King BikeFit

All bike fitters add their own personal touches to a fit, whether they mean to or not. Even within Cyclefit we have small differences. But as with most things in life, there are a few routes to the ultimate goal (in this case, comfort and efficiency).

This is relevant because I occasionally read the bikefitpro blog written by bikefit founder, Paul Swift. He often posts details of his fits showing how many cleat wedges, ITS Wedges, and speedplay extra length spindles he uses. What jumped out at me was how many longer spindles were used on his fits. I very rarely see the need for a longer spindle, but Paul Swift used them quite regularly.

One way of keeping myself amused through the dull moments of a bike race (mostly on TV, sometimes in real life), is to think about each racers set up. In particular, I enjoy looking for the bikefit themes within the team. This will be influenced by many factors including the bike they are riding (geometry) , their history, their body shape, and their team ‘bikefitter’. I use inverted commas as I am sure that some teams do not use a bike fitter as we know, but an aerodynamics expert, bike builder, directeur sportif, etc instead.

Recently on the Cyclefit’s trip to the Etape Expo, I got to have a look at one Andy Schleck’s bikes on the Specialized stand. This was interesting for me as we are pretty much the same height, weight, and have similar body proportions (long body/ short legs).

Its the first day after my knee op, and I am already bored, so I decided to download a 30 day trial of dartfish (www.dartfish.com). This is the software we use at cyclefit analyse a rider’s biomechanics. I used it to analyse the leg extension of some of the riders at the 2008 Gent Six Day’s penultimate madison. It was interesting as racing a track bike on a 166 metre velodrome has so many differences to standard road riding that we usually see.

It wasn’t until the end of last season that I picked up a serious injury. I now know that it was was an inflamed plica due to poor knee tracking. It wasn’t painful, just a popping sensation in the knee and a sensation of weakness. My shoe, cleat, and saddle set up was perfect, courtesy of Jules and Phil, so I assumed I just needed to do knee stabilising exercises. But when I came into the first race of the season in March, I soon realized that my knee situation was not improved since September. Despite all my exercises I didn’t feel amazing on the bike either. So what was wrong?

It was interesting watching the Vuelta time trial the other day. Joaqim Rodroquez’s horrific time trialling essentially cost him his chance of winning the overall, and likely the podium.

Since I started work at Cyclefit, Jules has been moaning about how he can’t climb or time trial because his legs are too short (please read my previous, related post about Joaquim Rodriguez. This is, of course, VITALLY important for the annual GPM10 trips to Majorca, so we set about trying to improve this problem. [...]