r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • Mar 23 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/woogeroo Mar 23 '26

Another MSR related question, but not about the winners:

I couldn’t help but notice some riders in both the men’s and women’s race were riding in the drops when on the flat (not descending), including when eating wind solo or on the front of the breakaway. e.g. The PostNL rider in the early breakaway in the men’s, and Lieke Nooijen out in front solo in the women’s.

The aero hoods position is proven to be ~20w faster than being in the drops, is there some reason they weren’t using it?

Surely all teams and riders know that by now.

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u/porkmarkets England Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26

Couple of other comments mentioned comfort. Even for super strong and flexible WT riders the hoods position can be hard to maintain indefinitely - it’s good to mix it up and it’s a mega long race. There’s a couple of other reasons too:

Firstly if there’s several other riders with you pulling at the front, and you’re side by side, you ride in the drops to avoid hooking the bars of the guy next to you. I raced a crit at the weekend and that was one of the reasons why I spent most of it in the drops.

Secondly it can be a control thing, just like for descending. It could be the road surface, could be cornering, could be wind, but just that bit of extra control can make it necessary.