Effect of Body Posture on Comfort During Cycling

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of body posture on comfort during road cycling by implementing procedures that require only basic instrumentation. Static comfort and dynamic comfort were studied through experimental and computational approaches, respectively. For the experimental approach, subjective rating scales and an objective index proposed by the authors were used to assess static comfort. For the computational approach, a lumped-mass model with four degrees of freedom was implemented to compute the vertical acceleration of the bicycle and cyclist. The vertical acceleration was used to evaluate dynamic comfort according to ISO 2631. Body posture was determined from the handlebar-hands contact point and quantified in terms of the location of its center of mass and the location of the hands-handlebar contact point. Five postures were considered in the study. For static comfort, correlation indexes of 0.941 and −0.913 were found between the cyclist’s center of mass location and the hands and buttocks static comfort, respectively. For dynamic comfort, a correlation index of −0.992 was found between dynamic comfort and the hands-handlebar contact point location. The results suggest correlations between the body posture and static and dynamic comfort.