Do as your mother says and sit straight!

Bicycles are symmetric, carefully designed objects......sometimes as meticulously crafted as aerospace parts.  It is this symmetry that ensures they handle well and are balanced.    Most carbon bikes are made from moulds and so the integrity and alignment of the rear dropouts, the seat tube, and the head tube is maintained at all costs with these clamshell-like devices.  Welded metal bikes are assembled on expensive jigs that ensure the same alignment.  From there, fork steerer tubes, stems, and handlebars are equally symmetric.

All of this is done to make sure that a rider's weight is draped evenly over the bike.  That way the left hand is the same distance from the frame as the right, as are the knees, hips, and shoulders.

Balanced body makes for a balanced rider.  Makes sense, right?  It stands to reason that your body is bisected by the bike itself.  It sounds logical, but unfortunately, for the vast majority of us, it's not true.

The truth is that while our hands and feet are placed symmetrically on the bike (the right and left foot are situated on the pedals in nearly exactly the same spot on opposite sides of the center-line of the bike and same goes for the hands), roughly 75% of the population does not sit square on their saddle -- meaning we are shifted off to one side of the saddle, so effectively our hips, knees, and likely our shoulders are skewed to one side.  On-the-bike infrared measurements (Retul) make discovering this fairly easy as long as you know what you're looking at.

To further complicate the matter, a large portion of riders sit with one hip further forward, but that's another article for another time.

[I know there are some of you out there asking "a leg length discrepancy can cause that, right?...can't that be the culprit of this skewed sitting posture?"  Sometimes, but not as often as you'd think.  You see often (I don't have firm numbers on this one, but in my experience about 50% of the time) a rider's leg length discrepancy doesn't come through on the bike as you'd expect it to -- i.e. a longer right leg should "push" the rider to the left so that the shorter left leg can more easily reach the pedals.   Chalk this up to not being able to rely on simple mechanics when you're talking about pedaling a bike since no other task involves being attached to a machine in five spots as well as the more complicated neurological process mentioned below.]

How to remedy the derriere shift?

Since the bike won't accommodate us by having the saddle placed off to the side (moving the seat off-center so that it's under the skewed hips) we have to find a way to bring the rider back closer to being aligned with the bike.

In order to come up with a proper fix, we need to know why most of us can't keep our butt on the saddle squarely.  The answer lies deep within our brain, where our most basic motor impulses come from.  You see most of us, despite whether we're right or left handed are "wired" to favor our right side.  So most (in the ballpark of 60%-70%) of those riders shifted off to one side of their saddle are shifted to the right.

First inclination would be to just force yourself to sit towards the center -- if the infrared shows you're in fact sitting to the right then you could just consciously sit further to the left.  And off you go, right?  Well, no.  Problem is that conscious corrections really don't get you very far because you can't "attend" to this left-sitting posture for an entire ride and you'll end up gravitating back to the right especially as you work harder on challenging terrain.  You've done very little to change the motor plan and so the problem will persist.

No, the best and lasting way to fix this is to get the weak side engaged more.  Again, more of us are wired right-dominant and we're likely to never fully change this but if we can make a small improvement in the weak side's proprioception, strength, and/or coordination we'll make a dent in the problem.

Most of my client's leave their bike fit appointment with a combination of fixes to work on the problem.   Often these include some drills (on and off the bike) to improve the weak side's coordination -- even some dry land balance exercises can occasionally make an impact.  Flexibility work may help improve the ease of  the pedal stroke and make a small impact.  Most often, and in my experience most effective, are cleat position changes to improve the weak side's proprioception -- literally how that side senses and feels the pedal and pedal-stroke.

In all these ways we can engage that weak side and the result is then the rider begins to gravitate more toward the center of the bike.  The rider won't just pop right back to dead center on that first bike fit, nor should we shoot for that.  I usually shoot for a 30%-40% shift back toward center that first day -- getting more than that increases the chances of us over-correcting and creating a problem elsewhere.

A recent bike fit showed that the client was shifted to the right so their overall deviation from the center was in the 72-74 mm range (meaning that their right side was measured roughly 36 mm further from their centerline and the left side was around 36 mm towards their centerline.  After a few changes on the bike, including some cleat changes that 72-74 mm deviation was down to 47-49 mm.  Not perfect but better.  From there I can instruct the rider on exercises that are tailored to their particular deficits in order to keep the rider working on their imbalances.

