A 3 hour fitting???

[Ti Designs]

I try to stay aware of the status of bike fitting in all it's forms. It seems like fitting is getting more expensive and longer. Most fittings are at least 2 hours, 3 hours has become more common, I've even seen a few 5 hour fittings (with 4 digit price tags). I have to question if there is a point of diminishing returns, and what that point is.

Most fittings start with a rider interview. The problem I see with the rider interview is that people have no sense of self perception. Everybody thinks they have put in Tour de France winning efforts with perfect form... I'll ask clients what they want to do on the bike, but one man's grand tour is another man's trip to the grocery store. It's time wasted, and at $150/hour there are people with diplomas and sofas who are better at that sort of thing.

Then comes the physical assessment. I may be the only fitter who disagrees with this step, but I've actually observed lots of people, and I consider testing flexibility and range of motion limits on a person who's cold to be invalid data. When I get out of bet I'm a crippled old man, 10 minutes after I get on the bike I'm a different person. When I was at Retul University (that's what they call it - I had a different term) they did a physical assessment on me as their second step, and I must say the rider interview wasn't much of a warm-up. I've abused my body over the years, I've spent months in a wheelchair because of a back injury - I'm a mess. With the information they gathered from the assessment they set up a bike with a position that was closer to a wheelchair than what I actually ride. So that's another $200 worth of invalid data...

I'm going to limit this to the first two steps of a 3 hour fitting, maybe in the next round I'll explain the differences between running a software program and understanding how the knee works.

I'm doing 4 sometimes 5 fittings a day, I don't have the luxury of chatting about their goals. I don't even have an espresso machine! I put people on the bike, find an easy gear and have them pedal the bike. They can tell me what their aches and pains are, but watching them pedal for a few minutes it becomes very clear. People are really good at ignoring their limits of range of motion, and they always use the skill sets that are familiar. My job is to put them within their range of motion in every direction, and teach them to get their body weight on the pedals - while that is a serious oversimplification, it is 99% of bike fitting.

Here's the point of this post: I could make this a 3 hour dog and pony show, but it would have no more value to the client. The learning process is a funny thing, it only works on what you're concentrating on. I do the part of adjusting the bike, they need to ride the bike and learn how to use that new position. Nothing beyond that has any value. It's like any class you took in school, classes are limited to maybe an hour, then you go home and digest the information before the next class. If classes were 20 hours of instruction nobody would learn anything.

If people insist on paying more for my services I wouldn't change my fitting process, I would give them a week or two to learn how to get their body weight on the pedals, then I would schedule some time out on the road. What you see on a trainer and what actually happens on the road are two different things. Given some fitting time and a few sessions on the road I can produce a pretty good rider - isn't that why people come in for fittings???

Here's the thing I don't understand - nobody does that. When I first started working at Wheelworks I was told that I could get free coaching from John Allis (he was a part owner of the shop and coaching the Harvard cycling team). I took him up on that offer 3 days a week for 25 years. I was the only one from the shop who took him up on that offer. I can't explain this. I make the same offer to many of my fitting clients. On a good year I ride with maybe 3 or 4 of them.

[truth]

Great insights.

How would you recommend that people get their body weight on the pedals?

[Ti Designs]

The short answer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ef3-A6aGyU


A slightly more involved answer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bXEEhrFNU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oYdGmJdh6o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W7s2KXbM7s

I know what you're thinking - that's "mashing"!!! (and then you're probably thinking that it's bad for your knees) It certainly does limit cadence to what gravity can produce (which is lower than 80 RPM). What I'm going over is how to isolate the glutes. You have two large muscle groups that fight gravity all day long - glutes & quads. Quads generate leg speed, it's a long muscle group with a short distance from fulcrum to attachment point. Glutes produce torque, it's the widest muscle you own. In those videos and when I do fittings I am teaching the basis for position on a bike. In pedaling technique you need to learn how to use both. As for it being bad for your knees, that's advice given by people who don't know how to pedal. The quad puts tension on the patella as it's being extended - that's where the damage comes from. Shifting muscle groups all but eliminates that damage.

