Pros that are exceptionally functional they're freaks of nature that don't they're not like you
and me they can write 350 400 watts all day long that goes a long way towards uh enabling them to
sustain their torso angle so the more power you put through the pedals the less white you have
over the front of the bike I think it's really really important to not look at the pro ranks for
inspiration of how to set your bike up no matter how much you might think you are able to push 400
watts all day long you can't because you're not a pro so we've got an image here of the Fantastic
Pierce again who's you know he's one of the most charismatic Riders around isn't he he's fantastic
uh I think the the first thing that sort of struck me and you're gonna see that there's a bit of a
trend to this video two things firstly the saddle height and secondly how he's actually interacting
with the saddle now before we get into that stuff it's worth looking into or looking at his overall
position at the position of his body his arms are soft got a nice straight nice shape to his back
he doesn't look like he's grossly over extending his legs it all kind of looks pretty good right
however you've got to look at how he's actually interacting with this equipment
and one of the biggest problems that I see in professional cycling is this sort of
amount of Saddle sticking out the back of the ride which typically tends to mean that the Riders just
sat it's slap bang on the nose of the saddle now sitting on the nose of the saddle is a very common
compensation for excessive saddle height because the nose of the sample is close to the cranks and
the pedals than the tail of the saddle is it's also a very common compensation for excessive
reach so really when we're in bike fits in here we're looking to base the the saddle height and
the reach on a riserable sit at the back of the South which is basically utilizing the the widest
most supported part in the salad in this instance and you'll you'll see in a lot of other instances
as well as we as we kind of critique a few more Riders Riders tend to be basing their saddle
height on them sitting on the nose of the saddle Q you know genital issues pelvic Stables the pelvic
stability issues which can result in knee issues and foot issues just a a better rough idea I would
normally expect a rider to a ride but certainly in in this realm in in our bike uh Studio to
extend the legs between 138 and 142 degrees with a flat foot through the bottom of the stroke and
we've got we've loaded this image onto our video analysis software and Peter here's got about 142
degrees look there's no there's no dot placement on this this is relatively accurate again this
is to be taken with a pinch of salt it's a little bit of fun Pete is obviously at the upper end of
that range but we've got you know I would say he's sat on and that looks like a specialized Roman so
he's probably sat on at least 30 40 more further forward of the widest part of the saddle which to
me suggests the reaches too long and silent's too high another disclaimer here is that with races
uh particularly uh sprinters like Peter he's gonna need a lot more space in the front in the front of
the bike in order to Sprint the thing you don't so again this is another reason why consumers
shouldn't be seeking inspiration from professional positions uh for their own positions because you
Racing for those stop signs uh it's not really the same as racing it is sprinting at the Sean
I think you need to take that into consideration as well because this is a position specifically
for racing it's gravitating onto the nose of the saddle in my opinion it would appear as
a result of the rich being too long and subtle have been too high this this just hurts my eyes
um I you know the the guy's amazing he's incredible by Rider he's won the Tour de France
I'm amazed he's ever dirt sitting on sound like this so something that's very interesting about
uh the success of the physique arioni which was designed by I think it was gilberta Simone on a
Soviet it's very little science involved in the in the design of the physiarion but part of the
key to the success of the Arion let's get one out shall we it's a very long saddle it's got a
reasonably wide nose it's got a very long nose as well which enables you to sit in a a vast array of
positions with a reasonable degree of comfort now I don't believe that that is an effective
means of riding a bicycle realistically that's a bit like you know an engine moving around inside
an engine bay so it's not going to be very efficient because if you sit further forward
on the south you're lesser your leg extension if you sit further back on the saddle you increase
your leg extension furthermore the further forward you sit on the saddle the closer the handlebuzzle
you are the further back on the saddle the further away from the handle as you are as I said earlier
when we're talking about penis again you kind of want to be basing the reaching the saddle
height on your ability to sit at the back of the side of the widest most supportive part of
the saddle when Saddles are being designed that is where you're intended to sit on it therefore
why is all of that sticking out the back I would say this is another prime example of
the region saddle height being excessive and we're starting to see you know you as we go as
we progress through this video you will see a bit of a trend here again going back to the sprinting
thing and the fact that these are Pros there is a there is a a a good argument for having
a longer reach but not at the expense of write a functionality in my opinion I would use this as
an example of how not to interact with the saddle and you know again it's not to take anything away
from G uh incredible Rider extremely talented individual but you know the guy is you know
he's a professional cyclist so I think he's able to because of the writer's functionality
