Bike Fit

djfleming22

I was wondering if anyone has a bike fit recently and did you think it was worth the price and if you thought it made a big difference i don't expect it will make you into a star rider but do you think it did anything .

If anyone has had a bike fit done it in the Glasgow area even up to Stirling it would be great to hear your recommendations i have looked at Velocity 44 in Stirling that uses the Retul systems don't know that much about so again if anyone has some experience of it it would be much appreciated.

zardoz

I had a retul bike fit done a couple of months ago and it made a huge difference to my riding, a few minor physical niggles dissapeared and I immediatly started to ride around 10% faster because I was riding more efficiently. I didn't feel comfortable on the bike before which is why I decided on the fit, some quite big changes were made (saddle up and back, stem shortened cleats re-positioned). For a retul fit you should get a detailed analysis and set of measurements which you can transfer to other bikes.

It didn't make me into a star rider but it made me feel a lot better about riding the bike :-)

drlodge

I had a bike fit by Scheritt at http://www.thebikewhisperer.co.uk/ Very good, I spent 6 hours there. My fit was pretty spot on to start with (which is a good job since I've had a Rourke custom built for me). He went all over my physical situation, measuring up and trying out various exercises. A lot of time was spent on the foot/pedal interface, finally fitting a 4mm shim on the left shoe, and wedges to both shoes (inside at the heel). Stem is now 10mm shorter (120 to 110), saddle rasied by the same amount as the shim, and bars about the same height (unchanged). Felt more "dialled in" and have improved my Strava segment times immediately afterwards.

ricky1980

i had a bike fit about 5 months ago. I can't say i have gotten faster immediately or at all as a result of the bike fit, as I think my increase in speed is due to my increase in fitness. Although you do "feel" you can push harder straight after the fit.

My fit involved shortening the stem significantly and also raising the stem angle as it turned out i have a short torso and thus a short reach. The way i was, i had a fairly out stretched arm. My seatpost also went up and resulted in a more aggressive overall ride position than i went in. But I immediately felt i can push harder with my legs. How much of this is placebo effect, i will leave it to your own judgement.

The main thing i noticed is the small pains are gone and the fact that my legs are less tired over the same period of riding compared to before. So if you ask me if a bike fit has any benefits, i would say "Hell YEAH". If it is going to make you faster immediately, I would say, i doubt it. But it will make you last longer on the bike therefore improve your fitness over time and certainly that will make you go faster at the end.

drlodge

ricky1980 wrote:

The main thing i noticed is the small pains are gone and the fact that my legs are less tired over the same period of riding compared to before. So if you ask me if a bike fit has any benefits, i would say "Hell YEAH". If it is going to make you faster immediately, I would say, i doubt it. But it will make you last longer on the bike therefore improve your fitness over time and certainly that will make you go faster at the end.

+1 Comfort is everything.

jouxplan

drlodge wrote:

I had a bike fit by Scheritt at http://www.thebikewhisperer.co.uk/ Very good, I spent 6 hours there. My fit was pretty spot on to start with (which is a good job since I've had a Rourke custom built for me). He went all over my physical situation, measuring up and trying out various exercises. A lot of time was spent on the foot/pedal interface, finally fitting a 4mm shim on the left shoe, and wedges to both shoes (inside at the heel). Stem is now 10mm shorter (120 to 110), saddle rasied by the same amount as the shim, and bars about the same height (unchanged). Felt more "dialled in" and have improved my Strava segment times immediately afterwards.

+1 for The Bike Whisperer - although it is about as far from Glasgow as is possible

I have had numerous bike fits over the years, all in a desperate desire to solve my right ankle / foot pronation issue. I even flew to USA for a bike fit, I got so desperate! My experience is that you need to be careful who you choose. Much depends on their attitude and on their approach / methodology. If they tell you they are setting the saddle up such that your knee angle is x degrees at the bottom of the stroke and / or they measure the length of your leg and stuff that into a formulae that says your saddle height must be y mm, etc, then be very, very wary. Such formulaic approaches may work for Joe Average, but will be potentially disastrous for everyone else.

