welcome to today's episode of bike fit tuesdays bit of an unusual episode today because james has
wanted to cover a topic which could be seen as a bit controversial but also very useful to people
one of our most asked questions is how do you find a good bike fitter near you and the truth is that
not all bike fits are created equal over to you so what's brought this video on is that we asked
a lot about how you're gonna choose a bike fitter uh we see quite a lot of people coming through
here who have had bike fits and sometimes the the results are quite alarming don't get me wrong this
isn't about self-elevation this is really about giving you the tools to help choose the right
bike fitter for you it's worth noting that in the uk there are more bike fitters than there
are in the whole of europe combined bike fitting in the uk it's become a well-renowned mechanism
for selling people stuff and we have big american bike brands to thank for this for the most part
uh we won't mention any names because it'd be unfair and specialized basically it it's this
sort of cookie cutter processed pre-determined bike fit it's kind of like measure the feet
sell a shoe measure the arches sell a footbed measure the sit bones sell a saddle whereas bike
fitting isn't really like about that it's about understanding a rider's needs and limitations
rather than just aimlessly endlessly selling them stuff to try and solve their problems for
example things like saddle issues being solved by changing the saddle saddle issues aren't caused
by saddles typically speaking here's your kind of crash course on how to choose the right bike
fitter or at least what alarm bells should start going off when you're looking at bike fitters
so generally speaking it's good to strike up a conversation with your bike kit and before you
potentially book a session with them to get a bit of an understanding of their overall
experience because ultimately that's what this is all about it's all about and it's
all about the the fittest experience and i think the first thing uh or first blunder that we see
in bite fitting is a reliance upon technology we use a lot of tech in here but it's used as a means
of quantifying changes rather than dictating them there are a number of systems out there but that
doesn't necessarily mean that they're being used correctly anybody can buy a piece of equipment
and start using it the technology doesn't dictate the quality of the fit it's a bit like
judging a mechanic on the spanners that they use you fundamentally need to have
some knowledge and understanding to back it up so you know this very expensive jig
you know it's a wonderful presence but it doesn't get the results i do or lee does or andy does so
it's important to have a fitter that has a knowledge and an understanding and some experience
to back up all of the things that they're doing we certainly see a lot of the time with a certain
very popular motion capture system of the fitter saying well this is the optimal leg extension so
it must be correct that doesn't really work like that humans aren't human beings aren't comprised
of your angles and numbers have a conversation with your fitter get an understanding of
how long they've been doing it how many fits have they done what qualifications do they have
what experiences do they have and ultimately you want to try and understand are they using the
technology to get the result or are they using the technology as the tool that it's intended to be
so some alarm bells that might go off if uh if you talk to a bike fitter and they're starting to use
certain methods so the first one that really should be a bit of a red flag is a knee of a
pedal spindle okay this is essentially where they drop a plumb line off of some point in the knee
either the patella or the tibial tuberosity and at a certain point in the pedal stroke it should
intersect with the pedal axle there's basically no science science behind this whatsoever it was a
rule of thumb rudimentary method for setting saddle setback back in the 1970s that's
where it originated from and frankly that's where it belongs anybody using this method
isn't really taking into consideration hip function weight distribution reach to the handle
bars because this is fundamentally how what what uh saddle setback uh influences something else to
consider is goniometry goniometry is the measuring of body angles of joint angles and we can either
do it statically which is a bit of a no-no because it's not it's not carried out dynamically or in
dynamically using video analysis we do that here a little bit to a certain extent but again we don't
we're not dictated by the angles so again if you've got someone who is using something like
this this is a goniometer to measure joint angles and saying well this is the right angle for you
red flag okay what we're looking for in cycling and what we're looking for in saddle height
is smoothness fluidity and quality of motion not the quantity because if you consider that certain
people different people are able to extend their legs in different ways you know people who have
greater levels of flexibility are able to extend their legs more than people who don't so just
adhering to one angle doesn't really work one of the biggest blunders that we see in bite fitting
is single-sided analysis so it's quite common to see like a jig like this or a turbo trainer and
you know you walk in it's got all this it has this presence but it's pushed up against the wall the
jig or the turbo train is pushed up against the wall and the bike fitter films the right side now
as we've talked in talked about in many videos in the past most riders are right most people
human beings are right side dominant so when the saddle is set too high they list off to the
right hand side this is why most knee pain sores and you know other issues occur in the left leg
so if you're analyzing just the right just the right leg you're getting like a sugar-coated
perspective of how the ride is actually functioning so ultimately we should be looking at
dual-sided analysis at least we actually film all four all four sides uh in here so
so you need to get a bigger picture of how a rider is actually physically interacting with