An example: Same rider, same stage race, one is going up hill, the other is a flat time trial. Notice the difference in cadence and technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlPy9DMUKKc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3Xl0meGwMk


Here's the real problem: Look at the view counts for my videos. In 7 years I've gotten fewer than 1000 hits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qMOO8l6kgs is technique advice given by a guy who doesn't know how to pedal. Notice the difference in number of views... Cycling is one of those things that people think is simple, so they must be qualified to give advice...

On of the things that's always bothered me about fitting is that so few fitters ride with their clients. Part of that is the lack of feedback - how do you know if the fitting worked if you never see them actually riding? The other part of that is called fraud, they don't ride with clients because they don't do well themselves. I'm not talking about fitness here, I'm talking bike fit and riding technique. If a fitter doesn't fit on their own bike or can't ride in comfort with their weight off the bars, run away.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by Ti Designs

I try to stay aware of the status of bike fitting ...On a good year I ride with maybe 3 or 4 of them.

Your problem is, you're too interested in doing the right thing and not interested enough in making a profit.

[vespasianus]

I would agree that people don't have a good understanding of bike fitting - including me - and that people with money -like most people buying high end bikes - want to make their time on their bike as enjoyable as possible, and are willing to pay lots of money for that.

My bike fitting was close to 3-4 hours but it felt fast and for the most part, the person doing the fitting was running around, checking things, changing things and showing me video's. My guy also told me I was wrong in certain key points on my bike and my thinking was wrong. He put me in a much more aero aggressive position and I thought it would be uncomfortable but in contrast, it is more comfortable and much faster.

The other thing I liked is they set up a real bike with the specs and had me ride it outside, to let me feel how it would feel in real life, which I liked.

The place I went did not have a set time but rather a fixed price. I was told that this was to make sure it was right and to not rush things but I would say that if I paid what I paid and was done in an hour, I would have been a little upset.

From the "fitters" perspective, I would say that if you can get $$$ out of people for something they want (knowledge) I would do it!

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by vespasianus

The place I went did not have a set time but rather a fixed price. I was told that this was to make sure it was right and to not rush things but I would say that if I paid what I paid and was done in an hour, I would have been a little upset.

I wish I had that luxury. My fitting schedule is jammed, it's a rare day that I get to have lunch. I'm still feeling the need to do lots of fittings for a couple of reasons. First, we spent a whole year during Covid handing bikes to customers out on the sidewalk. I'm still playing catch-up from that. If someone buys a new bike I want to see them on my stand. The thing that's really working against me here is how they teach new bike fitters. I am certified in three of the new computerized bike fitting systems, I know what they teach bike fitters. It's about how to run the software. Most new bike fitters couldn't explain how a knee works, they certainly can't explain differences from one rider to the next. Bike fitting is problem solving for differences in the human body. I spend at least 1/3rd of my time correcting injuries caused by modern bike fitting methods.

Originally Posted by vespasianus

From the "fitters" perspective, I would say that if you can get $$$ out of people for something they want (knowledge) I would do it!

They want knowledge, but they don't understand the learning process. In the fitting process I go over how to isolate the glutes and how to isolate the quads, to explain how the position works. I also teach a 4 week class that does the same thing. The difference is the class works. The learning process for motor skills has 3 steps, the rider has to get to the autonomous stage of each part before getting to the next part.

Why don't they teach the learning process in schools???

It's pretty common for people to ask me to teach something without understanding what they are asking for (the answer is 42). I can't teach a triathlete how to pedal on a tri bike, the aero bars get in the way of my teaching method for using the glutes. If I teach them on a road bike the skill sets translate to the aero position. Being told that we need to drop back to a road bike to make them faster on a tri bike puts them off, so I've worked with very few triathletes. If you look at the results of the triathletes I have worked with, you might get the sense that I know something...

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by Peter P.

