In watching old Eddy Merckx races it's easy to notice all the riders bouncing their upper bodies especially during the climbs. Nowadays you don't see riders moving their torsos at all. Why?

Is it because today's riders are raised up and leaned over more? If so why weren't they optimized to this position in the past?

But Phil Ligget has mentioned several times over the years that Belgian riders from the 70's and Belgian riders in general have low seat postions. I have tried to look for this and definitely see it the 70's and 80's riders but not so much now. I think they have more upright positons on the tops and instead have a large drop to drops so they can get aero if they have to.

With reagrds to the bouncing you still see riders bouncing it just depends on where they are in the stage and how fatigued they are Greg L used to bob over the pedlas in his big gear climbing style as did Vockler last year when he was struggling to hold the Jersey in the Mtns.

IMHO,

-Nik

Lance Armstrong is the rider who has probably introduced the idea of climbing in lower gears. Used to be that riders would stand and "dance" on the pedals to climb. This favored the really light, skinny riders who didn't have a lot of upper torso to support with the arms while climbing.

Sitting and climbing in a higher gear requires some "bobbing" back and forth over the pedals. The favored technique these days seems to be a lower gear and spinning the pedals in a climb. One advantage in this approach is that it allows for acceleration to launch and respond to attacks.

Ages ago, and I realize that this is the perspective of a US amateur back when cycling in the US was unheard of (1964), the standard gear set-up on a road bike for nearly all events was a 47-51 chain ring and a rear "cluster" (That's what we called them.) running 14-16-18-20-22. So, without looking at charts or a calculator, low gear was in the realm of 50 inches -- more or less. We felt like it was "sissy" to use a lower gear ratio. Besides which, the larger cluster, say a 26 tooth cog, added weight to a bike that was running 21 pounds on a really good day.