5MV-96 – Angling your Brifters: more comfortable?

Angling your Brifters: more comfortable?
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Over the last couple of years, data showing that narrower handlebars can give a small but useful aerodynamic advantage. To prevent the bars getting too narrow and hence possibly dangerous the UCI introduced handlebar width restrictions. Some teams tried to circumnavigate the rule by angling the brifters (brake/shifters) towards the centre-line of the bike. The UCI have now introduced rules to prevent this brifter angling getting too extreme.
It seems to me that moving the brifters could also improve comfort. In this video I try-out angling the brifters on my gravel bike to see if it would give any comfort benefit.

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/fiveminutevelo

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About the 5MV channel
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My name is Terry and I love cycling. I have named my channel “Five Minute Velo” (5MV). I have called it 5MV because the videos I upload will (mostly) last no longer than five minutes. Each video will cover just one subject that is described in the title. Although the channel is mainly about cycling on the road, I will also cover some light (gravel) off road riding and cycle touring from time to time. No matter what, much of the advice will be pertinent to many branches of the sport/pastime.

I am new to posting videos on YouTube (May 2020) and I have much to learn, particularly in terms of presentation style and production quality. As such I welcome constructive comments that will help me improve the videos that I produce and upload.

There may be some dry humor in some of the videos, so dry it may not always be obvious :-).

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My strava profile can be found here:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/7723982

Cambridge Cycling Club website:
http://www.cambridge-cycling-club.org.uk/

Instagram
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Photos of 2019 Tour of low countries:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/3ierczDfurM1gTGi7

Random cycling photos (will be updated from time to time):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/VZBhCWcQZtynsJF1A

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Terry

In this video I’m going to carry out an experiment to see whether turning or rather rotating my brifters on my handlebars will help improve comfort and if that change has any negative effects for years we’ve used the brifters like this with them basically pointing Straight Ahead however a few years ago the pros

Started turning their rifters in like this that was so they could move their hands closer together and therefore get an aerodynamic Advantage it struck me that there were also potential ergonomic advantages that is increased Comfort my main approach to handlebar Comfort is to use these so-called arob

Bars and there’s a video about that in the top right hand of the screen I try to spend as much time on the tops here as possible however I spend not an insubstantial amount of time on the top of the brift the hoods like that or more often halfway between

The hood and the tops like that now when I’m not on the tops I have three issues first of all my wrist is bent back secondly I get a little bit of pressure on my finger there from The Brak Hood and thirdly the natural position of my hand when it’s resting is

At a slight angle rotating these brifter hoods could tackle all three of those issues they’re not big issues so I’m not expecting any dramatic improvements okay I’m going to adjust these brifters in order to do that I just need to pull this back loose the Allen bolt

Off and then I should be able to rotate this I’m not going to angle it in too much between 5 and 10° right I’ll do the same on this side now so I did this on my gravel bike for a couple of reasons first of all the

Handlebars are quite wide so it allows me to experiment a bit more safely and secondly I’ve got mechanically actuated disc brakes so the effect of changing the angle that the uh brake cable goes through should be more dramatic than on a bike with hydraulic disc brakes putting my hands on there it

Doesn’t feel dramatically different my wrist does feel a bit straighter moving the brakes like that they don’t feel any different right then let’s change some gears front gear changer no difference rear gear changer no difference let’s try the brakes yep they still work as for riding on the

Drops I don’t notice any significant difference there is one other handlebar position that I haven’t in the past used very often and that’s resting my wrist on the top of the bars and the ball of my hands on the top of the brifter hoods I haven’t used it very often in

The past because with the straight lever hoods I found my wrists Bend back too far now these have been turned in my wrists are actually a little bit straighter and I find it less uncomfortable so so maybe with these hoods turned in I’ll adopt this position a little bit more and therefore my

Efforts to go for Comfort may have aerodynamic Advantage too so there are advantages of the brifters being turned in I can only think of one real disadvantage and that’s stretching the meaning of the word and that is when I rest my hands on the tops of the brift

The position just feels a bit odd now I suspect that is something I will get used to so for the next few weeks I’ll leave the brifters in this position and at the end of those couple of weeks I’ll make a short that let me know whether I stuck with that position or

Not from me until the next video it’s goodbye