SCOTT HOLZ: Chris Macca, a world champion in triathlon,
probably one of the most driven athletes and most
professional athletes that I've ever had the pleasure of
working with, and a guy who pays attention to
every little detail.
He's got a demeanor about him that's kind of laid back, so
he's easy to work with.
CHRIS MCCORMACK: I have no expertise in fitting, I just
ride bikes for a living.
And predominantly, my position's come about through
comfort first.
And it was good, having that reinforced with Scott.
Fortunately enough for me, my symmetry's pretty good.
I don't have any major discrepancy in bone length or
anything like that.
So that gave us a good neutral position to work from.
My seat height was pretty good.
My distance behind the bottom bracket, where I gravitated
towards out of the last five or six years, was
pretty much smack on.
And the fact that I was where I was at the front and my arm
position was good for my build.
So it was good to have that reinforced with the data, to
have that reinforced by a guy who does this with some of the
best cyclists in the world.
It's nice.
SCOTT HOLZ: The reality is you don't get to be a world
champion without having a good position to some degree.
And I think that a real credit to Macca is that he's very
intuitive in his position.
And the position that he created himself was actually
really pretty good.
I mean, there wasn't a whole lot of things
that he'd done wrong.
Yet at the same point in time, there were some places that we
could make improvements that he wasn't aware of.
CHRIS MCCORMACK: I was on the Toupe saddle, which was a
lovely saddle.
And I just found it dropped off too small for me.
So now I've migrated to the Romin, and it
is night and day.
SCOTT HOLZ: In the past Macca has ridden 130 saddles for the
same reason a lot of pros ride them.
They're smaller, so therefore they're lighter, so therefore
they must be better.
The reality is even though Macca's not a real big guy,
his sit bones are fairly far apart in his pelvis.
So we needed to get him a saddle that supported him on
his sit bones.
And he went with a Romin 155.
A couple reasons.
One, the shape of the Romin allows him to get as much
pelvic rotation as possible, so he can recruit his glutes
to their full advantage, as well as then the width
supporting his ischial tuberosity.
So he's actually sitting on bone.
And with the Romin, it's designed for an arrow
position, or an aggressive position, so that the rider
can be in the arrow bars or on a road bike down on the drops
for extended periods of time without causing pressure to
the perineum.
And so it's going to be a comfortable saddle to sit in
that arrow position for 112 miles.
CHRIS MCCORMACK: Often I read some of the chat room sites
about when, especially after Kona or world championship
events where people critique your position.
You pretend you don't take any of that into
account, but you do.
You look at the photos, and people draw their things.
And you might make small adjustments.
SCOTT HOLZ: If you read over and over and over again online
from total strangers who've never even been in the same
room as you that it could be better or that you're doing
something wrong, he actually made changes based on things
that he'd read on the internet.
Now, I have people stand in front of me and say, well,
can't you just look at me and tell me what I need to do?
And the reality is until I've done a full physical
assessment and understand the rider's strengths, weaknesses,
and capabilities in terms of how those are going to relate
on the bike, there's no way that I can simply just look at
somebody and say, oh, you need to look like this.
Without that information, you're purely guessing.
They can lead to serious injury, if it's something
that's not correct for that body.
CHRIS MCCORMACK: Everyone has an opinion.
But the great thing about that now is that I have an answer
to those opinions, and the reason why I've moved to this
position, and the reason why I'm using this saddle.
And I'm confident now.
I know why I'm in this position.
I know why I'm comfortable here.
I know why it's optimal for me.
I know why I'm using the equipment I'm using.
So I date someone to attack me, because I've got all the
answers now.