The Bike Fit

Cyclists in Colorado are fortunate for a lot of reasons: great roads, great cycling community, great competition, great weather (70+ in November!?), etc... We're also fortunate to live close to arguably the best bike fitting facility in the world, the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine, including one of the foremost experts (if not THE foremost expert) in the field, Andy Pruitt.

I've been meaning to get a bike fit for a while, but I just recently moved it up to the top of my priority list. I'm not suffering from anything really painful on the bike, but I've noticed some abnormalities that I'm afraid could turn into long term pains (like a clicking that occurs some times in my right knee, for example). My hope with the bike fit was to make the effort to prevent overuse injuries so I don't have to nurse wounds later.

Andy Pruitt is understandably high in demand, and when I originally called last week to schedule my appointment, the first available appointment was in January. Since you're reading this, you probably figured out that I didn't have to wait until January. A couple days after I made my appointment, I got a call about an opening due to a cancellation. (Note to self: It's a good idea to be very nice with the scheduling person, so that they'll call you when there's a cancellation :) )

The first thing Andy did when he came into the exam room was have me stand there while he looked me up and down and said things like “hmmm”, “uh-huh”, and “okay”. It’s a little odd to stand around in spandex and have someone checking you out, but it’s comforting to know that he’s looked at thousands of cyclists in the same way and he knows what the heck he’s looking for.

Apparently I have a really wide forefoot and a really narrow heel. No wonder it’s so damn hard to find shoes. If my shoes fit the heel, then they’re too tight for the forefoot. If they fit the forefoot, my heels slip. I also learned about the way my foot naturally lands and how that effects my cycling shoes.

After Andy was done poking at me, he sent me to get x-rays of my knees. The results showed that my knee caps are rotated slightly out. It doesn’t sound like it’s a big deal, but it helped him decide what changes he wanted to make to my shoes.

From there, it was on to the motion capture studio where we hooked up with biomechanist Todd Carver. This is where it gets pretty cool. They set my bike up on a stationary trainer and had me ride for a little while to warm up. Then they started cranking up the resistance until I was at about 70% of my maximum perceived effort level. The goal is to put your bones and muscles under normal stress levels because they move differently than if I was soft pedaling.

After I was fully warmed up, they stuck a bunch of little globes to me. Above my head and all around my bike were 6 infrared cameras that could “see” these little globes. They had me ride some more and they took both a video and a motion capture of my movements. Then they have some fun software that puts it all together and you get to see a stick figure representation of yourself pedaling. It’s really pretty cool. The software calculates your angles at various points of you pedal stroke, and they can make adjustments based on those numbers. There was also an overhead view that allowed them to see where my knees moved in relation to my feet. They could see that my right knee was moving a little more towards the inside than my left, which matches up with what Andy expected based on what he saw with my feet.

They made some adjustments to my saddle height, saddle setback, and then added some shims to my shoes to help keep my knees in the correct alignment. After a few increments of this, they put me back on the trainer and did another motion capture so they could compare the “before” and “after” numbers. Things were looking better with the changes. Over time, my body will adjust to the changes more and I should be in good shape by next race season.

What a great experience. I’ve asked my “normal” doctor in the past about things like my knee clicking, and they said not to worry about it if it didn’t hurt. I guess that’s why I avoid going to the doctor. Just because it doesn’t hurt, doesn’t mean it’s normal or healthy. I feel like the changes Andy and Todd made to my bike are going to not only help me perform better, but also keep me from getting injured. It’s not every day you get the same type of treatment as pro riders.

(They're supposed to send me a packet of data from my visit. If it looks interesting, I'll post it up here.)