you should come by booth 4575 and see the BioBike. It has the potential to turn the typical 3 hour fitting into a 20-30 minute fitting while giving improved results. This would greatly increase your productivity. First day comments by those who saw it have been uniformly extremely positive despite the price ranging from $15 to $30k.
you should come by booth 4575 and see the BioBike. It has the potential to turn the typical 3 hour fitting into a 20-30 minute fitting while giving improved results. This would greatly increase your productivity. First day comments by those who saw it have been uniformly extremely positive despite the price ranging from $15 to $30k.
You’ve got to be kidding that a typical fitting takes 3 hours.
Far out - what is it with you Americans. Hey, I’ve got a potion I keep in a bottle and I’ve called it Snake Oil. It costs $10000 a bottle and I guarantee it will do whatever you want it to. You just tell me what you want it to do and I’ll put it on the outside of the bottle. Or maybe I’ll invent a crank that unless you apply pressure to it the whole revolution it won’t work properly and I’ll tell people that it improves their performance by , oh gee, I don’t know, um, 40% how about that. Yeah that will do. So who’s interested?? Call now!!!
Looks like a rip off Argon 18’s ASF bike tool -
.
you should come by booth 4575 and see the BioBike. It has the potential to turn the typical 3 hour fitting into a 20-30 minute fitting while giving improved results. This would greatly increase your productivity. First day comments by those who saw it have been uniformly extremely positive despite the price ranging from $15 to $30k.
You’ve got to be kidding that a typical fitting takes 3 hours.
Far out - what is it with you Americans. Hey, I’ve got a potion I keep in a bottle and I’ve called it Snake Oil. It costs $10000 a bottle and I guarantee it will do whatever you want it to.
Oh yeah, this is an American thing. WTF are you talking about? There are plenty of gullible idiots in every country of the world. It has nothing to nationality. Let’s tone down the xenophobia, huh?
So, do you do lots of bike fits? Are you at Interbike? Are you going to the booth to see the BioBike? You know… just to keep the thread on topic!
So, do you do lots of bike fits? Are you at Interbike? Are you going to the booth to see the BioBike? You know… just to keep the thread on topic!
I’ve done bike fits, but me aside. I know dozens of coaches, biomechanists, sports scientists, physiotherapists, you name it you got it - I know heaps of people with various opinions and qualifications that do bike fits - NONE of them would ever take 3 hours - including the changing out of different length stems, trialling of different seats etc…
I just can’t imagine how it could possibly take 3 hours to fit somebody on a bike.
Just cracks me up that people would even have a spare 3 hours to spend on getting a fit done, not less how much somebody would charge you for 3 hours of their time.
hmm nothing like 15-30K for a bike fit, I would rather spend 300 dollars and take 3 hours
.
I’m just curious…do you think that the pros take less than 3 hours to get a bike fit done…if you do than you are sorely mistaken.
I’m just curious…do you think that the pros take less than 3 hours to get a bike fit done…if you do than you are sorely mistaken.
Are you talking about pros getting fit in the wind tunnel or fit onto their bikes.
I think you’d be sorely mistaken or perhaps only know of a few select pro’s if you think they’d spend 3 hours getting fit to their bike. Maybe 3 hours accumilated over a year or two.
Folks, bike fitting isn’t the mythical art that some folks around here want you to believe. Heck, it isn’t rocket surgery if a someone with no other qualifications other then a bicycle shop owner can go and learn it in a weekend.
There are exceptions that take some time RARELY - oh but here we go again - everyone wants to think they’re the exception - they’re the special case that needs special attention…
This is a triathlon thing … sorry about the American comment - it is a triathlon thing.
Okay…so…What are your credentials?..besides knowing lots of people…what is your role in the tri community and how do you have all this amazing experience to make such claims
.
Okay…so…What are your credentials?..besides knowing lots of people…what is your role in the tri community and how do you have all this amazing experience to make such claims
You don’t need credentials to have an opinion.
My credentials are irrelavent anyway.
The fact is, if people bothered to do a little research (including people doing bike fits) they’d find that bike fitting is a pretty simple task and that once you get the basics down pat (takes about 15 minutes) everything else is refinement for performance and can be done by the athlete themselves - that is, if they know how to use and allen key. But the most important thing is fit for getting the correct frame size and avoiding injury - that takes around a quarter of an hour unless of course there is one of those exceptions that shows up - we’d all love to think we’re an exception!!!
Unless you are going to the wind tunnel of course and really chasing performance, power/aero ratios etc etc.
