Thanks!

[Ti Designs]

There have been a few threads here as of late which have changed my understanding of what's around me - no, not the snow...

The thread about the changes in retail have made me realize that the only real advantage local bike shops have over on-line stores is what they offer in service and cycling expertise. My shop's emphasis has always been on selling product, and I'll admit I'm not a good salesman. My shop puts no emphasis on the rider, which is what I do. I run pedal stroke classes at my shop, but the rest of the shop wants nothing to do with them, and the advertising sucks. It's clearly time to market my own brand - let's see an on-line store take clients out for coached hill climbing sessions!

The thread about Jim's muscular problem had me explaining limits of range of motion and what's called a pull reflex - your muscle's defense against being manipulated. I tried to explain that reflexes are often stronger than voluntary muscle contractions. At the same time I've been trying to understand why there is a narrow hip angle at which people produce the greatest forces with their glutes. I started by looking at center of gravity over pedals, I even mounted scales under the front and back of my test rig. Then I thought it could be simple mechanical advantage, at what hip angle does contraction of the glutes produce the most force? Not that either, it's always been well past 90 degrees. Then while explaining pull reflexes it hit me, the rider is at end range of motion, they let the body weight fall as the pedal comes past the top, the glutes firing is partly reflexive. After watching a few hours of weight lifting videos in slow motion, it's all making sense.

[weisan]

Great to have that "a-ha" moment, now go figure out how not to get lost in your own house... :p :banana:

[oldpotatoe]

There have been a few threads here as of late which have changed my understanding of what's around me - no, not the snow...

The thread about the changes in retail have made me realize that the only real advantage local bike shops have over on-line stores is what they offer in service and cycling expertise. My shop's emphasis has always been on selling product, and I'll admit I'm not a good salesman. My shop puts no emphasis on the rider, which is what I do. I run pedal stroke classes at my shop, but the rest of the shop wants nothing to do with them, and the advertising sucks. It's clearly time to market my own brand - let's see an on-line store take clients out for coached hill climbing sessions!

The thread about Jim's muscular problem had me explaining limits of range of motion and what's called a pull reflex - your muscle's defense against being manipulated. I tried to explain that reflexes are often stronger than voluntary muscle contractions. At the same time I've been trying to understand why there is a narrow hip angle at which people produce the greatest forces with their glutes. I started by looking at center of gravity over pedals, I even mounted scales under the front and back of my test rig. Then I thought it could be simple mechanical advantage, at what hip angle does contraction of the glutes produce the most force? Not that either, it's always been well past 90 degrees. Then while explaining pull reflexes it hit me, the rider is at end range of motion, they let the body weight fall as the pedal comes past the top, the glutes firing is partly reflexive. After watching a few hours of weight lifting videos in slow motion, it's all making sense.

Gonna start a fit studio/ride mechanics studio or such? If ya do, much good luck, keep your sense of humor. When the gent comes in and says he can get a good bike fit down the street for le$$, will you match, don't punch him, bad for biz.

[Cicli]

Gonna start a fit studio/ride mechanics studio or such? If ya do, much good luck, keep your sense of humor. When the gent comes in and says he can get a good bike fit down the street for le$$, will you match, don't punch him, bad for biz.

Good advice on the not punching. I can't tell you how many times I have had a bike in the shop compared to the one they have at P€rførmåncę.

[weisan]

for all coaches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw

[paulh]

. My shop's emphasis has always been on selling product, and I'll admit I'm not a good salesman. My shop puts no emphasis on the rider, which is what I do. I run pedal stroke classes at my shop, but the rest of the shop wants nothing to do with them, and the advertising sucks. It's clearly time to market my own brand - let's see an on-line store take clients out for coached hill climbing sessions!

Are you planning on putting your videos back on Youtube?

[Ti Designs]

Gonna start a fit studio/ride mechanics studio or such? If ya do, much good luck, keep your sense of humor. When the gent comes in and says he can get a good bike fit down the street for le$$, will you match, don't punch him, bad for biz.

