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At some foundational level, to be a cyclist is to know pain. Perhaps that’s the burn of muscular exertion, or the ache of back pain, or the metallic tang in the lungs of an all-out effort. Maybe it’s the swelling, sharpening discomfort of a saddle sore, or the tingles of feet or genitals fading to numb meat-lumps. These are personal tortures, known only to the rider.
Rarely can you look at a picture of someone on a bike and instantly recognise that you would not, could not, tolerate that position. Unless you’re looking at pictures of vintage track bikes.
For a heady period in the 1980s and 1990s, there were fledgling understandings of aerodynamics combined with rapid technological advances. Crucially, the UCI was behind the ball, consistently being outplayed by innovators like Francesco Moser and Graeme Obree who found the loopholes in the regulations to attain ever more improbable forms.
Perhaps the most famous position of this era was the ‘superman’ position adopted by Obree, putting his hands about 30 cm in front of his front hub. This was widely copied, before being banned by the UCI in October 1996. Further refinements of regulations reined things in even more; by 2000, positions became more recognisably similar to what exists today.
For that heady decade or so, however, we have a photographic archive to look back on: bike after bike, position after position, to look at and think ‘absolutely not‘.
10. Tandems in elite competition are now the preserve of paracyclists, but at the 1994 World Championships they were still very much a feature. My desire to be on one of these is entirely dependent on whether I would be at the front or the back. As captain (front), I suspect this would feel normal enough. As the stoker (back), I can only imagine that there would be a heady mix of high-octane fart and rock-hard buttocks pounding your face throughout the effort. While I won’t knock it til I’ve tried it, I also do not want to try it.9. Gene Samuel of cycling powerhouse Trinidad holds what may seem like a normal enough position, but the downward sloping top tube and the headtube angle are nonetheless pretty forbidding. It’s a no from me, albeit a low-level one. 8. Expertly modelled here by Mariano Friedick, Team USA (USA! USA! USA!)’s track bike has some fun features: a broad, broad seat-tube, a tiny little front wheel, and a star-spangled paintjob. It is certainly silly, but the main defining positional feature is its extreme seat to handlebar drop, and we have seen this kind of thing before. Hell for the back, but at least it looks kinda normal. 7. And so we enter the Superman era. I would absolutely not want to be Chris Boardman here, but at least there is a little bend in the elbow to soften the strain. Massive fan of the little prongs at the top of the fork, too. Don’t get me wrong, absolutely debilitating stuff, but with a certain approachability to it.6a. There’s some real shock and awe in Heiko Szonn’s ominous black track bike, its expensive carbon fibre exuding a sense of studious craftmanship, firm discomfort, and ludicrously long handlebars… 6b. … until you see, from a different angle, its adorable little front wheel and extremely silly shape. In no way comfortable, but with a Teutonic whimsy that sits it in the middle of our standings. 5. Of the Superman assortment we have here, Lucy Tyler-Sharman’s looks relatively sustainable, with bonus points for the extremely rustic-looking handlebars. A pretty full stretch, but as we’re about to learn, it could be much worse.4. Marion Clignet, for example, looks to me to have a position I would not like to be in a little bit more. Perhaps it’s the purposeful turn of the wrist that does it. I’ll admit that Look colour palette does make me feel a certain kind of a way, but that’s not enough to make me want to be on this bike. 3. Before developing the Superman position, the Scotsman Graeme Obree built the bike he called ‘Old Faithful’ himself, using bearings stripped from a washing machine. He used this to take Francesco Moser’s indoor hour record in 1993, before Chris Boardman upped the mark just a week later. Everything about it looks uncomfortable for almost every part of the body, but especially the triceps. No thank you. 2. Absolutely the hell not, Antonella Bellutti. Planking on a bike? While riding around a velodrome really really fast? On a bike that needs a little rod out the front so that the handlebar doesn’t collapse? This is truly the position that most feels like it should be the winner, and yet …1. You can’t talk about this era without talking about Francesco Moser, who in 1988 set an ‘indoor hour record’ of 50.644 km on… this thing, with a 101 cm rear wheel and a forbidding stance. Want one of your own? Great news: one of the only two in existence is for sale now! Absolutely diabolical stuff; the hardest of passes. Congratulations, Francesco – you are the winner of the inaugural Escape Collective ‘old-school track position I would least want to be in’ title.
