- Now as a professional athlete for over a decade,
raced on multiple different bikes,
even had a bike coach
and had the opportunity no less to go into a wind tunnel,
but one thing I didn't ever do
was have a comprehensive bike fit.
Now that brings me here today
to the home of Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching,
because you see, Matt works with any number of the world's
fastest triathletes,
and he has a very systematic process
for making them as comfy, but crucially aerodynamic
and efficient as they can be on their bikes.
So Matt very kindly has offered
to take me through that process
to see if I can get faster,
because let's face it, who doesn't like some free speed?
(logo whirring)
(upbeat music)
Right, Matt, so I've got my bike with me,
and what is the point in me having a bike fit?
- It's the same for every athlete, you know.
Everybody goes out, they buy like their first bike,
but, you know like, the reasons for having a bike fit
is comfort, is the first thing.
You know, you're going to be less prone to injury,
it's just going to enable you to ride faster for longer,
and you know, it's like every athlete,
they don't want to stop training.
They always want consistency,
so if you have a bike fit,
then the chances are, you know,
you're always going to be able to carry on training.
- And because we're going to go through a bike fit process,
the upshot of that is that I will get more aerodynamic,
and I'll be more efficient,
and therefore I should go a bit faster?
- Yeah, absolutely,
and the thing is about all of this is,
it's like, okay, you get your bike fit done,
but then we need to go away,
and we need to spend countless hours
training in that position,
and if you're new to, you know, like triathlon or cycling,
then what we need to do is revisit that bike fit,
probably in six months, a year's time,
we need to revisit just to see how's your body changed,
because it will change over time.
You know, if you're an age group athlete,
you're probably going to make bigger gains
than what the pros are,
'cause they're pretty optimized anyway,
but the truth is, a lot of them
are still making a lot of bad mistakes, so.
You know, at the end of the day, it's an individual process
that you need to go through to,
'cause we all want to get faster,
don't we, at the end of the day?
- And like you said already to me is that actually,
an amateur age group athlete's out there for way long,
a lot longer than the pros are,
so actually the benefits are even more, aren't they?
- Massively, yeah.
We're going to see some big gains for an age group athlete,
you know if they get, you know from a biomechanical point,
and from an aerodynamic point of view,
we can see, you know, we can start shaving minutes.
With professionals, we're sometimes looking at five seconds,
you know, a few seconds.
- Okay, so it sounds like these fit adaptations
can make a big difference to overall speed.
So let's give it a go,
and get started.
What do you think I look like, then?
What's first analysis?
- We've got some work to do here, I'm afraid though.
- Yeah, that's good to hear.
- One of the things that we notice
from a biomechanical point of view,
you obviously shift around quite a bit on the saddle.
- Yep.
- You also, yeah, you drop off to one side as well,
that would explain some of the issues
that you've been having.
Well, yeah we'll run through them,
and address them.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, it's that leg, isn't it?
We're just taking your angular range here,
this angle here.
- Now after a little bit of manipulation shall we say,
Matt was happier with my position sitting on the saddle.
Right so, we've got these dots on the back of my hip
to have a look at my position.
What is it that we've done so far to
change something?
- Yeah, so obviously one of the things that we noticed
with how you're sitting on the bike, Fraser,
is how you drop off to one side.
So we've made some changes to saddle position,
and cleat position,
to compensate for that a little bit.
We've checked the range that you're now in,
we'll know that we're in a good range now,
and that's going to be individual to each person
that we see for a bike fit.
You know, we've got like a safe range,
and then we've got somebody that's ridden a bike
for quite a while, so yeah.
We were happy with the ranges that you're in now.
- This range that I've got here,
my knee to elbow to my hip to my ankle?
- Yeah, absolutely.
And then the next part of a fit
will be looking at this frontal area here,
and we might have to revisit this area,
you know the back end,
once we've made some changes to the front.
- Having focused firstly on the back end of my position,
it was now time to look at my front cockpit area,
and this is not simply for comfort.
It has been shown that whilst
up to 80% of the drag comes from the rider,
only 20 of it is due to the bike itself.
- The areas that you're really exposed to at the minute,
like when you're in this position here,
then there's a lot of exposure around these shoulders,
head is high, so we just want to reduce that.
- You mean how much frontal drag I've got to the wind?
- Yeah. - Right.
- But the biggest thing for you is as well,
is this pressure that you've got in the back here
that you've been experiencing.
- Well I don't think I realized I was experiencing,
but when you put your hands on my back,
I can feel it.
- Yeah, it's uh, yeah.
- Tense. - You can see.
Yeah, and obviously wide shoulders at the minute,
so yeah, we're going to address that
by changing the angles.
(upbeat music) - Let's do it.
And you want me to see how low I can drop my chin
to see whether I'm still safely able
to see up the road ahead of me,
is that right?
- Yeah, and that's one of the points
that we're struggling with with this angle of pole.
- Because they're quite high up, the angles.
- Yeah, we're struggling to see down the road at this point.
- Well, I can if I lift my head up,
but that's what you don't want me to do.
- Yeah, we want to kind of drop in,
and then push the head forward.
So we're going to look at changing the angle again
to get you in the correct angle.
- On this position here
as opposed to this position here
makes a big difference
in terms of how I can do this.
- That's really good.
- So for what you've done with me right now,
is taken the central position I had
in the initial fit position. - Yeah.
- And you've moved me out a little bit mow.
- So but then we would-
- Which you think makes me look a lot more
aero and comfortable, is that right?
- Yeah, and it's just like being able to shrug
and get much better in the position,
and then we drop the head,
then we can bring the arms and pull.
- Because it's also about me being able
to hold this position for, well, quite a long time.
- Absolutely, and that's for your keys events.
- Not just this little snapshot in time right now, right?
- Definitely.
- The main thing that I've picked up through this process
in the last little while with Matt is
I never thought how much of a difference
shoulder comfort and pain could make an impact.
I've always felt quite comfortable when I've sat on a bike,
Matt says that's actually not too
different or dissimilar to any person that comes in
and gets a fit with him.
You sit on a bike, you feel comfortable,
you think you can be okay with it,
and usually we are.
And I've ridden my bike for years and years,
and been not too bad at it,
but I think what I'm realizing now
is that I'd seen Matt five, six, seven years ago,
I could've been a much faster athlete.
Right now I found this whole
bike fitting process today really fascinating,
so thanks for taking me through that Matt.
But, before I go away,
is there any tips for anybody who's having a bike fit?
- The main thing to do away from any bike fit is
you're going to make biomechanical changes,
and you're going to make aerodynamic changes.
But we have to practice them in training,
so that's doing drills on the turbo trainer,
and then going out onto the road
and practicing that as well.
- Sounds like something for me to go and give a go.
So hopefully you've enjoyed this video,
give that thumb up like button a hit.
If you want to get all the other videos in our channel,
find the globe on the screen and click that.
And if you want to see a video that Matt did
about time trial bike versus triathlon bike,
well you can find that here.
- And if you want to gain more speed,
then click on this video down here,
my microburst session efforts.