I have a few things going for me there. First, I've been an active cyclist and coach in the area for decades, cyclists know me and my reputation. Second, there are lots of people I've coached around here, and they tend to be some of the better riders out there. Third, the place down the street with the lower prices isn't willing to go the lengths that I am. There's an old saying, "the secret to great photography is F8 and be there". What I learned from John Allis is the trick to coaching is being there. I'll leave my house at 5:00am to ride with a client 'cause I know what I see on a trainer and what happens on a real hill are two different things. I've audited the first two years of med school to better understand anatomy - people with more education are not doing discount fittings...

I was on a group ride when one of the guys started giving me crap about how I charged his friend $35 to mount cleats on his shoes. I tried to explain that kicking a refrigerator isn't the expensive part of refrigerator repair, it's knowing where to kick it, but that went right over his head. So I decided to baffle him with math instead. His friend got the discount rate of $35 'cause he bought the shoes from us, and they were road cleats with 3 bolts per cleat, so that's $5.83 per. If he had brought in his own mountain bike shoes with a 2-bolt mounting, it would have been $50, or $12.50 a screw (I'm getting some really bad ideas about advertising). A few weeks later he has knee problems and everyone tells him to come see me...

And then there are the places that take pride in their really expensive fittings using computers and lasers. I once showed up for a group ride at one such place. The first thing they asked is I wanted them to sell me a bike that fits. For the next hour the guy on the ill-fitting bike ripped their legs off and made it look easy...

[jr59]

I wish you the best of luck. I'll add this, the best coaches are the ones that can teach, in many different ways. And still get to the same places. Even the great ones have to adapt different techniques, on how to get the students to the right place

[1centaur]

If you are going to have a job coaching and fitting, you will do best if you are not only right and wise but people like you. We see that in frame builder threads all the time: "what a great guy to work with." Bet that sells a lot of frames.

[Ti Designs]

Are you planning on putting your videos back on Youtube?

Working on new videos now. My first round of videos did a good job of explaining things that I couldn't get across otherwise - the concept of body weight on pedals is easy to see but damn hard to really explain well. I then put the first week of my pedal stroke class on video, had a few people do it, and checked out what they had learned. There are two people involved in the learning process, the student and the teacher. The student's job is to concentrate on one thing at a time, the teacher's job is to view the bigger picture and keep things in check. When I teach my first weeks class I have them pedal with one leg, slowly tracing the circle. They mostly concentrate on getting the pedal all the way up to 12:00, in the process they'll often speed up or point their toes down. There's nothing wrong with concentrating on one thing - it's how you learn, but I can't allow everything else to go to hell while that's happening. In coaching via video I'm asking the student to also be the teacher, which is asking a lot. So the feedback loop has to be in place, and I have to have a clear sequence of things to learn one at a time, while also having a checklist of things to look for. There are ideal condition where I'm confident this will work - training partners doing the program together, one is on the trainer, the other observes. There are conditions that could work - the individual who has all the feedback devices in place and is disciplined enough to run down the checklist at regular intervals. Then there are cases where I know it's not going to work - "can I do this on rollers?" You can do it on a rocking horse, it's your own time, you're just not going to get much out of it...

[numbskull]

At the same time I've been trying to understand why there is a narrow hip angle at which people produce the greatest forces with their glutes. I started by looking at center of gravity over pedals, I even mounted scales under the front and back of my test rig. Then I thought it could be simple mechanical advantage, at what hip angle does contraction of the glutes produce the most force? Not that either, it's always been well past 90 degrees. Then while explaining pull reflexes it hit me, the rider is at end range of motion, they let the body weight fall as the pedal comes past the top, the glutes firing is partly reflexive. After watching a few hours of weight lifting videos in slow motion, it's all making sense.

I suspect this is what is happening.

Maximal muscle fiber tension is determined by that single fiber's sacromere lengths. Each muscle has an optimal length where the sum of its available sacromere lengths is maximal. Evolution assures that length is in the muscle's most used range of motion. For a glute that is well short of 90 degrees (humans rarely walk or run with femur angles that high).
The pull reflex you describe is (I assume) nature's way of getting the muscle back away from the down curve of the tension-length relationship caused by over stretched sacromeres. When at full stretch a muscle is weaker than at optimal stretch. Falling into the pedals may reflect this as instinctually that is the motion the body wants to make to reduce sacromere length and raise muscle tension.

