1990 Tour de France stage 7

[@yesroh]

The bike was slowly being modified for these bars at the time. LeMond's bars weren't too extreme--they just left no room for alternate positions. You had to hold your hands in that position with the palms together, and that is not always desireable. In my experiments, you can get in an extreme position, even more aero than LeMond's, but you need options to stretch the back, or get more power or control in a race. Then angles on the bike too--bicycle geometry had not caught up with these yet.

[@ta1920]

Whoa, Alcala was flying

[@yesroh]

From my experience, you need to open up the angle between the upper leg and torso to a point or you'll lose power. About 16 years ago I had been riding the regular drop handlebars and I was always as low as I could go. One day I rode my time trial route on the hoods instead of the drops, and my perceived exertion was a lot less, even though I pushed the pace. I was only about 10 seconds off my usual time of around 16 minutes on that course. I lost my low-drag but gained power.

[@yesroh]

Hard to believe he faded so quickly after this. Those handlebars LeMond uses look ridiculous. He stopped using them after this stage. I never saw him with them again. From my experience, being a lousy amateur like I am, you don't need a special handlebar to get into the position LeMond was in with his Extreme handlebars, and if you look at Alcala, he looks much more comfortable. It looks like Alcala may even have been able to better pull, or brace himself with more of his upper arm muscles.

[@KelpStalker]

He faded - but EPO was out there then, I think thats why Greg hates dopers so much, it contributed to his time ending a little prematurely.

[@EMC2Scotia]

Speaking of bars and positions, in hindsight it is blatantly obvious these bars where a mistake and too extreme, as the reporter astutely points out in her question. Looking at Hampsten's position, its not far away from a Graeme O'Bree superman position, very flat and stretched out.

[@yesroh]

The comments are jokes I share with my friend--I'm trying to introduce her to pro-cycling, and I'm a big ham. Hard for me to pass up a pun. Hope no one is offended by the silliness--it gets a little bit rude at times, but I love all these guys--LeMond, Bauer, Hampsten, and yes--even Fignon. I only make fun of people I like.

[@kingkongpalm]

Yeah, the 'funny' captions need to go.