The Bike Fitting

When I studied ergonomics as a part of my Systems Engineering Degree in the early '70s, I was fascinated by one of our text books titled "Fitting the Task to the Man."  The theory behind the text was to modify tasks which humans perform to better integrate with their physiology and limitations.

This week, on Thursday, I had an extensive bike fitting at Marty's bike shop.  My fitter was Jesse Epstein (Marty's son) who is one of only 30 bike fitters in the US to have been recognized as a Certified Master's BG Fit Technician  from Specialized Bicycle Components University and Andy Pruitt from the Boulder Center of Sports Medicine.

The fitting, which took over 2 hours, involved a full body survey and range of motion calculations, as well as what proved to be a rather humorous inventory of "prior injuries" - going through this part for me was probably the longest section of the fitting (apparently given the extent of my injuries over the years from skiing and cycling, I am lucky to be alive), and finished off, after all the data was gathered, with tweaking the setup of my bike.

Some of the range of motion assessments were rather funny, with Jesse bending me in half and telling me to let him know before it begins to hurt - to which I responded "Should we agree on a 'safe' word before hand?"  Apparently despite my lack of stretching, I am reasonable flexible (I can touch my palms to the floor in front of my toes with straight legs) but my hip flexors are pretty tight.  This is common for people who cycle long distances, and was noted by my massage therapist when I got a massage the week after my 5,300 trek last summer.

I was not surprised, given my lack of pain over the past summer, that my bike needed very little tweaking.  I had Jesse do a less extensive fit in the spring of last year and he pretty much nailed it.  The only modifications made this time were a slight tweaking of the seat to make it more level, and raising the position of the handle bars to open up my hip flexors by about 8° so I am riding in a slightly more upright position.  This will increase my efficiency in generating power to the pedals - should be fun because I thought before hand that I could generate a fair bit of power already.

Yesterday, I put the fitting to the test with a very hilly ride of the Piccolo Fondo Route of New Jersey's Gran Fondo this August (3,400+' of climbing in 40 miles - we will be using this route as a training route to prepare for the upcoming Hills of Attrition in mid-April).

The temperature was hovering in the low 30°s (Fahrenheit for my Canadian readers) so it was a good test.  I finished the ride without any pain or issues, and felt able to really put out the power on the flats.  It should be a fun summer with these adjustments to my fit.

As a follow-up I need to get back to Jesse with my comments and observations in about a month's time - so far it can be summed up with "Great!".

To those readers signed up for this year's Trans Canada ride, and are following this blog for tips on how to make it more do-able, I highly recommend a professional bit fitting before you start your training in earnest, it will be money well spent, and should help you avoid any injuries associated with your bike fit over your arduous voyage - it should also make it a lot more fun!!!.

Thanks again Jesse for the fit last year, and for this year's tweaking.  They have allowed me over 8,000 miles of pain free cycling.

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