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Shimano Fit Bike Question
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The Shimano fit bike system that's going to be available....well, someday, is interesting. I agree that information about pedal forces especially those in the medial-lateral planes would be a big aid. From what I read, I *think* the crank is measuring power via strain gauges a la quarq, SRM, or Stages -- not sure exactly where they've embedded the strain gauges themselves. And I'm assuming that additional strain gauges in the pedal itself are measuring all the tangential forces there -- and I assume those pedals are Shimano pedals?

Shimano keeps talking about offering fit studios a "brand neutral" fit product so we can stock and sell whatever brands work for us. Sounds like they mean a "frame manufacturer neutral" product -- I'm not sure how useful this, admittedly, great technology would be if it only works as long as the client rides Shimano pedals. If you are a fitter who works a lot with stance width, insoles, speedplay custom spindles, how likely are you to use this?

I hope I'm wrong and any pedal can be used....anyone set me straight here?

Thanks
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [john_dub] [ In reply to ]
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i think they mean about both bikes and pedals. in fact, i don't get the sense they'll prescribe pedals by brand. rather by metrics. i asked them, i said, there are typical fixes for certain problems. for example, if your knee tracks out at the top of the pedal stroke, and you don't want it to track out, the fix, at least one fix, is to grow the stance width.

the answer: yup.

okay, so, one way to do that is with variable length pedal spindles. shimano just came out with its 2nd pedal spindle length. meanwhile, speedplay has 50mm, 53, 56, 59, 65. so, seems to me speedplay has solutions to prescriptions that might flow from the shimano system, while shimano might not yet have sufficient solutions.

the answer: yup.

in the short term, such an approach might not seem to be in shimano's best interest. but in the long term, if they actually use the data to inform new product design, if you take the long view, this could be a short term, small, loss in order to reap a longer term much larger gain, as long as the product side pays attention to the data gained thru the fit initiative.

on bikes, yes, it would have to be ecumenical. what brands would shimano not return as complete bike solutions? which among of its customers would it want to completely dis?

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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I agree, that Shimano is looking long term to have this new data inform product development of shoes, pedal options and construction, semi-custom insoles etc. Makes sense.

A more fundamental question though: if a client walks into my studio and I'd like to use this pedal-interface assessment technology on them they're going to have to have Shimano SPD-R cleats on their shoes. If that's their pedal of choice right now, then great, we're in the clear. If not, I'm going to have to remove their current cleats and fit SPD-Rs on there or I do without this feature.

I'm wondering how many clients are going to go into a fitting understanding and being okay with completely changing their pedal choice?

I know we could assess them on Shimano pedals and then try to apply the fixes to their pedal of choice, but that brings up another can of worms with the differences in the tolerances to movement, lateral and otherwise, of the different pedal systems. Also from a standpoint of trying to streamline and increase the accuracy AND speed of a bike fit, this certainly slows the process down with having to undo and re-set cleats a few times.

Love the idea, but I'm still trying to come to grips with the logistics in my head.....
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [john_dub] [ In reply to ]
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"I'm wondering how many clients are going to go into a fitting understanding and being okay with completely changing their pedal choice?"

doesn't matter. the job is to say, for an optimized pedal stroke, you want a stance width of, say, 260mm instead of the more typical 251mm to 255mm (for road). here's the way you do it, if what you want is optimized. if it's not optimized, here's how far you can get away from optimized and it's still okay. if you want optimized, here's are the options, mechanically, to get there. you give him the facts. he makes the choice. i'm the truth teller, not the pep club.

it's way worse for them when we inform them that based on the fit their bikes don't work.

Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
doesn't matter. the job is to say, for an optimized pedal stroke, you want a stance width of...........you give him the facts. he makes the choice. i'm the truth teller, not the pep club.

No, I get that. Already have to do that all too regularly.

What I'm trying to nail down is that the Shimano bike has instrumented Shimano pedals, right? If I have a client that currently rides Speedplay or even Crank bros. though, to use the testing rig I'd have to change their cleats and/or shoes prior to the fit. Okay, not a huge deal (at least for the cleats) but a bit of a drag on time.

So we complete the fit and let's assume we've done some cleat adjusting (let's say some wedging to the shimano cleats) that have nicely mitigated some aberrant cleat/pedal interface movement that we found on first inspection.

Given that pedals of different flavors allow for a different degree and quality of movement, the changes we've made to the (Shimano) pedals may have little or no bearing on changes made to a pair of Speedplays (when I've helped a client switch to a new style pedal, there have been numerous times when their cleat adjustments have changed as well). And there would be no way to verify that changes would carry over to their pedals.

If a change in stance width of a few millimeters is what it takes to be optimized then controlling for changes in pedal type would need to be at least as important.

The only way to be sure that their cleat/pedal fit and therefore bike fit is optimized is to have them leave on Shimano pedals. That's all I'm saying.

And I'm not sure how Shimano would be able to write the software to recommend pedal and cleat solutions that are outside of what shimano can currently support with real world product. I mean, its one thing if the Wizard recommends some varus wedging -- varus wedges can be placed under the cleat and it can be retested and verified (and hopefully uploaded to shimano's database to inform on future fit solutions and product development). I'm curious how they'll handle something specifically like stance width, more importantly when optimal stance width is wider or narrower than a current shimano pedal system can support. Since there's no way to test for it (at least for now until shimano creates some variable spindle lengths) I don't know how they're going to create software to support solutions like that when they can't be verified.

I don't know....my programming knowledge is limited. But it'll be interesting to see how this all hashes out....

John Weirath
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [john_dub] [ In reply to ]
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"What I'm trying to nail down is that the Shimano bike has instrumented Shimano pedals, right?"

i don't know about that. when i was at interbike i did not see a demo. when i saw the system, pre-interbike, at shimano, it did not include a demo. but i did not get the sense that you had to do anything but thread your own pedal, of whatever make, into the crank. i may well be wrong.


Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [Slowman] [ In reply to ]
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Slowman wrote:
but i did not get the sense that you had to do anything but thread your own pedal, of whatever make, into the crank. i may well be wrong.

Interesting, if that's the case that would be fantastic. I've never seen a system that renders the type of information I think they're planning to render without a specifically instrumented pedal (I.e. in the lab I've seen great info come from one-off pedals the engineers created for a study, but of course to get that info you had to use that pedal). If all you have to do is take a client's pedal of choice and thread it on their crank, that would definitely be a game changer....

Okay, I'll shut up now.

John Weirath
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Re: Shimano Fit Bike Question [john_dub] [ In reply to ]
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John, I did see a demo of the Shimano fit bike at Interbike and Dan is correct that you can use any pedal on their fit bike. The strain gauges are all located in the crank and not in the pedals. It will be interesting to see what Shimano has up their sleeves before the final fit bike is released.

Brian Jacobson
Fit2Ride Velo Studio
http://www.fit2ridevelo.com
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