Once the client leaves and does their first 10-12 rides in this position their affected soft tissues (muscles, tendons, fascia, etc.) will have an easier time progressively adjusting to this new posture because we didn't try to over-correct them the first time.

When client's follow up after about a dozen rides it's most common to see that they are now about 70% improved in their alignment.  Usually if they didn't make any progress from here they would still be in good shape....it's unlikely we'd make someone 100% symmetric on the bike anyway but negative stresses on the body are limited long before the 70% threshold.

If you have aches and pains on the bike and you're not sure where they come from or if you just want to make sure you're not losing any efficiency being off kilter, then come in to get checked out.

Sometimes you can see some of this shift just from looking at a rider's hips from behind.  Have any pictures that show you or a riding buddy sitting off-center?  Send them in here.

Wilier Cento1 SR

Wilier Zero.9

End of Summer Discounts: Wilier-Triestina, BMC, Lenz Sport

Moving last year's bikes; Retul bike fitting still included with every bike

I have a couple of DEMO BIKES left that will be going at even steeper discounts (even a 29er or two -- actually 6).

Call or email with any questions :

BMC Road Racer, bare gloss carbon finish; I have two of these left, both "54"s (55cm effective top tube [TT])

BMC Speedfox 29, X.0, Easton carbon, Fox fork -- sizes S and M available

BMC Road Racer, full Ultegra, size 57 (normally $3600, now $3059)

BMC Street Racer - Shimano 105 group, sizes 48 and 51 available for you vertically challenged folks.  (not $1799, that's full retail)

Our most popular bike this year, the Wilier-Triestina Gran Toursimo.  We've cycled thru a lot of these and I have 2 left, a 55 (nominally a Large) and a 52 (Small)

One white Wilier Gran Tourismo left, a 57/58 (X-Large)

BMC RaceMachine - size "53" (has a 55 cm effective TT) - this was a demo bike and will be discounted further than some of the others

Lenz Sport Leviathan; 4.0; Sun Ringle (Stan's) wheels, SRAM X.9 drivetrain, Hayes Stroker disc brakes; full retail $5200, now $4200

BMC Team Elite 29; probably one of the best entry level 29er deals out there; solid Shimano SLX build, Rock Shox Recon fork; Hate going over the handlebars? this race ready bike has better geometry than most 29ers out there -- look it up; no 29er should have a head angle steeper than 70 degrees (IMHO)

I have 3 of these left, two Mediums and a Small

Guess the fix

What would you change in this rider's position?  Can you pick out the main things that need to be done?

 

I'll post a follow up (what we did for him) and include a video of the "after".

Meanwhile, lemme see what you come up with.

Orbea Onix Dama vs Onix -- more on the women's specific myth

Orbea Onix

Orbea Onix Dama

I know I've gone over this before, but more on the "Women's Specific"  myth. 

My primary gripe is that the geometry changes that are actually made to the frame are minimal, and usually very poorly thought out.  Also, yes, some women have longer legs and shorter torsos -- but a lot of them do not.  In fact many men have long legs and short torsos, rather than the shorter legs and longer torsos that the bike manufacturers would have you believe.

For instance, look at the Onix series of bikes from Orbea -- they have their standard version and the Dama, or women's specific version.

The Dama, size 53 is essentially just the size in between the standard Onix sizes 51 and 54 -- possibly a slightly taller scaled head tube.  The Dama size 49, has an effective top tube of 51 cm.  The standard Onix size 51 also has a 51 cm effective TT.  The women's version has a head tube length of 110 mm, the standard version has a 122 mm one. 

If women did have shorter torsos wouldn't they need to make the reach and overall cockpit of the bike more relaxed rather than more aggressive?  Especially since the women's bike has a seat angle that's a full degree steeper (while still maintaining a 51 cm eff. TT), making it's weight bias more forward, upsetting the handling and making it squirrely at high speeds.

Again, I'm not saying that women shouldn't have their geometry tailored to them -- in fact they should, and just as often as the men-folk.  These are not well-thought out changes, they're token, and gimmick and marketing.  These changes are made because they're easy, not because they work.

