On Jul 28, 12:16*am, Tuschinski wrote:
On 26 jul, 20:52, hizark21 wrote:

Climbing: riding on the tops vs riding on the brake hoods

I have noticed that most climber since the mid 90's tend to climb
seated with their hands on hoods.Personally I prefer climbing on the
tops since this a more relaxed position. Climbing seated on the hoods
put's more strain on my wrists. *The one advantage of the hoods is
that you can brake faster. In the end I suppose it's a matter of
climbing style.

Aero wheels are probably marginally beneficial in longer mountain
stages. The Discovery team was using aero wheels on the mountain
stages. I have not seen any studies to verify this however.

Climbing is really more a matter of pacing than wheel sucking.

I am flabbergasted by all answers in this thread. The real reason:

Air resistance is still a very big component (especially with current
climb speeds)! It is why wheel-sucking works so well on climbs. And it
is also why you better can use aero wheel than ultra light climbing
wheels if you want to win. Of course; pros use ultra-light aero wheels
^^

A reason against the aero wheels is more in the descent, where
handling of high carbon wheels can be spotty: Braking is compromised,
esp when wet and ascents often have unexpected crosswinds wich might
affected steering of a higher rimmed wheel. Also, the rougher ride
might be tiring if you ride over 5-6 hours. Although I would assume
pros can handle that last issue^^

For mere mortals hoods and tops is less of an issue due to our low
riding speed.

- Before anyone asks: This is why "A la danseuse" died: it's not
aerodynamic and with the bigger rear sprockets/higher wattage pros can
now reach 90+ rpm when sitting in the saddle. In the 70ies-80ies the
climbing rpm was a lower, wich forced them to "dance" a lot to power
the big gears. *Indurain was afaik the first influential rider really
changing climbing by using higher RPM's and an aero climbing style,
though it was probably an evolutionary change, spurred by ergo-
research.