Hear ye, hear ye, get thee, and a mirror, to your indoor trainer. This is going to be a multi-part series on getting the rider and the ride to a more perfect union. Most of us have never been professionally fit for our bikes. An inseam measured, a glance at a reflection when riding by a store window is our bike fit. I’m not advocating that, but it’s true for me.
My friend Dave and I have been both suffering with ride -preventing knee injuries. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, besides being lucky, you have been spared a trip into a deep and dark cave. This is the depressing cave that makes you ask a question you don’t have an answer for. If you can’t ride anymore, you are no longer a cyclist. If you are no longer a cyclist, who are you? That, fellow riders, is a serious question, and not one I want to address right here and now.
In the USA you go to your general practitioner doctor, who eventually hands you off to a slightly more qualified doctor. You moan enough to get x-rays and and MRI at 0.45 CWUs (carbon wheel units*) cost and an eventual appointment with most-busy orthopedic specialist. He, of course, tells you there is nothing he can see but he can send you to the physical therapist. Why did you know this was the answer already, four months earlier?
The hospital’s physical therapist is not a cyclist and looks very skeptical when you inform him the “knee over pedal axle” axiom is rubbish. You go home with a page of exercises that address no obvious problem. At this point the road diverges. You keep pestering doctors, you start listening to anecdotal, crap advice, or you try to fix it yourself.
Dave has done his version of this also. Dave is not as lazy as I and he spends untold hours with his rollers, kinetic trainer, weight bench, watt meter and a mirror trying to figure out what he can modify to fix his knee.
We spent a long session filming each other shirtless, in bibs, while riding our bikes on his trainer. This all felt slightly illegal and unseemly. I’m relieved that neither his girlfriend or the UPS guy came in during this.
The initial video shot from behind was a revelation. If Chris Froome looks like a spider humping a lightbulb, I look like Quasimodo hunching a washing machine. Are you kidding me? Damien Gaudin looks better on a bike than I do. Was I hit by a car and don’t remember it? Has no one bothered to tell me what this view from behind looks like? Dave admitted he wanted to but didn’t dare. Actually, it may be that out here in Hawaii, no one is spending that much time in my awesome draft, going uphill at 10 kph, or I ignore these remarks all together.
We video as we try shims under cleats, raising saddles, lowering saddles. All this seems like too much guess work, or we are working with just enough information to do further damage? There are a lot of tweaks that skate around problems we don’t understand.
As it turns out Dave is possibly harder to live with than I am while playing the role of injured athlete. His girlfriend explained this to the woman seated next to her at a dinner party; this person happens to be a sports physical therapist with the dual virtues of a lot of formal medical education and decades of experience fixing people. Phase two of this story will delve into what a Pro knows and how she works.
In the meantime, do yourself a favor. Get your bike on a stationary trainer or rollers and have someone video from behind as you ride with moderate resistance. The Pro put reflective stickers dots and lines all over my legs but even a sharpie dot on the center of the knee cap and the center behind the knee will be useful. An iPhone and iMovie works just fine for some slow motion analysis. Alternatively, put a mirror in front of the bike so you can see your legs pedaling. One’s hips, knees and feet are working in a chain. The knee joint is a simple hinge that functions optimally when not going in four directions with each revolution, like mine.
Do your knees track directly over your feet, everything directly up and down, like dueling Swiss Bernina sewing machines? If yes, no worries, if no and you are not too old, it’s something to think about. The math is amazing; revolutions per kilometer times kilometers per year. Knees can absorb some misalignment, mine have for 36 years, but why wait until you are injured to seek the more perfect union?
*my CWU are based on ENVE 3.4 tubular rims and Chris King hubs, orange.
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The use of a spirit level on that saddle is not a joke. Dead flat, no deviation. ...confirm that both tires are equally inflated!
