Getting A Professional Bike Fit | Everything You Need To Know

Published on December 3rd 2017

Share:

When you buy a bike from a shop, you should get a basic fit to make sure you've got the right size frame, that you're comfortable, and it's safe to ride. Once you've started to get familiar with your bike, it's time to look into your position in a little more detail. And this is where a professional bike fit can come in handy. With a time trial bike, it's often a compromise between comfort, power production, and aerodynamics. So, if you've invested in a new time trial bike, you want to make the most of those aerodynamic features and working on your position is vital. Several small tweaks can end up making a significant difference. There are many tools and software than can be used by bike fitters, but they still require an expert eye that can interpret them, but also listen to your individual needs. Now, I need to find a position that will suit me for a long distance triathlon. I'm delighted to say that I've got ex pro cyclist and iron man triathlete, Magnus Backstedt, who's agreed very kindly to help me out on this bike fit. So, thanks Magnus. Well, normally we would start with setting your cleat position up on your shoes. But because you're in a mid-level race season, and you've got some events coming up, I would refrain from touching them too much right now, so I rather you come back and see me at some point when you've got a down time. 'Cause as soon as we start messing around with your cleats you're always running that risk of having your knees going a little bit tender, and so on, and we don't wanna be jeopardising any events that you've got coming up. So, first of all, I'll just get you onto the bike and then we're gonna marker you up so that the cameras can read what you're doing. The next thing now is that we've gotta get you riding your bike for about a minute or so for your body to settle down on the bike, find you a comfortable position, and then when I see that you're sitting still on the bike in the position that you normally do when you're putting out a bit of power, then I'll record about 30-40 seconds of image on the computer. And then we'll go back in and analyse that, see what's what, make any changes, and then we'll repeat that until we've found the position that we're happy with. Okay, so you've had a quick look. And I know you've made some quite drastic observations. What'd you notice, Magnus? Well, I've noticed that you're struggling to open up your hip flexor on the left hand side, which means that you're tilting over every time you're peddling. Most of the time, that's something that comes from too much travelling, previous injury, falling off your bike, even running injuries sometimes can limit that one. But, the biggest thing that we all struggle with, is that we sit down at an office desk, we sit down at home, we sit down in a car, I don't know if you've been travelling, aeroplanes tends to be really really nasty on your hip flexors. Subscribe to GTN: http://gtn.io/SubscribetoGTN Check out the GTN Shop: http://gtn.io/4H If you'd like to contribute captions and video info in your language, here's the link 👍 http://gtn.io/4I Watch more on GTN... 📹 Triathlon tech From The ITU Grand Final In Rotterdam - http://gtn.io/RotterdamTech 📹 How To Descend On A TT Bike - http://gtn.io/TTDescending