I haven't read the reference (that I recall) that you cite but I would suggest that, given basic fit principles, Pruitt would land in the same place as a F.I.S.T. certified fitter.

One clear advantage Pruitt has is a medical background and one of the most sophisticated fitting studios in the world. That may not mean his fits are necessarily any different- but it almost certainly suggests his diagnostic capabilities are more complete.

F.I.S.T. isn't anything radical or "contrary" to good fitting. It is specific to riding in the aero posture outside the realm of UCI constraints with the notion of running after completeing the bike ride. In that, it is unique: A fit system intended specifically for multisport riding.

It's likely Pruitt would, given a thorough examination, arrive at a posture similar to a "F.I.S.T." style fitting given the same set of parameters.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

while i'm guessing what you would write would be true of michael sylvester, who created the protocol for the serotta fit school and, subsequently, the classes trek dealers are going through today, i would not say the same for andy pruitt.

i think you have to broadly separate what folks like andy teach for road versus what they teach or advocate (or just assume) for tri. when todd carver was andy pruitt's lead fitter, he said, "i don't see any reason why anyone would need to have an armrest drop of more than 5cm." then, when i asked him about the 12cm drop he advocated for normann stadler when fitting stadler a couple of months ago (todd is now lead fitter for retul), todd said, "today i fit people much closer to what you teach at FIST than how i fit people when i was at BCSM."

i don't mean this to cast aspersions on andy pruitt's fit systems, beliefs, axioms, protocols, in general. but i don't frankly know what sort of "system" andy advocates for fitting triathletes. if you go back to the 1990s, trek and serotta were both of the same view: there is no difference in fit between road and tri; it's all just riding, just slap the aero bars on and ride. now, of course, both companies have stepped way back from this. trek has pretty much come our way entirely.

i think the onus is on specialized, and andy pruitt, and body geometry, to clearly lay out what bike fit for a triathlete is. otherwise, they all ought to come out and say that their system is just a system for road and mtb, and they don't have a system for tri. or, they should say that trek and serotta had it right 15 and 20 years ago, road fit is tri fit.

since this is pretty typically regarded as the single easiest place to address en masse the north american triathlon population on technical issues, i invite specialized, or andy, to explain this for us. how does specialized think folks ought to be positioned aboard its transition line of bikes? is a body geometry equipped and trained retailer prepared to fit a triathlete to a transition? what are the steps to fitting someone to a transition? what are the tools needed? is the protocol published?

here is the body geometry fitting system website. point me to the part that's tri specific.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

The section on tri fitting in the Spec handbook demonstrates a road style tri fit, with no coverage of the possibility of riding steep.

Andy fit me for both my road and TT bikes. His system, at least a few years ago, was very oriented towards road. He still used KOPs (knee over pedal). That being said, if you have any medical problems involving fit he is surely the man to see (at least to see first). I'm a skeletal mess. He fit me well enough on my road bike that I've only made minor adjustments since that time (based on my flexibility and any "fixes" that have happened through physical therapy or surgery). My TT position was comfortable, and I made a reasonable amount of power, but it was not aero in the least and is a work in progress.

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Azby

Hey Folks,

I've read with interest the comments on the different bike fit philosophies and Andy Pruitt's work at BCSM. There is definitely a big difference between a well executed road and triathlon final position for most athletes. I worked with Pruitt to develop the Specialized BG FIT method and have worked with hundreds of our dealers who are interested in helping riders become more comfortable, powerful and injury free.

For the past two years we have taught a Masters level BG FIT class that focuses on Triathlon positioning as well as advanced level physical assessment techniques. We definitely agree with Dan that an athletic triathlete will be most comfortable, powerful and efficient running a position that places their knee significantly forward of the pedal spindle and that requires more drop than they would run on a road bike. There is no doubt that triathlete's needs are different than your standard roadie.

Our fitters are trained to complete an 18 step physical assessment before working with the athlete on their bike. This helps the fitter understand each rider's individual attributes and any limitations. For triathlon fitting we typically set up a neutral position (knee four cm's ahead of the pedal spindle as a starting point) that takes into account a hip flexion measurement taken on the massage table. Other factors, such as hamstring flexibility and shoulder strength play a big role as well. Once the initial position is established, the fitter and athlete can experiment much the way Dan teaches through FIST to determine the most optimal position for comfort and aerodynamics, keeping the desired hip angle in mind. Occasionally we have an rider who ends up close to a neutral road saddle position due fitness limitations or other physical factors, but for fit triathletes the norm is much farther forward.

