ABSTRACT
Ergonomics ‘attempts to best understand the interaction among humans and other elements of a system in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance’ (International Ergonomics Association Council, 2000). As this concept relates to sport, ergonomics is a useful way of examining how athletes interact with their environment whereby a systematic process of athlete-environment assessment and training serves to enhance performance. This has been previously defined as the ‘mutual adjustment’ of human and machine where the bicycle is the machine (de Groot et al., 1994), although a more current perspective on cycling ergonomics would include the interaction of the cyclist on his or her bicycle and the bicycle-rider unit in the surrounding environment (Debraux et al., 2011). Thus, this chapter will focus on the factors directly related to cycling velocity by exploring the relationship of the bicycle-rider unit with the external environment, and the factors that influence power output and are therefore indirectly related to cycling velocity by examining the bicycle-rider unit. This chapter will draw from road cycling and triathlon and focus on the three most typical cyclist positions: upright (hands on upper part or brake hoods of traditional road handlebar); drop (hands on bottom of traditional road handlebar); and time trial (elbows resting on pads on upper part of handler bar arms grasping ‘aerobar’) (see Figure 10.1). The three most typical cyclist positions during road and triathlon cycling: (a) upright position; (b) drop position; and (c) time trial position. (Reprinted from Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 44/9, Defraeye, T., Blocken, B., Koninckx, E., Hespel, P., and Carmeliet, J., Computational fluid dynamics analysis of drag and convective heat transfer of individual body segments for different cyclist positions, Pages No. 1696, Copyright (2011), with permission from Elsevier.) https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203123355/f9d53141-dca6-416e-a182-a676edb21fe0/content/fig10_1_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
