If there has ever been a topic that has purely been beaten
to death and caused more arguments between bike shop employees (other than shop music), it is bike fit.
In the last generation this niche has even evolved into a complete boutique business
in itself. I can remember when I was on my first road bike in the 80’s, the
local cycling club (a handful of old hippies) helped me out to get it in a
somewhat comfortable position in order for me to endure the massive initiation rides
ahead. Even though I got dropped a lot, I was always able to tell which way
they turned by following the smell of pot and patchouli oil. My bike was a very large steel framed Schwinn hand
me down with a standover height that was way taller than my inseam. They hacked
off enough of the seat post in order to slam the seat clear to the frame and
replaced the old school integrated (quill) neck and stem with a stubby and I
was off! That was it. I rode that bike that same way for many non ergo miles
behind those stinky hippies. Why I didn’t quit then I have no idea.
Over the years and many bikes later I learned the hard away
about fit. Knee pains, back pains, wrist pains and something every male cyclist
has experienced, the dreaded numb genitals. But today it has been taken to a
new level with technology and “industry standards” but this isn’t the best for
everyone. There are a myriad of clinics and courses that shop owners and
employees will spend weeks in classroom settings in order to better understand
fit and the various methods and high dollar 3D system equipment used to imply
industry standard angles and postures on you and your bike. Is this a bad
thing? No, I have taken these courses myself and consider myself fairly well
educated on the principal. There are a lot of items on the bike that may need
to be addressed or replaced in order to get the correct fit. Everything from
saddles, seat posts, stems, bars even different crank arm lengths…..But! Here is the caveat
Bike fit is purely specific to an individual because there
are no two people the same and the intended purpose for fit is different to
every rider and application. The industry geometry will get you in the ball
park but it is up to the rider to make the right changes for his or her
outcome. Of course the keen eye of an experienced fitter/cyclist and customer
feedback is paramount, however some people will have to rely on a shop fit
since they don’t have the miles under their belt to know what they need or
want. Others who have gone through many miles and have a history of riding will
have a much better grasp on the comfort VS. Performance fit battle and will be
able to relay specifics during the fit process.
Since getting new bikes for this year’s race I have been
able to Geek out and go through this process with a fine tooth comb since I am
training at least twice a day and doing some distance at the same time. I can
tell when I have some discomfort or tension in certain areas. I can feel when
my geometry isn’t right and I can briefly maneuver on the bike to see what
specific item needs to be addressed. It isn’t rocket science to know if you’re
getting pain that something needs to change. Every ride I go out on I take a
couple hex wrenches with me to be able to make small tweaks here and there in
order to mitigate geometry problems. I use small pieces of athletic tape to
mark the changes and then a sharpie once I am happy. The biggest part of making
these small adjustments is doing one specific adjustment at a time, keeping the
adjustments small in nature and riding a fair deal in-between. It does me no
good to ride a short distance in between adjustments since I would not be able
to tell if the adjustment is working or not. In the case of getting fit in a
shop you would do this on a trainer and only for a couple of hours at most.
They will use levels to find angles, use protractors to get skeletal points and
will change out stems, seats, and spacers in order to get you into “guideline
angles”. Shops that have true 3D fit technology will use video cameras and
protractor software to be able to tune and pinpoint your skeletal angles to a
more precise fit. Even so, the rider will still change something on their own
within a couple days of riding.
The biggest fit battle these days are with the Time
trail/triathlon bikes. Aerodynamics verses comfort in long rides and peak
performance output according to geometry of the body. It can get so silly with
technology that it boggles the new rider to the point of drooling and eye
twitching and astonishes the high dollar bike buyers who just like the amount
of detail and whimsical gadgetry they get when buying a “boutique fit” on their
8 thousand dollar bike that will hardly see anything but fair weather club
rides on the occasional weekend. Then it goes to the extreme of Pro tour
athletes who sit on a jig and are positioned to their most natural forms and
have custom frames engineered and tailored just for the specific performance
output in a wind tunnel while being filmed at 300 frames per second with cool
smoke streams gliding over their back. And I guarantee they will still make a
lot of changes and adjustments here and there on the road.
My bottom line to my personal fit is this. If you’re not
comfortable you won’t have a performance kind of day. The industry fit angles
are just ball park fits.
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