they're able to absorb the dysfunction on a much greater scale than perhaps consumer cap
this is an example why just just using photos so just because the reason why we're using photos is
that we we Francis and I spent loads way too much time looking through YouTube trying to find decent
video of these people riding and they're just there just isn't any so this is kind of why we're
using photos but just to kind of slightly call out the limitations of using Stills in this video we
take you know the wonderful Mariana Voss uh this is an image of her from Perry rupay this year by
the look of it and in in this instance the saddle height looks really extreme however look at this
image it's running a different bike but you know the satellite looks totally different the saddle
looks a little bit on the high side so again kind of going back to my my nominal values of 138 142
degrees with flat foot through the bottom of the stroke again the people that doesn't mean to say
people don't leave here outside of that range because they absolutely do people probably leave
here with as much as 144 to 146 degrees but that's in Feb unique circumstances looking 145 degrees
with a reasonable degree of plantar flexion I normally expect for plant reflection angle to
be between 8 and 12 that looks more there you go it's got 25 degrees of plant selection so we
could argue that she's having a point the toe in order to scrape through the bottom of the stroke
having said all of that though I would say that's not a bad position at all it doesn't
look excessively long there's not a huge amount of cells sticking out the back I mean frankly it's
Testament to Mariana isn't it she's an incredible incredible Rider the thing is this isn't about
how an individual is extending their legs it's about how they're interacting with the equipment
because the leg extension in this instance in my opinion is probably fine it's really more to
do with how they're going about achieving it and is it you know are they having sit on the nose of
the saddle in order to achieve it therein lies the problem this is the issue there's another way of
measuring putting a measure on it but I would say that the saddle height on this on we're looking at
narrow container looks fine it's just that he sat too far there we go perfect poor quality but this
is motion I've got in more or less the bottom of the stroke It's relatively low res so I don't have
a huge amount of accuracy here but referencing my range of 138 142 this is way out of that
it's under extending his legs we could argue he's under extending his legs however if he sat further
back into the saddle he'd extend his legs more queries like what's going on here as far as I'm
concerned the reach is too long you know there's nothing wrong with the saddle height because we
sat further back you'd probably find that his legs being that that kind of nominal range like I said
this doesn't mean to say that everybody needs to fit into this race but there's definitely a
trend here for Riders running positions that are way too long for them especially for someone like
nearest Quintana who isn't he's not a sprinter he's a climber uh again we could argue that you
know does he need more more space in the front in the front for climbing I mean I don't think
he does uh I mean the other thing to consider is containers are relatively small Rider the
canyon even make a bike the right size for him similar to Katana this this looks to be a similar
situation a lot of plant flesh to the bottom of the stroke there so you pointing the toes a lot
um I would say that that sounds way too high uh I say well let's load it into dark fish and see how
it works we're out of that extension figure range there's like 30 degrees of plantar flexion maybe
a bit more uh 40 degrees of plantar flexion I mean I it's that's going to cause problems uh and again
you can sort of see that there's a huge amount of saddles sticking out the back right there
there's a bit of a trend here really for excessive reaches and or excessive saddle Heights and this
is sort of why I've got such a BMI Bonnet about it because you see consumers copying this and then Q
genital issues South swords all of this kind of stuff so I I think all of this should be used as
a reason why you shouldn't be looking towards a professional athlete's position for inspiration
for your own do we want to see whose leg this is we're about to start some internet beef I don't
want to start beef with anybody I just disagree I I disagree with everything that he's saying
um you know he's talked so this this is Adam and Adam Hansen and you know he's
a very respected and respectable individual written countless tours and whatnot but I look at
human beings on bicycles for a living we've still got that trend of sitting too far forward on the
saddle and and I think maybe maybe we should kind of go back a step because I think that
saddle selection comes into this quite heavily as well so for example something I've got to find
um is that excessive saddle width can result in the rider's gravitation to the nose of the saddle
funnily enough the best our best selling saddle in the studio and we the way we sell sellers here is
really through comparative testing we stabilize the feet first we get the position pretty good
and then and then we start changing experimenting with cells our best selling saddle at the moment
is the cell Italia SLR boost S3 funnily enough this is one of the narrowest saddles on the
market and what I'm coming to find is that the reason we're getting such good results with this
is because Riders don't see any interference with the wings of the South and that can be a primary
driver for a gravitation to the nose I disagree with this information I disagree with that being
an optimal saddle height this still here has been stripped off of Adam Hansen's YouTube channel uh
