I went for a professional bike fitting today, intrigued by the thought of “free speed”. What an eye opener the process was. Don’t know about you, but I am a bit of a techie and I like to get things right, so when I heard Ray Woodford speak at one of our local CNY Tri Club events, I knew I had to go see him. Ray talked a lot about tapping into reserve power just by having a better fit. He also discussed how improper fit can make you feel less comfortable on the bike and even lead to injury.

I can’t say my bike was so poorly fit that I was getting injured from riding, but I will admit I never felt great on it (even though I always liked it). For some reason, the bike felt too long. Mind you, my time trial (TT) times have been pretty good, but I always feel I can do better and that I could be better coming off the bike into the run. So, I went to see Ray, who has been doing bike fitting for a long time and taken a fair number of courses on the process.

The process started by him taking some basic measurements, such as my height, the bike’s tube lengths, angle of my knee when the pedal is at the bottom. He also used a plumb-bob to measure where my knee was over the pedal when the pedals are parallel. Then he started making adjustments, all while getting feedback from me as to comfort, position, etc. Things like:

• leveling the seat and positioning it correctly, not too far forward or back, and taking the pressure off my prostate (finally)
• moving my TT bars back, so that my ears are over my elbows. If you look at the really good cyclists (a.k.a. Lance) when they are TTing you will notice that their ears are almost always over there elbows. By moving mine back, I don’t feel as stretched out, which leads to more comfort, less pressure on my neck and shoulders
• Lowered my seat so the angle of my knee was about 26 degrees when the pedal is at the bottom of the stroke
• my TT bars were tipped up a bit much, which creates more drag
• Showed me how to sit better to get better rotation and more power out of my core

Time will tell how this all works out, but went for a short ride later in the afternoon, and I felt faster and more comfortable, but it is too soon to tell. Ray also told me it is important to give your body time to adjust to the new position, so I will put in some shorter rides and do some trainer work to get more in tune with the new position.

I’ll keep you posted on the results. In the meantime, would like to hear other’s bike fitting stories. I know one thing is for sure, I won’t buy a new bike without getting it properly fitted. And let me tell you, most of the sales guys at the bike stores don’t know how to fit a bike for a serious rider. They have their little tricks they do (stand over the bar, get on the bike and try to see the front hub, and ask you how it feels), but people who are going to be riding a lot of miles or need to go fast should consider ponying up the money to get the bike properly fit. Seriously, if you are willing to spend $5K on a bike, why not get one that fits right? Maybe then I won’t be passing your $5000 bike with my $800 bike as often.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2005 at 5:37 pm and is filed under Biking, Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.