Hi
Today I booked myself in with vankru cycles in southampton for a bikefitting session
in early December.
I get foot pain/lower back pain and shoulder pain on long (6 hours plus) rides.
Anyone else ever been for a bikefitting?
What sort of position do you favour for long rides-sit up and beg/long and low/something in between?
I want to do a few more 12 hour races then maybe some 24 hour races and ultimately
some multiday bikepacking events.
At the moment i'd settle for being able to beat my mates in a twelve hour race.
Did a bikefitting help any of you?
Have you received any invaluable advice regarding your position or setup?
TK

Everyone is different, so I'll briefly put what I've done.

Looked at photo's of me on the bike from events etc. give me an idea of how I sit etc.
Took photo's with measuring things around me, scaled it and measured angles etc. on CAD. (Did this with both me on the bike and off the bike)
Taken moulds of my feet - got a high instep and gone for the supportive inner soles option than try and beef the muscles up.

Did a lot of reading on other peoples findings.

Personally I find I should er on the side of the saddle being a tiny bit too high according to traditional setup literature as my ankle will take up any excess, wheras a bit lower tends to just bugger the knees.

Did a bit of experimentation with setup.

Did a lot more reading, and also on the stretching stuff too.

But, everyone is different, so bear that in mind - listen to what others have to say, especially people experienced in that area; but think critically

Hope that helps.

imho .. ride your bike and get comfy by adjusting to suit and not doing anything daft ie setting your bike up to look cool or be slammed etc.
Ride it a lot, for a week day in-day out at least once. Do 12hrs on it. If you have specific pains, address them as they arise.
Save money on a fitting session that's based on averages and road bike knowledge that counts for almost zero in long distance off-road riding and if they set your knee over the pedal spindle or mention formulas, quit while you're ahead : )

Massive fit system sceptic here sorry. Nothing that uses formulas is ever 'right' unless by chance and some tolerance of fit range. The only guy I've ever met who really 'got' fitting for comfort and effective riding used a couple of simple methods and a sequence of adjustments (just based on common sense and experience) and was as scathing of formulaic fitting as I tend to be. Sitting on an adjustable jig that can be tweaked more easily than your bike could be useful but it's still a trial and error thing.
(to add, I've been 'fitted' once as well as had much better results from listening to a couple of people with good experience and advice, and then my own trial and error)

had one a few years back for my road bike - i had never had a roadie before and something was wrong with the saddle/ pedal.

I had in my mind that something about the cleats/ and my funny ankles was meaning that i was getting knee pain. I had tried adjusting the saddle height but nothing seemed to fix this.

Bike fitting dropped my saddle 40 mm and it felt faster and more comfortable even on the ride home. Thing is i'd been moving the seat up and up - never even thought to go down.

The past year i've been working towards a proper fit on my gravel bike. I've spent over £100 on stems - i might have been better off to spend this on a fitting and buy one stem - but at least now i have a good idea of how the bike fits (and a large collection of seemingly worthless stems!)

jameso wrote:imho .. ride your bike and get comfy by adjusting to suit and not doing anything daft ie setting your bike up to look cool or be slammed etc.
Ride it a lot, for a week day in-day out at least once. Do 12hrs on it. If you have specific pains, address them as they arise.
Save money on a fitting session that's based on averages and road bike knowledge that counts for almost zero in long distance off-road riding and if they set your knee over the pedal spindle or mention formulas, quit while you're ahead : )

I disagree.
It's easy to say 'adjust it to suit' but if you dont know what adjustments to make, chances are you'll never get it right. Just because you can ride for 12 hours without being uncomfortable doesnt mean it's right either. Before i had a bike fit, i didnt know what i was doing at all but what made things worse was that i thought i did know what i was doing. It's not like it's just me being dim either, I do a lot of road riding in groups with others and see an awful lot of people who have their setup completely wrong - even racers and older guys who have been riding for years. There are a lot of people out there who dont really know how to set up a bike but have done it the same way for a long time and dont get much discomfort from it so assume it must be right.

Like thomthumb, my saddle was also dropped by about 30-40mm. I hated it for about a week until i got used to the new position then i realised how much more comfortable (and powerful) i felt.

Why do you think that a fit for one bike wouldnt translate to another? When i get off my road bike and jump on my MTB, my legs are still the same length and my back/hips have the same range of movement that they have always had. All of my bikes (MTB, cyclocross and road) are set up with the same basic measurements - BB to saddle, saddle to bars, bars to bb. I can rotate the whole position slightly around the BB to move the weight backwards or forwards and get the bikes handling the way i want but as long as the distances between the contact points all remain the same then i will always have the same reach to the pedals, the same angles of my hips and shoulders, the same overall position.

See what jameso said?


That.

Touch has made some good points IMO. Back when I raced 24hr solos and such like, I made a big effort to get the dimensions between different bikes as close as possible so there was no adjustment required from a biomechanical perspective. Whether those set ups were the optimum for me, I don't know. To pay someone to find out, for me I'm not sure, but for certain people I can see the attraction. Depending on your starting point, it could be quite cost effective.

I'd agree Touch, but i don't think paying a fitter is a necessary 1st / early step, I'm assuming it's early stage fitting and some element of awareness of what's comfy for yourself, self-analysis etc and sure, not everyone can do that but many are scared off by the over-complexity that some fitting scheme present. eg many people have a saddle that's too high but a quick google for the Lemond method will get your saddle within 5-10mm of correct - and I just contradicted what I said about formulas : ) that one does prove to be useful. It's the only one I've come across though, the rest is more about weight distribution and you can often do that by feel alone, ie reducing weight on your hands etc. If you have a specific issue like imbalances or injuries, that's a different matter, I'd talk to an expert there.

All of my bikes (MTB, cyclocross and road) are set up with the same basic measurements - BB to saddle, saddle to bars, bars to bb.

I couldn't do that : ) my MTB would handle badly and cripple me after 6 hours. Not that you're wrong, just that we're all different and partly why I don't think we can be told how to fit to our bikes unless the use is well-defined, generic / established stuff like road racing. I also think we're much more adaptive to different bikes that we think.

I've never really looked at this but due to getting older and stiffer need to try and get things right. I googled the lemond saddle thing and my mtb works out dead on. My newly built cross bike however was 15mm higher (shows how much attention I paid to getting it the same as my mtb!)

The lemond formula takes no account of crank length though and as I have 175mm on the mtb and 170mm on the cross bike that accounts for 5mm of the difference in measurement. I have lowered the seat on the cross bike by 10mm and will see how it feels.

I don't see how any bikefit is realy going to work for anyone other than roadies or xc racers, once you start adding in weird handlebars surely it all get's trial and error?

once you start adding in weird handlebars

Hmm yes that may explain my take on it all .. ; )