I have no idea of how a modern fitting is done, but BITD I think I had what qualified then as a fitting. At the no longer tender (but V leaning) age of eighteen, I visited Spence Wolfe in Cupertino to order my Cinelli. Measurements included inseam (of course), length of back, arm length (from nape to wrist), my age and weight. ...felt like what I imagine a suit fitting--'though at that age, I hadn't needed to visit a tailor. Somehow that small amount of data was all that was required for a custom-built Italian frame, components, and gearing. That pinup beauty of 1970 still fits me better than any modern machine, and the all-Campy Nouvo Record still shifts superbly. (For very small values of "superbly"...)
I had a fitting a few years ago and it helped immensely, but have had injuries, knee surgery, and PT for various parts since then. Surprisingly even prior to my knee surgery, walking was far more painful than riding. Sine the fitting some parts have been stretched and I just don't feel right on the bike anymore. Right now I'm almost afraid to get on the bIke after a break to let the pain from degenerated disks eased up. Getting the V kit today is giving me motivation to give it a go this weekend.
My equation for knee and back pain removal was as simple as:
Cleats 1cm further toward the heel.
Saddle forward ~1cm.
Stem +20mm longer and lower (who knew? Frank's on to something.)
Good timing with the post. I recently have gotten over knee pain that had lasted for over two years. It was a nightmare attempting to figure out the cause, and was concerned, during the painful period, that I was causing additional damage while continuing to ride. Of course I'm going ride, even if it hurts. Eventually I visited the local sports MD, who specializes in cycling medicine! His prognosis was that I had referred Vastus Medialis pain, that was shooting over to the anterior portion of my knee. His recommendation: ride more and lower my saddle (he also does fits, and saw that my saddle was a smidge too high). It was my first fit in over 7 years of riding, and it worked well. I'm pain free and can now get way more power out of the pins.
I've always fitted myself the "black arts" way. Basic "gross" setup, then fine tuning over a number of rides. Plumb bob, tape measure, level and a indoor trainer (so you can look at hip rocking). Is it perfect? Probably not by a long shot. But for the most part I'm comfortable. I had some foot pain this year (fixed it with cleat shims) and some hip pain (turns out to be related to crashing on it and having a tear in the labrum. Fixing that currently).
That said, fitting, and how people approach it, is always fascinating to me. Can't wait to see what lies ahead.
@piwakawaka
A lot of ITB pain is the result of weak glutes that form the top if that kinetic chain. Work those glutes routinely and the ITB will ease.
@robsmuir
I started using a spirit level on my saddle when I worked my way through the fizik test saddles. It helped alot but I found that it wasn't as simple as just laying it along the saddle and making sure I had it flat based on on the foremost and rearmost points, each saddle had a flatter portion that was the bit that was crucial to the measurement. I ended up on an Antares that I have hardly noticed but with the spirit level laid front to back it just wasn't right. When the level take on just the front flat portion the magic happens
When I can persuade the velonipper to tell me what the code is on his ipad, I'll have a go at some video analysis on the rollers..
Fortunate I am, graceful on a bike....now there's a thought, I very much doubt it. Surely the question is...do I continue painfree in blissful ignorance simply because I happened to buy an awesomely comfortable bike which bizarrely fit right first time...or...do I become tempted by this article and get camera and rollers out?
The first option is screaming at me not to do the second...after all...ignorance is bliss!
Get off your damm bike. XC run on rough trails or no trails at all. Jump/fall/twist repeat. Involve yourself with sports that aren't confined in strict movement and get you body use to being used in rough/tumble way.
......do something other than being a sculpture on a bike.
Think outside the bike or be as fragile as a glass slipper on one.
When I purchased my first bike, the LBS gave me a free "pro" fit. I initially thought I was positiond fine on the bike but after longer rides I started to feel numbness and pain in knees. Then I met one of those dark art Sith Lords during a bike ride and he started adjusting the fit; flipping stem, positioning handlebar, move the seat, cleats, seatpost height etc. Now I have so much more comfort on longer rides, more room to breathe, more leverage and power from my legs. Turns out a lot of lbs fit people for 25 mile recreational rides, people sitting more upright, with low rpm, not for warriors of the V