Okay…so…What are your credentials?..besides knowing lots of people…what is your role in the tri community and how do you have all this amazing experience to make such claims
You don’t need credentials to have an opinion.
My credentials are irrelavent anyway.
Spoken like a person who probably doesn’t have any. I’m just sayin’…
so, you basically just admitted that you are completely full of poo.
Okay…so…What are your credentials?..besides knowing lots of people…what is your role in the tri community and how do you have all this amazing experience to make such claims
You don’t need credentials to have an opinion.
My credentials are irrelavent anyway.
Spoken like a person who probably doesn’t have any. I’m just sayin’…
hahaha, that’s going to be hilarious when I tell the athletes tomorrow!!!
Okay…so…What are your credentials?..besides knowing lots of people…what is your role in the tri community and how do you have all this amazing experience to make such claims
You don’t need credentials to have an opinion.
My credentials are irrelavent anyway.
Spoken like a person who probably doesn’t have any. I’m just sayin’…
hahaha, that’s going to be hilarious when I tell the athletes tomorrow!!!
Were they here, they would undoubtedly say the same.
A shop would have to do a lot of bike fits to justify 15-30
.
A shop would have to do a lot of bike fits to justify 15-30
Folks, all I can say is everyone who came by yesterday who had any kind of serious bike fit business seemed very impressed and very interested despite the cost. But, this thread is totally ST, lots of negative comments by people who have never even seen the product.
Whatever, come by in you are interested.
There’s nothing negative about what I said. It’s a dose of reality. For a business decision any new piece of equipment would have to pay for itself by bringing in more bike fit customers than the shop gets already. If the customer flow remains the same with the new equipment, then why bother paying 15-30 K. In this economy a lot of bike shops aren’t raking in the big bucks so this kind of a purchase may be hard to justify.
It almost sounds like more of your usual self promotion. Do you have money invested in this or something?
There’s nothing negative about what I said. It’s a dose of reality. For a business decision any new piece of equipment would have to pay for itself by bringing in more bike fit customers than the shop gets already. If the customer flow remains the same with the new equipment, then why bother paying 15-30 K. In this economy a lot of bike shops aren’t raking in the big bucks so this kind of a purchase may be hard to justify.
It almost sounds like more of your usual self promotion. Do you have money invested in this or something?
All I can tell you is those same business people you speak of, who have actually seen the bike, seemed very high on it despite knowing the cost. Time is money, at least some people think so.
Just did roughly my 150th fit of the year. Took about 2.5 hours which is slightly longer than average for me but I have done many that reach the 3 hour mark. This one was fairly typical of what I see. The athlete had spent significant time reading here and other places regarding proper tri bike fit. He had spent more than 15 minutes over a few months with an allen wrench as well. He had purchased a fairly high end bike from a local dealer and been given the “quick and dirty” fit treatment at the shop at time of purchase.
He was a mess when he got here. Cockpit was 8cm longer than his seat height which was already 2cm too high at least. Those were his major issues. He was trying to get lower which was compunding his problems. He was also trying to fix chronic neck and back pain with no luck. It was getting worse. His cleats were in different places on his shoes by .5cm He is an orthoscopic surgeon BTW.
Here is what I did for him.
Started with general questions. How long biking, what race distance, how competitive, longest rides, injury history, comfort issues, what do you expect from me today,
Started with seat height.
- took an inseam barefoot and plugged it into the Lemond formula, done twice
- took a distance from floor to head of trochanter in bike shoes and used the .95-.97 ROT, done on both legs
- put him on the bike and eyeballed it. Took 2 seconds…way high.
- Put the goniometer to him anyway. Knee angle close to 170 degrees.
- Moved the seat down a good bit.
- Repeated eyeball and goniometer.
Bumped him around a little bit within a 1.5cm range until he felt great and I agreed he looked good and goniometer read right on 150 degrees for both legs. Measured STA at 76 degrees with smartool. Left that for now. Tip of saddle -3cm
Cockpit distance, a little simpler. I gave him a quick 5 minute primer on the history of aerobars, tri bike geometry, FIST fitting, Dan Empfield and the cool ROT of cockpit length generally being within a cm of seat height for the majority of riders. This lead me perfectly into taking his cockpit way back (9cm) in one shot and we talked about it a lot though we ended up never moving it again. Seat height 80cm, cockpit 81cm.
