Whatever.
jaybike said:
I personally think he made a BIG mistake.
I'm not here to diss on John Cobb, but when people want to talk about aeronautics, that's my field, and I'll jump in. First of all, about all the time Cobb has had in tunnels, look in the background. In more than one picture, I've seen Mark Drela. Now Mark Drela doesn't mean much to you, but he's probably one of the best aeronautics people in the country and a professor at MIT. The point is this: Cobb can take a look at trends, write a few paragraphs, and everyone thinks he knows everything there is to know about cycling and drag. He doesn't even run his own experiments, and he's not trained in the field. He's a smart guy, but to hold him as an aero god is a big mistake, and to think that Lance changing his position is going to cause all hell to break loose shows how little people know about aero.
#1. Lance is $15 million a year industry. You don't change things on a whim. He spends $$$ on wind tunnel time. From what I hear, he was at UW this fall.
#2. Aeronautics is about little things, things that you CAN'T tell by looking at, and in many cases wouldn't think to be true. I don't care if Cobb says wide elbows are bad. It might have been for one position. It might reduce drag in another.
#3. Hand position is a rotation of the wrist is not copying Jan's position. Jan's forearms are in a much different position.
#4. The position isn't even that different. If anything, it looks more comfortable. He didn't go to a 10" drop on his bars or anything.
See how he races before making conclusions, at least for lack of wind tunnel and power output data.
