The one with the Bike Scientist

This week things are going really good and I am feeling positive again. I have been deeply immersed in training and back following the diet plan again! I also wanted to talk about a recent Bike Fit I had. Alex, a friend of mine set up his own business called the Bike Fit Scientist in Sutton-in-Ashfield. Alex, invited me for a fit in his new studio and to be honest I was a bit nervous.

When you get there, there are monitors on the wall and a plinth on which your bike is placed on a Turbo.  We started sitting down and talking about any kind of relevant history and discomforts on the bike.  The first thing that he set up was the cleats, you have to ensure these are set up correctly.  We then got moving on the Turbo, as expected the first thing that sprung to mind was the fact that my saddle was very uncomfortable.  It was a Fizik one and I have experienced trouble with these before in the past – so was no surprise.  I had come prepared with a new saddle to try and Alex had a shelf of about 10 different saddles you can try.

The height of the seat post had also been set to give me the correct angle on my hips and knees. We tried both the saddles I had come with and they were no good to be honest, they just didn’t suit my butt. We started trying some of the saddles on the shelf – there was literally one of about every type; Snub nosed, slotted, curved, wide, narrow, hard, soft etc. The mechanism on my bike is quite awkward and it took a few minutes to change each saddle, but alex had a special tool that enabled a quick change.

After trying just about every saddle on offer I decided on the saddle for me.  Alex kindly offered to lend it me for a few weeks to make sure I was happy with it before committing to buy one.  Now just the cockpit to set up.

Well we had a lot of fun setting the front end up. Well, me being a gadget man certainly did! It was also apparent that the bars and Stem I had did not provide a comfy position suitable for a 112mile ironman. The setup on my bike was very aggressive, which would be ok for a ten mile Time Trial but not what I am planning. My bar and stem couldn’t be adjusted enough for the position I required, which left me with a few choices to make. So what we did was use a gadget to mimic different positions to find out the ‘perfect’ position for me and then try and find some bars afterwards.

Having found the position I needed we called it a night – this had taken about 4 hours so far!  He is very thorough.  I didn’t mention the set up of the pedals or shorter cranks either!

Alex shopped around and looked to see who could supply the kit to give me the right position. Profile Design were the supplier of choice and we ordered them and re-convened in the studio again. Alex set everything up as we had measured. We then spent the rest of the evening on the turbo ‘in position’ dialling everything in to give me the perfect setup.

Since then, I haven’t ridden my bike on the road yet, but have been pulling in 90 min Turbo sessions on it in relative comfort. Result.