the bicycle another outdated method is aligning the center of the cleat or the pedal axle with the
ball of the foot so quite often what what we'll do is we'll mark the ball of the foot on the shoe and
you align the center of the cleat which is also the center of the pedal axle with that ball of the
foot if you do that you will get foot problems knee problems and probably saddle issues too
uh much more modern way of doing it it's technically a little bit further back than that
so again this is this is something that should be a bit of an alarm build flag
something else to be wary of is is an obsessive nature so
we've been led to believe in bike fitting that it's about scrutinizing over millimeters now
you're taller in the morning when you wake up than when you go to bed at night so obsessing
over millimeters in something like cellulite for example frankly is a bit of a waste of time two or
three millimeters isn't going to make a difference to your functionality particularly with regards to
saddle height we have the british cycling marginal gains uh marketing complex to thank for this so
three millimeters in saddle height particularly for example is the difference between sitting
here and sitting here in fact actually more often than not what you'll probably see
is is just a change or a shift in the amount of pressure so again the bike fitting is a game of
inches not millimeters the aim is to get a rider within a within a window and allow
them to adapt to it rather than obsessing over millimeters there are some areas of fit where
millimeters do make a difference for example cleat location but certainly when we're talking
about things like saddle height and reach millimeters don't really make a difference
in contrast to that there's a complete lack of attention to the detail side of it as well
so for example we have people coming in here who have had fits why are there two different pedals
on here attention we have people coming through here where they pay for a professional fit and
the fitter hasn't even looked at their shoes so a bike fit really should cover
every part of your interaction with the bicycle every fit here starts with an interview there's
a standing evaluation there's a foot assessment there's a physical assessment understanding hip
just general lower body lower limb mobility we then assess cleat location arch support shoe fit
saddle height saddle setback saddle pitch saddle choice crank length stance width reach handle our
drop handlebar width you should be considering every aspect of your interaction with the bike
you know if you touch the bike it should be considered to kind of summarize
it i get emails i get a lot of emails from people saying can i recommend a bike fitter and
ultimately i never make recommendations for other fitters anymore i used to once upon a time and and
i did it i did it for a couple of individuals and they came back to me with really bad results and
it reflected really badly on me so and this isn't about me saying you need to fly here
you'd be the most welcome but it is difficult to for me to recommend because i don't i don't know
these people personally all the time um there are certainly names out there that i can recommend but
they're they're in certain locations they're in specific locations things to be aware of though is
i mean i would typically be wary of bite fitters that reside in bike shops because there's usually
a commercial element to it in the sense that they're pushed to make money they push to sell
product none of my guys are and it's usually good to work with specialists so look for individuals
or look for businesses that specialize in bike fitting that that is all they do or at least
that's the main thing that they do that's the core of their business because individuals that
focus on bike fitting are going to do a better job because it's what they do it's also worth looking
at the education level of your fitter uh yeah how many courses have they been on so for example if
we look if you consider experience if you've got someone who's done 10 000 bike fits and they've
only done it using one methodology it's probably not as good quality as someone who's done 5 000
bike fits with 10 different accreditations because they've got a much broader knowledge and a broader
understanding of many different ways of treating the same thing to give you a story 10 years ago or
more i i went on every bike fitting course that there was and eventually realized came to realize
some years later that they're all kind of the same thing the systematization of bike fitting of
measuring sample height then set back then you know it's all very heavily system systematized
and processed the outcome was usually pretty much pre-ordained ask confessor ask them about what
education they've got how many accreditations have they had look on youtube look at google reviews
these are good these are usually good measures of whether you're going to get a good result
from a business i think ultimately most bike fitters who you're thinking about booking with
should be more than happy to have a conversation with you about any concerns that you might have
bike fitting requires quite a broad knowledge base you need a number you know relatively
basic understanding of the body but almost more importantly you need a really good understanding
of product and its effectiveness and how well it interacts with a human this is where quite
a lot of physio bite fitting falls flat on its face because you'll end up trying to treat your
customer with a shoe that's two sizes too big and doesn't fit and get and who's getting knee pain
no amount of stretching or physiotherapy is going to stop that from occurring if you've got a shoe
that causes the problems so you need to have an understanding of of the product as well as
as well as the body why is it go look up bite fit on oh how was that at the top
does she pay for that viewers we're trying to figure out how we can recommend that you get
you find a bike fitter near you and i think in conclusion just fly to me i'll sort it out for
you if you come to us and you have a fit and you still have problems you can come back for free
which sucks actually if you have to fly here from the other side of the world but sorry you