Indiana Bicycle Fitting

Bicycles are not just for recreation and exercise.  Bicycles and cyclists can change the world.




Bob Walters is currently in Africa.  His work will help improve the local infrastructure and distribute donated bicycles.  The bicycles are very important to the pressing transportation needs of the locals.  While Bob is there, his own transportation is a Cannondale Touring 1 he purchased from BGI.  "Fortunately" for Bob, Cannondale did not have the spec wheels in stock.  BGI accepted the bike sans wheels.  After discussing with Bob where he would be riding, I designed and hand-built a set of wheels for his new Cannondale.  That's why he specifically mentions them in his blog.  I encourage you to visit his blog and read about Friendly Planet. 




Helen Steussy and her daughter Alex are cycling cross country to raise money for the Red Tail Conservancy and "local land trusts everywhere."  Alex is relatively new to cycling, so Helen decided to get her off on the right foot with a Bicycle Fitting from BGI. 

I encourage you to visit the blogs by both Bob and Helen and consider donating if you support their causes.  Personally, I think it's great that bicycles are being used to change the world.

Your most important bicycle contact points are your feet.  They experience the greatest amount of pressure and, with your knees and hips, experience the repetitive motion of cycling.  Adjusting your pedal cleats is the foundation of every bicycle fitting adjustment you make above your pedals.  




The simplest cleat adjustment is the fore/aft position.  Even that requires an off the bike observer who can note your foot angle while pedaling against resistance.  Simply stated, the more toe down you pedal the more forward on the shoe the cleat needs to be.  The more flatfooted you pedal the more aft the cleat needs to be.  Within this range though, we're only talking a few milimeters.  The idea is to make sure the pedal axle is essentially centered under the ball of your foot when the crankarm is pointing straight forward (e.g. 3 O’Clock for the right crankarm).  The Bicycle Fitter can then fine-tune the fore/aft position depending on whether you are a spinner / gear masher, have small feet / big feet, etc..


The stability of your feet on the pedals also relates to your knees.  A significant amount of forefoot side tilt relative to your lower leg can result in your foot rocking inside your cycling shoe.  This rocking effectively pulls the knee first toward and then away from the bike’s centerline on every pedal stroke.  Since your knee is designed to flex backwards and not side-to-side this can sometimes produce sharp pain on the inside and/or outside face of your knee.  Shoe Wedges, either under the cleat or inside the shoe are designed to fill the gap created by the forefoot tilt.  They produce a stable platform for your foot and eliminate the rocking thus knee stress.

 

Another symptom of this forefoot tilt for most cyclists is excess pressure on the outside margin of the foot (less often on the inside margin).  The smaller toes frequently become numb on a foot experiencing this pressure or the foot experiences "hotspots."  Cleat wedges fill in the gap created by this forefoot tilting and allow the pressure to be spread across the entire ball of the foot thus numbness and/or hotspots are usually eliminated with the correct number and orientation of wedges.

 

Although overlooked by many cyclists, a proper cleat fitting which addresses fore/aft, rotational, “Q” Factor, forefoot tilt and leg length discrepancy issues will produce a less painful and less injurious cycling experience.  Odds are, you’ll be faster on your bike too.

While the bicycle industry and many experienced cyclists have finally awakened to the importance of bicycle fittings performed by trained shop employees, the majority of bicycle riders are still operating under the belief that they can handle the task all by themselves.  While it’s true that given a few years of trial and (mostly) error and a few hundreds if not thousands of dollars (for wrong-size parts), most serious cyclists can in fact get their bicycles pretty well dialed into a comfortable and efficient set-up.  Unfortunately, most of those years will be filled with uncomfortable cycling.  And that’s the best case scenario.  More likely is that the years of repetitive motion in an improper position will cause overuse injuries that require long healing periods.  

Here are the numbers to consider:

A beginning recreational cyclist pedaling at 70RPM over the course of an average season –
2 hours / week = 8,400 pedals strokes / leg / week
26 weeks / season = 218,400 pedals strokes / leg / season

The serious club rider pedaling at 90RPM over the course of an average season –
5 hours / week = 27,000 pedals strokes / leg / week
26 weeks / season = 702,000 pedal strokes / leg / season

So if you’re the serious rider using the personal trial and error method to get comfortable on your bike, over 5 seasons that’s repeating a improperly aligned pedal stroke over 3 ½ millions times before you finally get it right (hopefully without injury).  Food for thought.

Trying to adjust your own bicycle fit can sometimes be like trying to paint your car while running alongside on the highway.  Not such a good idea.

 

There are aspects of your pedaling that simply must be observed from off the bike if correct adjustments are to be made.  Arguably, the most important of these relate to your knees.  Optimal leg extension (i.e. saddle height) is virtually impossible to accurately measure from the saddle.  "Too high" or "too low" is determined by your leg length as well as flexibility and pedaling style (flat footed, toe down, etc.).  The optimal saddle height required by any specific cyclist's pedaling style can only be accurately determined by someone observing that cyclist pedaling against resistance.

Determining your optimal knee alignment relative to the pedal both fore/aft and laterally must also be measured by an outside observor while you're pedaling against resistance.  Locating the knee directly above the pedal (through the use of pedal spacers, cleat adjustments, etc.) is the basic goal.  This can be performed with a plumb, with a projected laser, with video freeze-frame, with motion-capture or just eyeballed.  The more experienced the bicycle fitter the more reliable the result regardless of the method used.  The more reliable your bicycle fitting results, the more unlikely you are to experience over-use injuries.

Similar concerns apply to the fitting adjustments of your pedal cleats and saddle.  More on those later.