What makes our BG FIT method unique is the attention that our fitters pay to the riders pedal stroke. Dramatic comfort and power gains are common once factors such as arch support, forefoot wedging and stance width are optimized. The key to these adjustments is the 18 step physical assessment, because changes such as these should not be made without considerable information. Any riders who have suffered IT band pain or other knee issues should seek out one of these professionals.

If you are interested in working with a BG fitter who understands triathletes, look for anyone listed as Master BG Fitter or better yet as one of our Certified fitters. To earn certification, a fitter must have taken both levels of our fit class and completed both a written exam and observed practicum. They are committed to bike fit! Go to specialized.com and click on the dealer locator to find a BG fitter in your area.

Desiree Ficker and Conrad Stolz have both become BG FIT believers this season! Thanks!

Thanks for your post - I think the logical question that follows from it is:

Who is the "we" you refer to?

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Christopher Kautz
Director of Technology, Product Development, and Education
GURU Sports, a division of Cannondale Sports Unlimited

Although I do not the ability or knowledge of either Slowman or Der Hammer I am a recent grad of both the Specialized Fit school (March 2009) and FIST (Feb. 2009) and must acknowledge that both programs are worthy of attending if you have any interest in professional bike fit. Having said that, I use the BG knowledge base in dealing with issues such as leg length differences, cleat placement, knee and back pain, etc. When fitting roadies I never use KOPS, rather I use setback determined by the formulas in conjunction with the aid of The Body Scanning System we use in our store along with reach, drop, and saddle height. When fitting triathletes however, it is strictly FIST all the way. My athletes tell me they are more comfortable, faster, and able to stay aero for the entire bike split. They also feel that they run better off the bike. In other words, the FIST protocol works. For those seeking out an experienced triathlon fitter I would totally recommend a FIST certified fitter, and I strongly feel that every triathlon bike shop should have at least one fitter who has been through the FIST program. Just my 2 cents :)

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"So tell me again, this matters how?"

Left out the word "have" in the very first sentence of my post. Jeez, all those years of college wasted!

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"So tell me again, this matters how?"

You could have snuck the "have" in there with an edit, no problem.

So if we recognize FIST as the preferred/reported/ideal for Triathlon (which i agree with) what is best for a pure TT rider. If a rider has a season planned with no Tri's, and a Regional/State/National championship is not in the future (so not worried about a seat position and extension length measurement) which fit technique will yield a faster TT.

Any takers on that discussion?

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......

Hey Chris,

I guess that was a little elusive...that was my first post to the forum. The "we" is the Specialized team, including engineers, product managers and BG Fit school instructors. Thanks!

Andrew Hammond
SBCU Program Manager

"what is best for a pure TT rider."

i see almost zero difference between the process of fitting a triathlete and a TT rider, except in certain ways it's easier to fit a TTer. i fit a guy over the winter who rides for a U.S.-based team, at the request of a bike company who sponsors that team. he's 6'2", with a saddle height of 82cm (bb to saddle top).

the fit was easy. the saddle was placed 5cm behind the bb, because that's his legal limit and he's not going to get an ME. nose of the saddle to the aerobar shifter pivot was 80cm, because that's the legal limit with an ME, which he will certainly get at his height. armrest elevation drop was expected at 16cm or 17cm because, as a function of seat angle and saddle height that's how it calcs out. i built the bike this way before the rider showed up for his fit session (the bike maker sent me the frame and the parts prior to the fitting, and asked me to build it up in the rider's position).

we went through two hours of fitting, which included a lot of rider self-selected coordinates. when we were done, he expected to have to wait for awhile, so that i could change stem, add or subtract spacers, change the saddle placement, etc., to the already built bike. but i just pointed to the bike and said, "there it is, go home," because, with the UCI rules, you're largely hemmed in. the bike was pre-built to within a couple of millimeters of the position he himself helped choose.

when i set up a roadie it's just like a triathlete. just, when it's over, depending on the ME situation, i'll grab the saddle and pull it out to 5cm behind the bb (i can do that on my fit bikes), while exhorting him not to move his body at all. i then explain that, "you thought you knew what nose riding is, now you really know what nose riding is."

roadies are easy to fit. 3 laps to go in a crit, you jump, you get 50 yards on the pack. can you describe your riding position at that moment? where are you on the saddle? what's the aspect of your back relative to the horizon? what's your cadence? bingo, that's your TT position, let's just put some armrests under your elbows.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I agree with Dan that fitting a roadie to a TT position is easier than dialing in a triathlete. I was involved with fitting the Saxo Bank team to their TT bikes before the Tour of California this year and we started every fit by placing the saddle five centimeters behind the BB. We only had one exception out of 27 TT fits that didn't run at the maximum. The small guys and super tall really suffer...

