A position fit for Pink

A Position fit for Pink – featured appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine 5 September 2019

A nice feature about Valerio Conti’s Pink Jersey at the last Giro d’Italia, appeared recently in one of Cycling Weekly summer issues. It has the interviews with our bio-mechanic, Giuseppe Giannecchini, as well as Valerio Conti’s himself, detailing the development of Conti’s riding position, since his days as a Junior rider, as he tackled some physical issues early on in his career. You can see the full article HERE and below you can also read the full tale, from Giannecchini’s personal point of view as a bio-mechanic.

Giannecchini has been Valerio Conti’s bio-mechanic since he was a teenager and the recent achievement of keeping the pink jersey for 5 days at the Giro has been a career highlight for both Conti and Giannecchini.  Giannecchini has been a professional world tour bio-mechanic for the last 20 years and collaborates as a bike-fitter / frame geometry designer for all our clients since many years.

The next bike fitting session at our premises in East London will be held on 26/27 October and we’re currently still taking the last few bookings.  Get in touch asap if interested. We don’t guarantee you’ll ever wear the Pink Jersey, but we do guarantee you this result: you’ll be riding more comfortably for longer, doing more mileage and entering a higher state of fitness and overall achieving your best possible performance.

‘Valerio Conti’ – by G. Giannecchini

The Early Days

first time I met Valerio it was 2010, he was a “Juniores”, age 16, racing for “Coratti” team.

I used to go down to Rome to do the bike-fits for a shop and one weekend Valerio’s Coach of that time, Antonio Fradusci, brought him in to assess his position. I recall that Valerio’s father also came along, together with the team’s DS too (the same DS who was also managing Davide Iacomini).   Antonio told me that Valerio was suffering some serious lower back pain when climbing and in longer milage races.

After evaluating everything, the situation was quite clear straight away to me: Valerio was affected by a big pelvis rotation (around 4cm difference between left and right leg!) and consequently the muscle mass of his legs was hugely different from one another. The rotation had been likely to be caused by a fall that Valerio had quite a few months earlier, which had been badly treated.

His riding position was also too far backwards (too much saddle set-back) and with a handlebar positioned too high and too close to him. There was a lot of work to be done, and not everything could have been sorted immediately, it was going to be a long journey.

I had to split my work in two phases, operating on two fronts: firstly a postural correction, done with the help of an Osteopath, in order to reduce the rotation, then we could gradually start to tackle his position on the bike.

Conti as a Juniores, one of the first sessions at Giuseppe’s studio

After a few months, I saw Valerio again and there had been a considerable improvement – the pelvis rotation was still too prominent though, at 2.5cm.  That season was ending and we said we would carry on like that (with the postural re-education) until the routine check-ups before the start of the new season.

Gradually, in the following season – his second one as “Juniores” – Valerio’s position kept improving, little by little, with very good improvements, both in his posture and his muscular volumes.

Valerio then changed team – joined the “Mastromarco” non-pro team – and so after two years of work, his postural problematics went back to the normality, becoming very close to his current state.

I remember that, on his second year in that team, I managed to get Renzo Formigli to produce a made to measure frame for Valerio (the whole team was racing with Formigli standard size bikes during those years). One regret of mine is that Valerio that year did not manage to race in the Under-23 World Cup (after he had a great season full of important achievements), especially considering that hat year’s course was very suitable for his characteristics.

Becoming a Pro

But the following years Valerio became Pro, in Lampre, on Merida bikes. And thinking about it now… I believe that if Valerio did not solve his postural problems as a Juniores, he could well have given up the races all together. The postural problems are a vital aspect, which is generally far too often underestimated. However, this experience made of Valerio a very attentive racer, who always keeps an eye on all of his bio-mechanic aspects (working closely with me and Sport Physiologist Professor Claudio Gallozzi). We also got him some insoles made specifically for him, made by Orthopaedic Technician Pierpaolo Paoli – together with whom I have been collaborating for years – to correct a slight unbalance in Valerio’s feet support, which, at some point, was causing some tension in his lumbar region.

Valerio Conti signed for Lampre in 2013

We now keep everything under close control and every year we do a bio-mechanic assess of the situation. We then make a plan of action with very specific check-ups; a few meeting sessions that take place directly face to face, but sometimes can also be done just by telephone.

Valerio morphology is rather proportioned for his 172 cm height and fortunately he had never had any particular issue in transfering his riding position across the different bike brands, in the various teams’ changes. At the beginning of each season, we determine which size is the right one for his body, depending on the different bikes. He contacts me as soon as we know which bike he’s given. As soon as we can, we then do a routine check-up, consequently identifying the right components specification (which bars, stem, saddle, cleats, shoes, seatpost, etc.). Every time there is a lot of work to be done, the check-up of the bike is not an easy one and we must do it extremely precisely. For example, Valerio is very sensitive to the position of his cleats, which we therefore verify incredibly scrupulously every time he has a new pair of shoes.

Unfortunately, in his first year with Lampre Valerio had a knee problem, as a consequence of an error made in setting up his saddle by the Team… this is why now we keep everything under a very close eye.

Depending on the different frame geometries, he can vary from a 100mm stem length to 110mm, with top-tubes that vary between 530 and 535 mm, basically a size “S” in general. At the moment, he rides a Colnago vr2, in size 48, sloping, with a 110mm stem.

Over the years I have always pushed Valerio to pay the same attention to the TT position as he has for the road one, as I believe he can be good at TT races, which very important for stages type of racing.

Valerio Conti in Pink under torrential rain, at the Individual-Time-Trial, Riccione – San Marino 34.7 km, on Sunday 19 May 2019

Valerio Conti, 26, became the toast of Italy when he took the pink jersey from Primož Roglič on stage six of this year’s Giro d’Italia

Valerio Conti, fitted by Bio-mechanic Giuseppe, together with a Pink Valerio, at the Giro d’Italia 2019 – The maglia rosa was the ultimate reward for Giannecchini’s efforts.