The second point on arm position comes from Gabriel Rasch. He is the inventor of the Gabba jacket that Castelli developed with the Cervelo TestTeam, a tight-fitting aero rain jacket that works best in the worst conditions. I hear it will be sold in stores in the future too.

Gabriel has the most amazing position on the bike that I have ever seen. I noticed this at the first ever training camp of the Cervelo TestTeam. We went on a ride with sponsors, media, etc and on the way back to the hotel we were riding side-by-side for a long stretch (The only thing I remember more than Gabba’s arms was that the ride ended with a sprint where Gabba dragged me to the front group, at which point I misunderstood his intentions. He slowed down because he knew where the line was, I didn’t so I passed him to circle through and was surprised nobody took over from there. When finally somebody did pass me, it was Thor in full sprint. Suffice to say I was unable to catch that wheel. He never thanked me for the lead-out).

Anyway, the brilliance of Gabba’s position is in his arms. When he rides on the hoods or in the drops, his elbows don’t stick out to the sides at all, his forearms come straight back from the handlebars and straight down from the shoulder (nitpicking trigonometrists will now point out that this would require the bars to be the width of the shoulders, as per the myth I ridiculed in an earlier blog). In fact he twists his elbows inwards. He is not aware of it being anything special, it’s just what his arms do naturally, but try it on your next ride and see what happens when you twist those elbows inward.

Not a great example of Gabba's position as he is not on the hoods or in the drops, but a nice shot of the Gabba rain jersey/jacket

This entry was posted on July 27, 2011 at 14:00 and is filed under bike equipment.