It sounds like what you're saying is that pure TT fit is easy because UCI rules are so restrictive that you basically have no choice in how to fit. I think what B-Dub is asking is "what's the best way to fit if you don't have to follow any stupid UCI rules and are free to do whatever you want (within reasonable limits of course)?". I'm curious to know the answer to this question as well.

if you're not bound by UCI rules, then there's no difference whatsoever between a tri fit and a tt fit, with this sole exception: the pursuit position for a triathlete has a different purpose, or set of tasks, than it does for a tt rider. so, the spatial relationship between the pursuit contact points of the tt rider is something in elevation closer to the drops, and for the triathlete it's something closer to the elevation of the hoods.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Can you quantify the power portion of this statement? e.g. across a sample of XX dozen or hundred riders, the average sustainable power gain was YY watts?

Hey Dan,

I definitely agree with you on TT fits being relatively easy to achieve given the limited parameters that UCI restrictions present.

In light of that, have you had a chance to play with the new Fizik Ares TT saddle yet? I just got a couple of them and have started to play with them on my set up, and with couple of different athletes, to see what affect they have on set up, or said differently, how much they open up the fit window for a TT rider.

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Christopher Kautz
Director of Technology, Product Development, and Education
GURU Sports, a division of Cannondale Sports Unlimited

"have you had a chance to play with the new Fizik Ares TT saddle yet?"

i have a fizik, i don't remember its name, it's sort of a arione tri 2 that's shorter. but that's not going to be a solution to the UCI problem, because if you were nose riding on the arione and you're now nose riding on this, it's all the same. the only thing that happened is that the back of the saddle is closer to the front of the bike ;-)

but i don't know if this is the saddle you're talking about. the only saddle i know of that, so far, helps "cheat" the UCI regs is the ism adamo. you get about 3cm of cheat. until one of the major saddle companies starts making a saddle like that, or unless one or more of these pro tour teams decides to untie itself from its saddle contract, we won't see any of the big guys using the adamo in a big race.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'll second the adamo. If utilized properly, it can be much more comfortable since it's designed to be "nose-ridden" even though it doesn't have a nose per se. The antares is okay, but like Dan said, it really just brings the back of the saddle a few centimeters closer to where you're actually sitting - I guess it's a tease. However, I will say it works for a bike like the Felt B2/DA, which is shipped with a forward seatpost incapable of getting a regular-length saddle -5cm.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

You can gain from 15 to 50 watts after a good fitting that includes all key variables including cleat position and canting. It is difficult to measure and prove, but I know that after my most recent fitting, I was able to ride comfortably at the front of the pack at our local Wednesday and Saturday club rides with less effort than in the past and was able to make it up hills on my mountain bike that I had to walk up before. My two friends measured 50 watt improvements in a 1/2 mile TT on a computrainer after their last fittings and I got 15 watts, but it actually felt like more than that. Basically, my legs are no longer blocked at really high efforts. They used to bog down at max efforts after a minute or so and now they feel the pain but just keep going.

It is a real advantage that Specialized looks at cleat position and shoes. That is an area that is time consuming and risky to change and so is often overlooked, but it can make a real difference. The key is you need someone who knows what they are doing. (Personally, I would not pay a guy to fit my cleats unless he had had thousands of prior fits in his background.)

-Marc

Do you recognize the inherent contradiction in this? You state that a benefit of a Specialized is that they look at cleats, BUT that you'd only let someone look at your cleats with thousands of prior fits. So how is someone supposed to get the experience of looking at cleats if no one wants someone messing with their cleats unless they have experience? And if experience is the only value, then who cares is Specialized talks about cleats over the course of the BG Fit certification.

As an FYI, we offer a one day clinic with Paul Swift, who pretty much wrote the book on cleats & shims, at about 50% of the workshops. At the other 50%, John Cobb spends a fair amount of time himself going over cleats as well. Do I think there's value in that one day? Yes. But like you said, it's time consuming and risky and requires a lot of time invested. I don't think *any* program can make you an instant expert on cleats.