BTW - Love the headlights.

The Tour de France is coming soon (July 4th in fact).  I invite you to watch closely.  Watch the riders' positions on their bikes, especially when the moto-cam is moving parallel with the racers.  Look at the angles of their backs, arms, leg extension, etc..  You'll be surprised at the variety of riding positions.  Most are pretty biomechanically sound, but a surprising number are just plain weird looking on their bikes.   By "wierd" I mean less efficient, less stable and less comfortable than they could be. 











Sean Kelly won many races despite a notoriously bad bicycle fit.  Imagine how many more he would have won if his bikes had been properly adjusted for him.














Many European bicycle racers still use traditional (AKA "mimic the old pros") methods for setting up their bikes.  Sometimes the racer is just following orders from team management.  Many times they're simply doing what they've been doing since they started cycling seriously, in other words, not stopping to analyze their bike set-up.  Modern research has proven many of those "traditional" methods are just plain wrong.  They frequently produce lower performance and sometimes even produce injury.

I recall watching Frank Schleck win atop Alpe d'Huez.  His knees were traveling side to side at least half a foot with every pedal stroke.  The fact he won while wasting such an incredible amount of muscle energy made it all the more astounding he won.  He's had a proper bicycle fitting since then and specifically addressed his knee "problem."  Watch out for him in the mountains even more, now.

My point is that, if we find experienced Pros riding poorly fitted bikes, it's pretty silly when recreational riders convince themselves they can find their optimal bicycle set-up through trial and error based on no training in the science of bicycle fitting.

I just read a fascinating article by Frank Krygowski in the latest issue of Midwest Bike Magazine  about bicycle saftey.  He cited many authoritative sources in making his case.  Basically, he convincingly argues the notion that "cycling is dangerous" is a myth and that cyclists themselves must stop believing the myth as the first step in stopping others believing the myth.  I invite you to read the entire article for yourself, but here are a few of his numbers to prod your interest a bit:

Emergency Room visits (U.S. annual number / related to):
Basketball / 690,000
Cycling /  590,000
Beds / 466,000  (that's right - getting out of bed is only slightly less dangerous than cycling)

Deaths (U.S. annual number / related to):
Heart Disease / 700,000  (which would decrease if more people cycled regularly)
Automobiles / 33,000
Pedestrians /5,000
Drowning / 4,000
Cycling / 750

Head Injury Deaths (U.S. annual number / related to):
U.S annual total / 70,000
Pedestrians / 3,500+  (crossing the street is much more dangerous than cycling)
Cycling / fewer than 500

He argues that the widespread belief in the "cycling is dangerous" myth provides support for those who want to impose restrictions on cycling and cyclists.  Those who desire to keep cyclists out of the mainstream transportation infrastructure use fear mongering supported by belief in this myth.  Learn the facts, not the myth.





"Put your mettle to the pedals."

The prices charged for bicycle fittings will vary because of the experience level of the fitter, the depth of the fitting process, the amount of local competition and the local economy (wealthy neighborhood or not).  Find the most experienced fitter you can get to and set an appointment for your fitting.

Bicycle Fitters are just like every other profession - they fit into a nice Bell Curve.







You have a few really good fitters, lots of average fitters and a few lousy fitters. Find a Certified Fitter, preferably certified beyond the "basic level," and talk about your cycling comfort/performance concerns and listen closely to their answers. You'll be able to tell if they know what they're talking about and enjoy performing bicycle fittings. If you're comfortable dealing with them, set an appointment for your fitting.

You're not buying hamburger, so focusing on finding the lowest price can actually injure you if the fitting you get is done improperly or by a non-certified, inexperienced shop rat. Keep in mind that if you pedal at 85rpm, a typical 3 hour, 50 mile ride involves over 15,000 pedal strokes with each leg. And that's just one bicycle ride. Over-use injuries are the bane of cyclists because of the repetitive motion. Your bicycle being out of adjustment just a bit can easily cause injury, especially in your knees and hips - and that's not even mentioning the simply being comfortable part of riding.

If you're the average recreational road rider (1500 miles), you spend 100+ hours each year on your bicycle. Spending $100-200 USD on making your bicycle comfortable and injury free for several years of riding seems money well spent.
                                                                                                          A poor bicycle fitting.

Far too many adults avoid riding a bicycle because they had a painful cycling experience in their lives.   They have convinced themselves that cycling normally involves pain and that it's not for them.  Their solution to cycling pain is to not ride at all or this............




The reality is that cycling should not be painful and the only sensations you should experience when you're done with your training ride or cycling event are fatigue and exhilaration.  Short-term muscle soreness should be the result of the effort only, not a poorly adjusted bicycle.  Getting the right cycling gear is only part of the equation - fitting your bike to you is the rest.

Starting with Serotta's Bicycle Fitting School in the late 1990s, the bicycle industry finally got around to recognizing the importance of good bicycle fit based on science.  "Adjusting the bicycle to the rider" became the mantra for increasing customer comfort.  Arguably the most advanced effort in promoting sound science in combination with bicycle fitting grew out of Serotta's efforts and later became SICI.  Having a Certified Fitter on staff is becoming more important to bike stores everyday as more customers become aware of the benefits of a well fitted bicycle.  Increased comfort and speed are the typical results of a good professional bike fitting.

If you spend hundreds of hours every year riding your bike around Indianapolis or elsewhere, it only makes sense to invest 2-3 hours to have your bicycle properly adjusted to your body and your pedaling style. 

Here's a view of the Fitting Studio at BGI.




"Put your mettle to the pedals."