Bike Fitting: Worth It

I used to think biking meant finding a bike, raising up the seat and riding away.  Finding a good road bike is totally different from picking a bike up from the closest Walmart.  First you choose the frame size, then you have seatpost position, saddle angle and position, reach, etc.  It's very overwhelming.  That said, I became a Google certified expert on bike fitting, bought my bike and fit it myself.  Slight bend in the knee, check!  Knees over my mid-foot, check!  I must be good to go!

I've been having periodic knee pain after cycling and recently I had shoulder pain from cycling that lasted about half a week.  I told myself that my body was just getting used to cycling.  I can put off spending money on services forever.  I did not want to pay for a bike fitting.  After all, I had researched this on Google!  I must be close.  Over time the chronic knee pain really started to bother me and I decided to suck it up and put my long term health over my pride.

I scheduled a bike fitting with Clyde at Palm Bay Bicycles.  Clyde runs a small shop in town and was recommended to me by a friend.  I came into his store with my bike, bike shorts, and bike shoes ready for my fitting.

Crumbling, Tearing, Lovely Bike Seat

The first thing Clyde noticed was my saddle.  Admittedly, the saddle is a little sad.  I stole it off my mountain bike when the road saddle was abusing my body.  He told me 3-4 times while I was there that the seat desperately needed to be replaced.  As you can see, it is kind of falling apart.  It has cushion that compresses which is a no-no for road saddles.  He also said that the rails that mount to the seat post are slightly bent.  I'll have to start looking for a new seat, but for now old faithful lives on!  The fitting started with my bike hooked to bike trainer and pedaling for a while to loosen up and relax into my natural riding stance.

Adjustments:

Cleat Adjustment

Clyde adjusted the cleats on my shoes first.  Turns out I had them WAY too far forward.  You really need to have the cleat directly under the ball of your foot.  He explained that by having them too far forward I was losing a lot of pedal power.  If you look closely at the picture of the cleat you can see indentations from where the cleat was previously.  For some perspective, the metal cleat is about the same size as a silver dollar.  Once he moved them back it was instantly easier to clip into the pedals.  I also noticed that the discomfort on the outside of my left foot was gone.

Next, he adjusted my saddle height.  I always though the saddle height should be such that there was a slight bend in your knee.  That is true, but I wasn't interpreting slight very well.  Clyde made sure I had a very slight bend my setting the saddle height so my leg was completely straight when my heel was on the pedal at the bottom of the pedal stroke.  Then, when I am clipped into the pedals there is a slight bend in my knee.  Turns out my left leg is slightly shorter than my right.  Nice.  I marked the previous seatpost height.  The adjustment is about a centimeter higher than the original position.

Then, my saddle fore-aft position was adjusted.  A plumb line from the bottom of your kneecap should rest right in line with the pedal spindle on your front foot with your feet at 3 and 9 o'clock on the pedals.  I thought I was pretty close just by judging on the bike, but I wasn't.  One of the cleats had to be moved slightly to make up for yet another area where I'm not symmetric.

Stem Adjustment

The most exciting adjustment was the stem.  As you can see from the picture, the stem now points slightly upwards.  Before, it was flipped so it pointed slightly down (blue line).  You wouldn't think this subtle change would make a difference, but it made a dramatic difference in the comfort of my upper body.  Clyde also swapped out my stem for a slightly shorter one.  The combination of the rise and shorter stem significantly improved my reach.  Before, my elbows were locked and my shoulders were taking a lot of the impact that my elbows were supposed to absorb.

Feel the difference:

I decided to get a bike fitting for the sake of comfort.  I didn't want to permanently damage my knees.  On my first ride after my fitting I immediately noticed a difference.  It was much easier to clip in and out of the pedals.  My shoulders didn't hurt.  I didn't feel like I had to adjust my hands every couple of minutes.  I didn't feel like I was going to fall off the bike every time I stood to pedal.  The difference was night and day.  The new fit is so much more comfortable.  What I didn't expect was that the comfort would translate directly into higher speed.  My average speeds increased somewhere between one a two mph!  This is an added bonus that I didn't expect.

Finished Product!

I was very pleased with Clyde's work on my bike fitting.  He was less expensive than the competing shops in town and he spent a full two hours helping me get the right fit.  I'm pretty sure any other store would have charged me for the new stem but he was nice enough to do an even exchange with mine since the replacement was used.  I can't believe I waited so long to get fitted.  If I could do it again I would have gone to get a fitting immediately after buying my bike.  I would recommend it to anyone.  Now that I have my fit I can go through and do my measurements so I can apply them to any other road bike I may ride in the future.