Don't be fooled; more thought goes into how to "accessorize" a bike in pink and purple bits to make it "Women's Specific" than goes into the fit and the geometry.

"How did you start doing bike fits?"

I get asked this one nearly every bike fit I do. I can't believe I haven't just written it down -- maybe it would save me from repeating it 200-300 times a year. Not that I mind terribly; after 14 years of doing 1-on-1 client interaction you get pretty good at talking while you work.

So here it goes:

I have been into bikes since I was about 5. I can remember my first bike -- it was a hand-me-down (of course, in a family of 7 kids) that was rattle-canned copper by my Dad. My Dad and my older brother, Mike, taught me to ride and for the next 8 years or so that is all I did; how I got around the neighborhood; how we played in the "court" (the cul de sac, for you non-Mid Westerners) up the street.

On through high school and then into college where I used my bike to commute to class and eventually got into triathlons.

I graduated from Physical Therapy school and advanced into longer distance triathlons (up to Ironman) and then quickly into mountain biking as well and eventually 24-hour racing in my early 20's.

As you can imagine, I attracted a lot of training partners who thought as I did, that long races were fun -- especially when you weren't gifted with natural speed. When you are a physical therapist, family and friends frequently pick your brain about aches and pains they have, and I was happy to help, since turnabout is fair play -- free investing, home buying, and tax advice easily offsets the time spent on PT stuff.

Often, a quick test or two will reveal the problem with some joint or muscle, but with my cycling friends, they often only had the problem when they were riding. The next logical step? Well, we need to see you on your bike!

There is started, and stayed, for a couple years -- I would just help out a friend or 10 with biomechanical issues on the bike.

Of course, I went searching for help, and any existing information on bike fitting. I read everything I could get my hands on -- some of it made sense, most of it didn't ("So if I'm sitting on the bike and look down, my front hub should be obscured by my handlebar? Why?").

I quickly realized that most of the "rules" were arbitrarily set, and very little research had actually been done to back any of it up. When I first started, the static bike fit system were popular -- Fit Kit, Wobblenaught and the like. In these systems you take measurements of your body, like arm, leg, torso measurements, and plug them into an equation which spits out your fit parameters. You input you body's measurements and the "system" tells you how far to place your bars from your seat, how far behind the bottom bracket your seat ought to be, etc. etc. etc.

As a PT, where we consider pain patterns, strength, flexibility, age, level of activity, and about 50 other factors, this was distinctly unsatisfying -- and as it turns out, mostly useless in actual bike fitting. This became glaringly obvious when my first commercial (non-friend helping) bike fits were from Wobblenaught and Fit Kit clients who came in wondering why they hurt so much when they rode. I then realized that there was a gap in the market -- there were people that had many troubles with their bike fit and wanted help, and it was clear that the static systems weren't going to help and therefore couldn't fill this niche.

I said, why couldn't I fill it? I started off slow, and part-time, doing perhaps 20-30 fits that first year. I kept growing each year, though, and it became more and more of my business. About 9 years later, I bought my Retul system which helped growth further, as I began to get many more clients from around the state and from out of state, since people were looking for someone that had a way to measure their mechanics dynamically and accurately, paired with having the knowledge and experience to apply all this information.

And so here I am. I'm doing anywhere from 200-250 bike fits a year, building custom bikes:

Oh yeah, forgot to include that - I saw about 5 or 6 years ago that some of the custom bikes my clients had were not made for them very well. Not very custom, which is a crime when you're paying $8000. There were aspects I certainly would have designed differently to tailor the bike to them better and their riding style -- so I did! It is truly a pleasure to build a machine that is meant for that one individual to ride comfortably, powerfully, and efficiently for hours and enjoy it.

So that's it; how I got started. It was a fairly organic and seamless process. I would bet there are maybe a dozen or so people in the U.S. that have the background I have, have been doing it for as long and have the equipment available to them that's necessary for the accuracy desired, and I bet every one of them shed the same amount of blood to get to where they are -- and that's the point. You can't short-cut this trade -- there is too much to know and (still) too little good information out there.

Happy pedaling

John

The wife's bike

So any healthy relationship has to have balance. The past few years my wife has been in the enviable position of getting to ride a different demo bike every year, and sometimes having a choice of multiple bikes.