Last year I discovered Steve Hogg's incredible website, which contains a ton of information about bike fit. This is a particularly interesting article http://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/blog/2011/02/seat-height-how-hard-can-it-be/ and I found it a revelation. I then devoured the rest of his website, and began to apply his principles to my own bike fit. The results were immediate - much more power, much more fluid in the pedal stroke, much more comfort and suddenly able to ride 100 miles without feeling particularly shattered. It was a religious experience for me - I had almost given up cycling.

I then discovered that Steve Hogg had trained only 3 or 4 other fitters in the world (Steve is in Australia btw). It turned out that Sheritt at The Bike Whisperer in UK was one of them. I was overjoyed. I visited him last September, to see if I had applied Steve Hogg's ideas correctly. Sheritt spent hours just on the pedal / cleat interface - it was incredible. Anyway, long story short - I had pretty much got it all spot on. I am more comfortable and powerful today, aged 48, then I ever was in my racing days, 20 years ago. It is an incredible feeling.

Read the Steve Hogg site, find someone in Scotland who also believes in the Hogg principles. Frankly, get in your car and drive down to London and see Sheritt - worth every penny of the fit, and the journey, if you ask me

drlodge

And one more thing - a bike fit with Sheritt is a totally enjoyable experience. Nice coffee and great pizza from down the road!

jouxplan

drlodge wrote:

And one more thing - a bike fit with Sheritt is a totally enjoyable experience. Nice coffee and great pizza from down the road!

Pah! I never got a pizza!!! But the coffee is indeed epic

drlodge

jouxplan wrote:

drlodge wrote:

And one more thing - a bike fit with Sheritt is a totally enjoyable experience. Nice coffee and great pizza from down the road!

Pah! I never got a pizza!!! But the coffee is indeed epic

I was there for the whole day (10-5) with 2 bikes, hence the pizza

spasypaddy

having now been to the bike whisperer and to Le Beau Velo they do very different things.

I had my fit with Scherrit a few years ago and he spent a long time with my shoes and cleats. Then a while checking saddle height and reach and stuff. Great service.

Went to Le Beau Velo last week when I got my TT bike and they spent ages measuring me (scherrit didnt), working on my flexibility and eventually dropped my saddle by 2cms (id set it to the same height as Scherrit). I walked away with a different position, and loads of stretches to transform my riding. They worked out my position by doing flexibility tests and then using angle gauges.

However they didn't touch the front end of my bike (but they did check it was ok) as when we moved the saddle it fixed the reach issue they thought i had.

They got rid of the roll my hips were doing by lowering the saddle and correcting my position.

They didn't look at my shoe and cleats though.

I feel more comfortable with the drop in saddle and have since dropped my commuter to match the height on the TT bike.

They mentioned that if someone had been to Scherrit and then to them, then they always found they had to drop the saddle.

Its tough to say which one i prefer as both experiences were very good.

Le Beau Velo is cheaper and their wait list isn't insane. I havent been to Scherrit since his prices have almost doubled since I last went.

djfleming22

Thanks for all the feedback its has been very useful .. i like the sound of both bike fitters but both of them are a quite a distance away and i would prefer a bit closer and travelling from Glasgow to London would be very costly nearly the same price as the bike fits and i am not nearly making enough wages to justify the cost at the moment... unless those numbers come up lol.... but again thanks to all will probably go down the Retul route

ricky1980

retul is fine, as long as the bloke doing it has experience in fitting people onto bikes. I haven't had retul, but i can;t imagine it will fit your cleat position properly, so that will still need manual position by eye and trial and error and a lot of pedalling on a turbo and the fitter asking you how you feel. make sure that happens.

also at any stage if the computerised fit isn't comfortable at any point (ride on it for like 10-15min) then let them know where the paint and discomfort is. so hopefully they can then adjust your ride position up a bit to give it a more relaxed position.

josehernandez

djfleming22 wrote:

Thanks for all the feedback its has been very useful .. i like the sound of both bike fitters but both of them are a quite a distance away and i would prefer a bit closer and travelling from Glasgow to London would be very costly nearly the same price as the bike fits and i am not nearly making enough wages to justify the cost at the moment... unless those numbers come up lol.... but again thanks to all will probably go down the Retul route

Where did you end up getting your bike fit ?