Next we played around with drop. He had plenty of spacers under the stem and 7cm of drop when he came in. We played around for 15-20 minutes going lower, lower, lower until he cried uncle then we went back up and repeated the process. Did this using all spacers as well as flipping the stem a few times. Stressed to him the importance of his subjective feel at this point. If you feel more powerful with a given drop, I tend to trust that,* *if it looks within reason and fits into the formula of calculating proper range of drop from seat height and STA. Available on this site.
At this point, given the significant changes in cockpit length and drop we went back and re-addressed seat height, dropping it another 2-3mm.
Pad spacing was next as he had went very wide in an attempt to alleviate his back issues. This was the only place he had found any success but he was about 2 inches wider than his legs from the frontal view and really looking like a track rider who needs those wide bars to really use the upper body. So we went narrower to just barely put those arms in a position to shield the legs and no wider. This looked great to me but hurt his back. Instead of going wider I decided to give him a little bit of up angle to the extensions which he was amazed that it provided immediate relief to his upper back. About 10 degrees, though we tried a little less as well as much more before settling on the moderate 10 degrees.
At this point he was vastly improved position wise and immensely more comfortable in the bars. So I sent him on his way right? No. What we then did was get him off the bike and bring the seat forward to what I felt was a more appropriate 79 degrees of STA and make the other adjustments necessary to height, cockpit distance etc. Put him back on and repeated most of the process. Obviously it went much faster this time through. He ended up liking the 79 degree position more and I explained how it could help him get lower while preserving his hip angle and possibly shift some of the load off of the hamstrings to maybe improve his run off the bike. Saddle tip -1cm.
Next were the cleats. I started by just bringing them as far back as the cleats would allow as this is a quick and dirty way to get them in the same place. Put him on the bike and had him pedal up to threshold intensity as I do for most of these adjustments and see if he noticed a difference. He did and he liked it, so we moved on and I set up a handy dandy Craftsman laser level on a tripod to take a look at his knee tracking. He was definitely showing some knee dive towards the inside on the downstroke so I questioned him about any joint issues he felt and also as to where he would feel pressure on the bottom of his foot as he pedaled. He said he never thought about it but now that I asked he felt more pressure on the outside of his feet and would get some numbness issues during longer rides. Took off his cleats and stacked two big meat wedges on both shoes to give him a little lift on the inside and straighten the knee out. As is usally the case, they worked like a charm. Knees tracked almost perfect and the foot pressure he was experiencing equalized across the bottom of the foot.
I had him ride this new postion for 10 minutes at tempo/threshold to get a feel for it while I talked to him about the things he could consciously do with his body while riding this positon to optimize his aerodynamics. The big three… turtle, shrug and knees in. I explained how these were trainable and not necessarily sustainable all the time. I talked to him about how to use these techniques tactically in a race and how, to quote, “the fastest triathletes and TT’ers in the world work very hard to make the unnatural, natural.” I put some extra emphasis on the importance of adpating the neck to this position.
Finshed by letting him know that we might need to tweak a few things after he experienced the new postion on some longer rides and he was welcome to schedule some time in the future to have me take another look. This is included with all of my fits. Cost - $125 (soon to go up)
I will commonly discuss other aspects of the bike leg or TT’ing during my fits particularly hydration systems and what I consider to be the big three of equipment choices…wheels, tires and aerohelmets
Not sure if I could do this type of fitting in 15 minutes and I am curious as to how and what goes on in one of your 15 minute fits and if this type of work is common in your country? Not sure to what post I responded but that question is directed towards the Dymanic Duo.
I certainly don’t think bike fitting is “rocket surgery” (whatever that may entail), nor do I find it as simple as a game of tic-tac-toe. Probably somewhere in the middle. I have enough experience to say that left to their own devices most people will not get it right. Most are lucky to get close. You can, given enough time and effort, figure it out. This website has probably helped many ordinary athletes do just that. Those that do figure it out oftentimes use their personal experience as evidence that professional bike fitting is a scam akin to snake oil. But if they make the effort to really sum up all the time involved and put a $$ amount on how much their time is worth, I think most people will find that it saves far more than it costs. And there are bad bike fitters for sure. But snake oil? Pretty harsh indictment I think.
Ultimately, the athlete I fit this morning will be faster, more aero, more comfortable and more powerful on his bike and consequently enjoy his riding and racing more. He thinks his money was well spent. What do YOU think?
Dave Luscan
www.endorphinfitness.com
Final thought… some of my memory of the above fit numbers may not be perfect. Cut me some slack with the nit-picking ok.