The downside is that in this situation, you don't get a perfectly fit bike most of the time (unless you're lucky, like me, and most size 54/55s are usually pretty darn close. She does have some shoulder problems, however, and that usually causes her to sacrifice her low back in order to maintain a comfortable reach to the bars. Suffice it to say that she tends to leverage a bit more through one side of her lumbar spine, especially when she climbs.

So, finally this year, I decided to surprise her for her birthday with designs for a custom bike "all for her." I decided on Seven's Axiom SL (double butted titanium), which is their workhorse model, a SRAM Force group, FSA K-Wing carbon compact bars, Selle Italia Lady Gel Flow saddle, and I had a pair of Zipp 404 rims lying around that I had Mike at Bigwheels (www.lacemine29.com) lace to some DT Swiss 240s hubs.

I don't have a great creative streak in me so I gave the Seven designers some themes to work with: Ethiopia (our kids are adopted from there), gourmet cooking (my wife, who is a Nurse Practitioner, loves to cook enormous meals on the weekends to the delight of our friends. The painters at Seven cam up with the scheme you see below:

there is an outline of the country of Ethiopia on the top tube, and there are two "Electric Blueberry" panels on the seat and down tubes that have a fleur de lis pattern on them. the fleur de lis has many meanings and references, but it is also the cover for Julia Childs' Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I think they did well:

Retul Bike fits

If you've read my blog before you know that I use the Retul system of motion capture (www.retul.com). I get a lot of questions about it -- and a lot of business frankly.

I often hear,

"Wow, that must really make the fittings easier, huh?"

After using the system for a while now I finally have an answer to that. Does it make the fittings easier? The short answer is "No", unequivocally, it does not make the process simpler.

Blasphemy, right? Retul is definitely the most influential technology to come into bike fitting in, well, maybe forever, and here I am dissing it?

Well, I don't think it is a "knock" on the system because it doesn't make bike fits easier. People and companies (i.e. Specialized) have been taking a reductionist approach to bike fitting and it has done nothing positive to the process. The *Fit Kit", *BG Fit*, *Wobblenaught* among others have tried to take this very complex process and turn it into a nice neat, packaged "revenue driver" that every bike shop in the world can become an expert in.

I think it is actually a tribute to the system that it doesn't "dumb down" the process. It in no way tells you what you should do to take corrective action for the cyclist - it just provides a lot of very accurate data about the cyclist's mechanics.

For each of the parameters it measures -- for instance the frontal angle a rider's knee tracks at relative to the vertical, called Knee Travel Tilt -- Retul provides a range of normal limits that each one, in an ideal situation, should stay within.

The difficulty lies in the shear amount of data. If you focus on one measurement and make changes to the rider's position to "fix" just that one measurement, often other measurements that are also a problem, don't change or get worse.

So, no, my bike fitting process has not gotten simpler. But I'm not the least bit disappointed. Actually this has been the most productive and fun year for me with bike fittings (in my 12 years as a physical therapist).

My bike fittings have gotten better, and that's the important part. The Retul system has allowed a level of accuracy and confidence that is hard to beat. Plus when it comes to bike fitting, "simple" isn't always the best solution.

But "better" is.

Musings about credentials for bike fitting

I get asked a lot by people out of state, My next trip to Colorado, I'm going to come in for a fitting. But do you know anyone in my area that can do a good bike fitting?

That's a hard one. I don't have a lot of names that I trust implicitly to do a comprehensive bike fitting. I think by endorsing someone, I am putting my reputation in their hands. Not many people out there I would do that for. There are a few, and if you live in their territory I will let you know who they are.

I am pretty particular about my fitting process, and I think too many shops out there are relying on the WOW factor of their gadgets, and their client's....I don't want to say ignorance, because that seems harsh -- after all, bike shops should know bikes, and many riders just don't have the inclination to learn about their bike and that's just fine. That's why you have a bike shop! But many clients do trust that their bike shop knows all things bike. Bike fit included.