[shovelhd]

Best of luck to you if you decide to go for it. I am seriously considering coming out to visit you to have another set of eyes on my fit. I think it's about as close as I can get on my own.

[Louis]

Ed, not to be snarky or anything, but it is incumbent on anyone offering a product to know what their "value proposition" is relative to their competition. (I hate buzzwords, but it's applicable.)

[Ti Designs]

Ed, not to be snarky or anything, but it is incumbent on anyone offering a product to know what their "value proposition" is relative to their competition. (I hate buzzwords, but it's applicable.)

That can be summed up in one phrase, "ride smarter, not harder". Most training programs have appeal to your work ethic, which has been pounded into your head since birth - work harder, effort = results, no pain no gain... So the programs start with an FTP test and then efforts are based on that. That's making the bold assumption that people know how to pedal a bike. My market share is the people who think there's value in learning how to pedal before trying to pedal harder.

As for actual value, it's really hard to gauge. What's it worth to have a nicer car in your driveway than your neighbor? The difference in cost has little to do with that, it's all about the competitive edge. If the people I work with ride better than their friends, my product will be of value to others.

My larger concern is that work ethic - some people can't turn it off. Much of what I teach is the ability to use large muscle groups at lower output to recover. People with the always-on work ethic never get that. I try to get the class to just settle their body weight on the pedals to keep them turning so they can lower their heart rate, one person in class is stomping on the pedals, at or above their AT. Those are people better suited to a power meter program.

[Louis]

That can be summed up in one phrase, "ride smarter, not harder".

Ed, I hear you, but the real business questions are either 1) Why do your customers choose you over the competition (or vice-versa), or 2) What can you offer that your competition can't?

Otherwise, if "smarter, not harder" is so great, what's to prevent them from doing the exact same thing you're doing, maybe even at a lower price? Is the competition just stupid? (unlikely)

"Ride smarter, not harder" is a philosophy, but the in the context of your original post the real issue is how does one go from a given product (e.g. the information to allow folks to be smarter) to a successful business?

[Oregonic]

Working on new videos now. My first round of videos did a good job of explaining things that I couldn't get across otherwise - the concept of body weight on pedals is easy to see but damn hard to really explain well. I then put the first week of my pedal stroke class on video, had a few people do it, and checked out what they had learned. There are two people involved in the learning process, the student and the teacher. The student's job is to concentrate on one thing at a time, the teacher's job is to view the bigger picture and keep things in check. When I teach my first weeks class I have them pedal with one leg, slowly tracing the circle. They mostly concentrate on getting the pedal all the way up to 12:00, in the process they'll often speed up or point their toes down. There's nothing wrong with concentrating on one thing - it's how you learn, but I can't allow everything else to go to hell while that's happening. In coaching via video I'm asking the student to also be the teacher, which is asking a lot. So the feedback loop has to be in place, and I have to have a clear sequence of things to learn one at a time, while also having a checklist of things to look for. There are ideal condition where I'm confident this will work - training partners doing the program together, one is on the trainer, the other observes. There are conditions that could work - the individual who has all the feedback devices in place and is disciplined enough to run down the checklist at regular intervals. Then there are cases where I know it's not going to work - "can I do this on rollers?" You can do it on a rocking horse, it's your own time, you're just not going to get much out of it...

I'm really hoping this happens, Ed. I have a lot of respect for your approaches to fit, positioning, and technique, but I'm on the west coast, so in-person classes are a no-go. I assume you've taken down your original videos?

[Ti Designs]

I'm really hoping this happens, Ed. I have a lot of respect for your approaches to fit, positioning, and technique, but I'm on the west coast, so in-person classes are a no-go. I assume you've taken down your original videos?

The original videos can be found here:

http://edsasslercoaching.com/the-program/the-concept/

The coaching program is a lot of one step forward, 2 steps back... I keep going to a simpler model of the pedal stroke program, looking for something that has a better chance of working via the internet... Now that spring is here, having clients is getting in the way of working on the web site.

[guido]

Thanks for making these available again Ed! Wonderful stuff!