That's really what, in many ways, makes me very nervous about Specialized & Serotta. They supposedly train you to do all of these assessments. But when you consider the number of hours required to become a physio, or an RMT, or anything else, it absolutely dwarfs what these schools teach. A major part of the reason that Dan & I shy away from ROM assessments is that most people coming to learn to fit simply do not have the background or skills necessary to complete these sort of assessments, and the fact that they complete a practicum and written exam is great, except that you suddenly have someone with a five day primer as experience getting ready to perform the sort of evaluation that I *might* be comfortable letting a trained PT perform. You can't teach someone to be Andy Pruitt in a workshop. And when you start to talk about 18 point assessments, etc., I'm just not sure that's the appropriate direction to run a bike fit course. Of course, that's why Dan and I do what we do, and why the BG folks do what they do.

This is not me saying that I think their way is wrong, just that I disagree somewhat.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

I agree 100% with you on this Jordan. It actually worries me that we have these training courses that teach ROM assesment techniques that take years of classes in PT school, plus extended practicum to master. Someone isnt going to master it after a 3 day course. The majority of people working in bike shops dont have the background in anatomy, kinesiology and biomechanics to understand the background of what they are trying to do. It tends to lead to fitting by rote.
We have somebody who took a "masters" course in fitting to do cleat wedging, but without a proper understanding of the underlying biomechanics the potential is there to make things worse.

Kevin

Exactly. For instance, when you see a "length-length difference" during an assessment, most people with even a small amount of knowledge know that an actual boney difference isn't likely because it's statistcally improbable - it's more likely a pelvic obliquity. There are ways to conduct a further assessment that may indicate whether it's one or the other, but there are few fitters that are both qualified and have access to the medical equipment necessary to make a definitive diagnosis. We could point to issues with the feet that are similarly problematic when it comes to diagnosing causation. My problem with a "Masters" course in bike fitting is that the fitters qualifications can be very misleading. One, it sounds a bit like a degree has been acheived, and two, a week long course does not a fitter make. I would note that while the Specialized employee who posted earlier produced a very impressive list of those involved in the creation of their "system," he failed to mention the prominent role the marketing dept had in the whole thing. Specialized does many things really, really well, and marketing is definitely at the top.

I learn from every fit I conduct. I cringe at one or two of the fits I conducted in the past (hey, Slowman, remember Joe Wiley's B2 fit that I let him talk me into? Uhg.), but I learn from both study and experience. I agree that experience is very necessary, but Jordan is correct that you must get the knowledge somewhere, and fit courses can't cover everything because no two fits are identical. It's a bit of a catch-22, but if a fitter knows his/her limitations, and isn't afraid to acknowledge when they need some outside help, then they can learn along the way - the greater the experience, the greater the fitter, but I believe that only if the fitter has the attitude that it's a constant learning process.

How many fitters still believe women have longer legs and shorter torsos than men? Is it still taught at fit schools? It's a complete myth - the anthropometric data indicates there is no difference between men's and women's legs and torsos and, yet, you hear it all the time in this industry from the very engineers who design women's specific bikes. There is, of course, a difference in reach bewtween men and women, but it's all in the arms and hands. There are many industries that understand this (automobile & kitchen design to name two), the bicycle industry...not so much. I believed the myth too, but education outside of cycling taught me otherwise.

I think a good fitter is someone who competently uses science, technology, and communication to properly fit their clients. Experience can make it an art form when combined with those three keys.

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Jim Manton / ERO Sports

Thanks for the reply but I don't consider a 1/2 mile test to reflect "sustainable" power output.

Hi Rmur,

I threw the data I had into the mix for the benefit of the community. I don't train with power, so my comments about improvement in performance out on rides relative to other riders, or riding up very steep hills touch on sustainable power, but that is the best I can add.

I don't think you are ever going to get great data about these kinds of improvements. For one thing, it takes a few weeks to really settle into a new position. During that time, all sorts of other things can change so you will have control issues.

One test I can think of is for someone with a dialed position do a 2 mile TT, then change their position perhaps by lowering their saddle 1 CM and sliding it back 1 CM, then repeating the effort. Perhaps they could also jack with their cleat settings as well. A few backs to backs might provide food for thought.

Are you hypothesizing that fit is irrelevent or that all fitting systems are equivalent?

-Marc