Unfortunately that is just not the case. Most bike shops know bikes. They should. "The bike" is the easy part in the equation of bike fitting. Truly, anyone with a little time and motivation can learn enough in a short time to WORK in a bike shop. Every year thousands of high school and college age kids begin working at a bike shop and in pretty short order they are assembling and repairing bikes right alongside the "career mechanic." There are bike mechanic schools out there, but very few people building bikes in the United States are attending them. I think that's a shame. It doesn't say much for the person who is a career mechanic and it certainly doesn't help them earn a better living. When you have a profession that is unregulated, unlicensed, and requires no formal training, then you just don't have to pay those people that much. (and by "you" I mean the market in general).

Side note: A very experienced and skilled bike mechanic is an amazing thing. They are such a wealth of bike knowledge that at times is indispensable. I want to be clear how much I respect the true experts of this discipline. My point is that you likely won't go to you bike mechanic for a bike fitting just as you wouldn't go to your bike fitter for a question about derailleur actuation ratios or air chamber pressures on your rear shock.

So to get back to my point, the bike is the easy part to learn about. The variables are few and relatively fixed.

The human body, however, is exactly the opposite. It's not likely that you are going to be able to "apprentice" with a doctor, or a PT, or an exercise physiologist, and learn their trade in a few weeks or months. There are too many variables, and what's more, often these variables are hidden under layers of skin, muscle and fascia, so an intimate knowledge of their location, function, and physiology is necessary. (Again, in contrast, most of a bike's parts are easily seen and quantified.)

So you can see how it would be easy for a bike shop to alter your bike for you, but difficult for them to explain to you why you need it changed.

Some bike shops will say that they have been doing bike fits long enough that they know the 10 most common syndromes associated with ill-fitting bikes, and that that covers them for most cyclists. I don't know about you, but I don't want to pay someone hundreds of dollars in a fitting fee and more money for new equipment if they don't KNOW that it is going to help. In the last ten years I have done more fittings than most bike shops in the country, and I would estimate that fully 25-35% had some combination of mechanical issues that manifested themselves on the bike in a way I had not seen before, and about 50% fell outside of what I would consider to be the "10 most common bike fit issues". In these situations I had to rely on my education and experience with the biomechanics of the human body. 

To understand all these differences it takes time and lots and lots of clients -- I call it the "Malcolm Gladwell Effect".  In his fantastic book Outliers: The Story of Success, he explains that thorough research has come up with a metric for understanding why some people become experts at the top of the field, and the general threshold for this is 10,000 hours of practice.  Bill Gates began programming as a "tween" at  a time when only a handful of people on the planet even had access to a computer to program on.  Michael Jordan out-worked all his competitors by spending hours and hours EVERY single day to improve his skills. 

Similarly, a bike fitter only gets to be an expert when they spend every day working their diagnostic muscles.  This is where physical therapists and other clinicians have a huge advantage over bike shop employees and other fitters -- we get to practice and flex those same mental muscles every day, even outside of our bike fittings as we treat 5, 10, 15 clients a day.  The treatments are different but the "work" and knowledge gained and reinforced is the same.  Typically even a busy bike fitter may see 5-10 clients a week -- this would be an awfully slow way to learn the craft.

This also brings up a point that bike shops are in the business of selling bikes and bike parts. Unfortunately with the boom in the number of shops offering "fitting services" many did so because their industry advisors were telling them how many replacement parts and accessories they could sell.

I'm not trying to make people paranoid or distrustful of their LBS. Fact is I think there are plenty of shops out there TRYING to do the right thing. I just think that they in over their head with the complexity of many bike fits.

The difficulty lies in the fact that many people experience discomfort or a decrease in power and if you just LOOK at them, they appear to be set up in a very typical road position.

Example:
I had a client recently come in for a fitting on a bike she had bought a few months before. She hadn't ridden it much because she bought at the end of the fall and she was not a cold weather rider. She got a "good deal" on the bike. The young salesperson helping her helped her find the bike, they set her up on a trainer and she pedaled the bike for 2 or 3 minutes. It felt "Okay" (her words) while she was on the trainer, but to be sure, they stopped the lone "bike fit guru" (who is also the head mechanic and part owner) as he was rushing across the shop in search of a part for another client, to have a look. He watched her sit on the bike and pedal for 5 or 6 pedal strokes and declared, "Looks good." And he rushed off. Sometimes the shop (but really the client) might get lucky and everything might actually BE good.

