Bike Fit: how to catch those sneaky intruders

We invest much time and money searching for a good bike-fitting session and a competent bio-mechanic who will be able to help to improve our position… Too often we take for granted what happens "afterwards" and very often issues can arise. It's like looking at ourselves in the mirror one day and suddenly we don't see that 'new amazing look' we had after the fitting session… where has it gone? How do we get it back again and more importantly how do we maintain it over time?

Pro-Tour bio-mechanic Giuseppe Giannecchini explains

If the position wasn't perfect it's most likely you would have found out in the first period of long distance outings. We are not talking here about the normal postural adaptation period, which can present some temporary issues, especially if the changes of the bike fit have been quite drastic. What we are talking about are problems that arise after, for example, an entire race season (of approx. 20,000 miles) in which everything was fine and then suddenly a new problem arises. So what is the cause? I haven't changed anything.

Unfortunately, there are very sneaky enemies that are hiding behind every corner of our favourite sport. They are 'external' mechanical and physical factors, sometimes these can be right front of our eyes but haven’t noticed them.

Taking nothing for granted, let's proceed with methodical order, to unmask these problems, in the following 4 categories:

1. Mechanical alteration of the riding position setup - a component moved (saddle height, setback and angle - handlebars position, shifters / levers - cleats):

This is actually very common, even if is not obvious. It often happens during a ride, because of a bump or a harsh movement, or because some nuts were not tightened to the right torque. It can happen when loading the bike into the car, or because of a fall; a component moves and gets out of place. It is therefore important to ALWAYS check the bike before an outing. It's ideal to put marks in all the vital component positions, i.e. saddle rails, seatpost, stem / handlebars, and levers. Always check the cleats too, they can easily move away from the 'perfect' position, causing direct pain to our knees and calves (cleats wear out easily and when they do they change the feet position on the pedals). 

As an example, I was recently doing check up on a rider who came for a bike fit two years earlier: the position we had originally achieved during the session was just perfect; performances improved, as well as longer time spent on the saddle being very comfortable, which consequently pushed him to higher milage and level of fitness. But the rider said; "Lately I don't quite feel so efficient…" Everything seemed as it should be at first glance and I was scratching my head, but after analysing all the angles sequences, I found out the culprit: the handlebars had rotated just a tiny degree clockwise, probably because of a bump on the road, taking the levers downwards and away from the rider's hands, by 1cm. This, as a consequence, pushed everything else out of place: all contact points were out of their precise balance, the pelvis out of the saddle position, the knees too far forward in relation to the pedals.

2. Mechanical alteration of the riding position setup, a component was replaced (i.e. shoes, cleats, saddle, handlebars, groupset, cranks, pedals, frame):

All of us sooner or later fancy a new component; upgrading saddle, bars, a new pair of shoes, a new model of pedals, or even a new frame. Perhaps it's just to shave 100 grams off our "Specialissima", or to emulate our favourite Pro who uses a particular component. That’s fine, of course, but we need be able to recreate our position with different components, bearing in mind that different components have different shapes and dictate different measurements and setups. It is vital to do any component swap with the maximum care, making sure these components are suitable for us and our position beforehand, and then to fit them correctly. Different components may require a different fitting, in order to respect our position's setup. Asking the bike-fitter who originally did the setup is always a good idea, otherwise we may well find ourself riding 'someone else's bike' without realising. So many times I receive this type of call out of the blue: "I am not comfortable any more, I suddenly developed a neck pain and my knees ache, but the bike is still the same, I haven't changed anything". I tend to ask: "Are you sure you haven't change a single component?" and the answer is frequently: "Well, I have swapped saddle, but set it up at the same saddle height as before and also setback"…Often it turns out that the saddle is a different model and not even fitted perfectly flat, but with the tip pointing upwards. This is very dangerous because it causes pain to the perineum area, hands and arms and can even degenerate into an inflamed prostate.

3. Alteration of the riding position setup, because of physical changes, which can be post traumatic, or deterioration of the postural balance, or increase / decrease of body weight.

A normal fall can cause visible damage to the skin and superficial bruising, but there can also be some invisible injuries to our joints and / or pelvis rotations. Furthermore, our posture is always changing, especially when we change the amount of sedentary work we do, spend more or less time on the bike, etc. All of this will cause changes to the fine balance between our bike setup and our body setup. In this case, it's a job for a specialist in this sector, such as a physiotherapist, osteopath or chiropractor; a postural check up is the way to go… it is in fact our bones and muscles that need to be sorted out, rather than starting to fiddle randomly with the allen key on our bikes!

4. Alteration of the riding position setup, because of physical changes, due to training errors:

Last but not least: the wrong exercise practice and work load. Wrongly executed ratio between power and endurance, or wrongly assigned to us in the first place. This can undoubtedly cause serious damages to joints (especially knees) and back, as well as too heavy workloads and too long riding sessions for us, disproportionate to our level of fitness, or executed too quickly, in a non-gradual, progressive way. Also, any long interruption of sport activities will bring changes to our body, once we return to exercise. 

The purpose of this piece is to highlight one absolutely vital point:  we must always remember that a bike rider finds himself in a sort of "closed circuit dynamic condition", which is determined and maintained by the mutual relationships of saddle-handlebars-pedals (metatarsus, via the cleats). Every slight variation of just a single one of these dynamic points will impact on all the others, as a chain-reaction. As a consequence, this affects the angles in which the muscles and joints of our body must work and the whole of our postural equilibrium, causing (superficially unthinkable) physical problems.

Giuseppe Giannecchini is a ProTour bike fitter / bio-mechanic, you canbook a fitting session on your existing bike(s) with us, at Racer Rosa Bicycles, in East London, E17. For enquiries about dates: hello@racerrosabicycles.co.uk or call 020719 37047.