to point B.

Please understand, this is not an indictment of the person. It's an indictment of priority. If you choose Aero as your first priority, you will be limited based on biomechanics