I bought #Rinnie last year for this season. She is a rather
sublime Planet X Exocet 2 in matt black. After I bought her I had a bike fit
but never truly settled in a comfortable position.
I spent most of this season tweaking my position to something
I could withstand for a sprnt distance event. I thought my positioning was okay
until at Brigg Triathlon when someone commented about my wandering left knee.
There’s even a photo showing my left knee in another postcode to me and my
bike.
After more tweaking ahead of Drax, I thought I had corrected
my knee. Yay. However in doing so I lost all semblance of comfort that I had
managed to obtain. Boo.
Enough was enough. After much deliberation, I decided I
needed another bike fit. After spending many hours perusing the internet and
asking for people’s recommendations. I decided to take a trip to Cannock to
visit Bridgtown Bike and their level 3 fitter Mike Taylor.
Mike has fitted many top athletes including Chrissie
Wellington and Tom Lowe and now he would be fitting me. I booked my appointment
for a Saturday (yes they can fit in around your work) at 10am and made my way
down to Cannock.
As soon as I sat down with Mike, I felt at ease and knew I
had made the right decision. We talked about everything from my hip (the pin
which I suspected was the root cause of my wandering knee) to my past life as a
sedentary being. After about half an hour, Mike started to take some
measurements starting with my feet, then loking at my cycling shoes and
watching me walk and testing ankle flexibility before I was finally allowed to
unveil my knee issue.
After cycling on the turbo, Mike immediately saw the problem
(it wasn’t hard to miss) and said he knew how to fix it. HOORAY. Mike said e
has to correct this problem about twice a year. Great trust my body. The
problem was (drumroll please.........................) I have a wide stance.
A what?
A wide stance? Yes I know I have knocked knees but I didn’t
know I had a wide stance and a high “Q Factor”.
Because of this, my feet when clipped to the bike and being
forced out of their natural position and being forced inwards which was causing
my knees to track outwards.
Mike fitted some spacers to my bike, between my pedals and cranks
and told me to give them a go.He also had to fit some new pedals as the Look pedals
on #Rinnie had the wrong fitting for the spacers.
After I got back on, my wandering knee was not wandering as
much as it had been. Hooray.
Following some more iterations to my position including
altering saddle, altering cleats lowering saddle, Mike then fitted some “shims”
in my shoe underneath my insoles and for once I could feel where I was or was
not applying pressure through the pedal stroke.
My knees now piston up and down rather than doing the Hokey
Cokey. He gave me an exercise to do to relieve the tension in my back which has
plagued me this season and resulted in numerous trips to the Physio to relieve
the pain in my feet.
Mike then watched my pedal some more and was amazed at the
differences he had made to my position and power output in the 3 hours. I felt
so much more comfort on #Rinnie and didn’t have the aching quads I have become
accustomed to.
My quads have been aching when
pedalling because Mike theorises I have only been using a percentage of each
(of the 4) quad muscle when pedalling because my knees have been tracking in
and out rather than acting like pistons.
Because Mike paid attention to the unique biomechanics of
me, I was so relieved and the level of service was second to none. During my
previous fit, it was a bike fit by numbers and although I was fitted, I wasn’t
comfy. Mike looked at everything from the ground up and I am hoping that the
changes he made will allow some significant improvement in my bike splits next
year. He was amazed I have managed to go so quick considering I had such a poor
position. Brute force and ignorance does have its uses.
Now I just have to get used to this new position over the
winter before the first triathlon of next year.
Mike said I can go back to Bridgtown in the spring for a
follow up and he will further tweak my position to enable me to get the best
out of my bike.
Considering that when I went to Bridgtown I had convinced myself
I would have to trade #Rinnie in for a different bike as she wouldn’t fit me, I
was pleased to be leaving with a bike which I finally feel comfortable on and
only a small dent to the wallet (pedals, spacers and bike fit).
I can’t praise Mike enough. His demeanour was superb and he
instantly made me feel at ease and he listened to me before using his vast
knowledge (of biomechanics and cycling) to give me a bike fit which was
personalised to me. Thanks Mike
Thanks for reading,
Michael