and sorry Adam if you're watching I don't mean any disrespect or any offense I really don't
um but and and the thing is with Adam is he's an incredibly capable very seasoned
professional athlete he's in a lot more control of what he's doing than a consumer will be when
I say in control what he's doing in control of his body and he's gonna he's much more Adept at
riding a bicycle than a consumer and many of you watching this video will be because in order to be
a professional athlete you have to do thousands of thousands of hours a year on the bike Adam's known
for his extreme positions if any consumer right tries to ride this sort of position they're going
to hurt themselves end of story there is no way a consumer is capable of tolerating this amount of
lay extension with this amount of plant reflection to the bottom of the stroke it just flat out that
that that sounds probably four centimeters too high and you know sort of textbook compensation
for an excessive reach is gravitating after the levers as is the case in this image um you know
we we very often see Riders where they have inner Birds to reach the brake levers which is kind of
where you control the bike your gears and your brakes and those levers those hoods are intended
to hold your weight it's not like you know back in the 80s where you had to ride down here the
whole time they're intended for you to hold you hold your intended to hold weight and it's where
you operate the gears and the brakes from so if you're sat back here something's clearly wrong
am I missing something here well we've only seen half a dozen but you know as as somebody
it was a track record for making people more comfortable on bicycles I'm Blown Away by I mean
the thing is we know from the from the from the athletes that we work with we know that the the
rider care within teams is far from professional it's all physiotherapy Led Led and you know in no
at no point in physiotherapy degree as a human interaction with the bicycle ever considered so
therefore no jurisdiction there I I just don't think that there's any real science there's no
there's no real science here involved in in how Riders put in our Riders is set up on their bike
I mean I've I've heard of instances where certain big name Riders who will remain anonymous have
literally just kind of plucked handlebar you know out the uh out the team truck they picked
up a handlebar and gone yeah I fit that to the mechanic you know that's that's it there's no
there's no real kind of girl consideration to it it's just like oh quite a lot of look at that I
got a message from him like in the middle of the Giroud Italia um in 2020 and um he said thanks for
the work I feel so much better on my bike also handling wise I was thinking about you today
in the race on some [ __ ] Twisted descent when you get out from a Girard Italian winner about
the bike that you did for him guess when you're dealing with athletes at this sort of level you've
got to be very careful about the changes that you're making because this is their livelihood
you can't you can't just make rash decisions when Teo came to see me it wasn't a position
to go and win a grand tour it was just to try and you know help him with a few little niggles
and issues he was having we made a few changes I think it resulted in in a different bike size
um a reduction in bike size and also a change to his pedal system which I think paid dividends
for him there were still issues with the the end result on the grounds the you know as an athlete
and as a sponsored Rider he had limitations in the equipment he was able to use arguably fitting
consumers is significant easier than fitting professionals because you know you don't have
you have a lot more free reign with what you're able to fit them with the main differences were
that we we increased this handlebar drop we reduce the reach the saddle height more or less stayed
the same we did improve the saddle interaction we changed the saddle as well there is still some
saddle sticking out the back which again is not is less than ideal but that's sort of what I was
alluding to earlier with uh probably in a perfect world it probably possibly isn't the the satellite
to put him on but you know he came in sat on the wonk this is quite common to see in in Riders who
run uh dysfunctional positions you know this this kind of um uh public asymmetry
that I call it uh right listing off to one side this is the the kind of primary driver for for
um for knee tracking a lot of people talk about knee tracking and putting wedging
into the feet and this kind of stuff to remove knee tracking but essentially if
a list of write a list to one side that it almost exclusively is the drive for
knee tracking for for an asymmetric knee tracking so what's the conclusion there
Pro Cycles have [ __ ] bike fit positions Pro cyclists can tolerate ship positions that's
true the takeaway from this video and what it should be is that you know Pro cyclists
are Pros they're able to tolerate massive strain they're incredibly strong they're
flexible they're functional they don't sit at desks all day like the rest of us uh if
you think about how Pros laid out all the weights below the waist they've got no arms
you know referencing Lawrence Carpenter and as a result they've got nothing to sustain
it so going back to what we're talking about earlier in terms of the more power you put out
AIDS and sustaining your torso angle if you've got less upper body mass then even less for you
to sustain this is the thing Pros aren't laid out in the same way as consumers are so therefore you
know we shouldn't be mimicking a professional's position furthermore shouldn't be buying a Pros
bike the summary is if you're a pro you should come to James for a bike fit and they'll make
you reach really short and you'll settle really low and you'll be like a little bear on a bike