In this case, however, once she spent more than 5 or 10 minutes on the bike it was clear she wasn't comfortable. So they came to see me, and this is when she had her second chance to get lucky -- the bike could be the right size but just need some adjustments - maybe we could "make it work". Unfortunately, the frame was the wrong size and to have an appropriate reach on the bike she'd need to have the seat all the way forward on the rails (with a 0 degree setback post) and a 60 mm stem -- definitely not ideal.

So what is the lesson with that story? Again, not that you should distrust your LBS, because I think this shop was TRYING to do the right thing (admittedly a bit half a**ed). They are just not very good at it.

Luckily there are more and more bike fitters that have education in anatomy, biomechanics etc. AND have years of experience applying this knowledge. These two things are incredibly important and you should do some digging to find out about any bike fitter you intend to visit.

Talkin' bike seats

I mentioned in my last post that, for the average woman, and ideal seat design would be wide in the back to support the wider ischial tuberosities, but then needs to quickly narrow to avoid compressing the tissues distal and lateral to the sit bones. 

This narrower space between the femur and sit bones that we tend to rest (which ends up being the proximal hamstring -- medially the semi-membranosus and laterally the biceps femoris) is not the only reason for this saddle shape.  The woman's sit bones are oriented more in the frontal plane (more side to side) than a man's.  The male sit bones are set more in the sagittal plane (front to back).

When you factor in the natural translation of the hips and pelvis downward at the bottom of the pedal stroke, you can visualize that the male sit bones can more readily follow this path of movement -- sort of like a knife blade slicing through the dirt.  The female sit bones can't move as easily in this path -- imagine running the same knife through the dirt now turned to it's side a few degrees, like a plow.  The amount of shear force (or at least the potential for shearing) is much greater.

Essentially, all the angles of the pubic and ischial rami (the structures that form the "loops" on the bottom of the pelvis, and that we sit on) are steeper and sharper and because of this, less contact with saddles is probable.  I think this is the reason women often struggle with saddles -- more contact and shear forces -- and not just the fact that they have wider sit bones.

Saddle position

Of course, the right saddle is nothing without it being fit in the right position.  Many cyclists are on saddles they are unhappy with, but the reason is that they are not sitting on the part of the saddle that is meant to be sat on.  Most are scooted too far forward, even to the point where the sit bones don't rest on the saddle, but rather the saddle is squeezed in between them and the rider is resting more on their soft tissue -- this is a problem, obviously.  A huge mistake I see all too often is having the saddle tilted down --- yes, even a little is generally not a good thing.  

A bike seat needs to be in the right place fore and aft so that the sit bones can contact the wider, more cushioned portion of the saddle, and then it needs to be level so that the sit bones can rest on it.  If you aren't perched on your bike seat, then you aren't effectively stabilized to make full use of your pedal stroke. 

_______________

Think about this: 

If you have a seat slid all the way back on the rails, so that the seatpost clamp is at the front of the seat, and it is level.  What happens when you sit on the saddle?  What if the rails are made of Steel?  Titanium?  What I'm getting at, is that a saddle has a static (or unweighted) position and a dynamic (weighted) position.  The dynamic position is the only one that really matters.  It has been my experience that especially with titanium railed seats if the seatpost clamp is to the back of the rails the seat will flex downward, if towards the front of the rails the seat will flex backward.  Therefore I have allowed some seats to leave my Studio tilted up or down at times to accommodate.

_______________

This leveling of the seat brings me to my last point about a good seat -- for a man or a woman.  The seat should have at least some portion of it's surface should be flat and not fully sloping. 

This FSA saddle is a good example of when some seat designs can cause trouble for people.

The centerline of the seat is the high point and the cover slopes downward to either side.  I am sure there are people who find this saddle comfortable, but I haven't met them yet.

I am intrigued by the new fizik Antares -- the entire saddle looks flat.  I will have to try it out and get back to you on that one.

Next up :  Some top secret stuff going on in the lab.  Well, not really secret, but it should be pretty cool.  We are combining the use of the Retul dynamic "mo-cap" with a very sensitive biofeedback system so we can see what exactly some muscles are doing when we pedal, and using all the information (and there is tons!) to try to determine what the leg muscles are doing when....say, a knee tracks laterally more then the other side. 

From the preliminary findings, I think I can say that many will be surprised at what we are finding.

--J