Your problem is, you're too interested in doing the right thing and not interested enough in making a profit.

My new diet plan is called poverty.

I can't stand the idea of pricing people out of my services. When I was a junior I was coached for free, John Allis never charged me a dime for years of good advice (the old guy knows things), which is why I coached the Harvard team for free when he retired. Sadly, people equate price with value so they're doing it to themselves. I'm no longer coaching the Harvard cycling team because they don't see the value of free coaching. And I can now say that I got fired from a job that I wasn't getting paid to do...

[prototoast]

I would gladly have paid for more time if it would actually help. I had originally gotten a bike fit 12 years ago and it wasn't very good. Since then had tweaked my position on my own to get to a setup that was pretty good, but still had a few nagging issues. So last year, I sought out a professional bike fit. I reached out to a place that offered a 3 hour physical therapy + bike fit service, thinking they might be best positioned to deal with my tricky problems. I explained my issues over email, and they said I probably only needed the 2 hour fit session instead.

2 hours later, the fitter had no insights into my issues, made no adjustments to my position, and despite one of my issues relating to an asymmetry, only took measurements from one side. I would have gladly paid more for more time and any actual insights into my issues. And despite having nothing to show for it, when my two hours were up, it was just "welp, see ya later."

So I can't speak for everyone's experiences, but complicated issues sometimes require more time and money. The hard thing about bike fits is it feels like rolling the dice to me. Some people have great experiences and outcomes. For someone like myself who rides a lot and has a stable job, I'd pay 10x the normal bike fit cost for a bike fit that was guaranteed to make all my pain go away. On the other hand, any amount feels like too much when you go for a fit and learn/change nothing. The bike fit pricing seems to be calibrated around some expected value ($3000 * 1/10 chance bike fit is good + $0 * 9/10 chance bike fit is worthless = $300 typical price).

[ripvanrando]

I've had three bike fits in my life.

The best one by far came free with the bike I bought at Wheelworks from John Allis. I went from never winning races on Wells Ave to winning the club championship, part of it for sure was the bike and fit. The bike was stolen in Germany and I've never had one with magic since.

The fit took under an hour IIRC. Stem length and height, slightly wider bar, saddle height and setback and finally cleat position and angle. i don't recall more done but he did watch me pedal for a bit.

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by Ti Designs

My new diet plan is called poverty.

I can't stand the idea of pricing people out of my services. ... Sadly, people equate price with value so they're doing it to themselves. I'm no longer coaching the Harvard cycling team because they don't see the value of free coaching. And I can now say that I got fired from a job that I wasn't getting paid to do...

Exactly. Some people perceive "free" as not having being as valuable as a paid service. And your price depends on your market. Wealthy bike owners equate price with coddling and accuracy. If your fitting room has leather chairs and you serve bourbon well, you have a different target market and can charge higher prices. Also, when shopping for anything, including fitters, some people will equate higher price with better service. Same with how much time is spent with the customer.

[OldCrank]

As far as fit time:
Have you seen the new Spesh Retul training?
Apple Ipad with Lidar to capture flex & strength, another pad to measure feet.
Not sure if there's an iButtPad but I'm sure it's on the way.
Should speed things up quite a bit.
In theory.

BTW, given the OP title, did anybody else sing it to Gilligan's Island?
Asking for Mrs. Howell.

[Taymob]

I did one here at bike barn in Houston that was 3 hours. They used alot of video and software. I will say the fit is solid but it was so expensive I orobably wouldn't do it again.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by OldCrank

BTW, given the OP title, did anybody else sing it to Gilligan's Island?
Asking for Mrs. Howell.

It crossed my mind, but I decided not to post (until you prompted me), "Well, you know the SS Minnow went out for a 3 hour cruise, and look how that turned out."

[vespasianus]

Originally Posted by reuben

It crossed my mind, but I decided not to post (until you prompted me), "Well, you know the SS Minnow went out for a 3 hour cruise, and look how that turned out."

As a kid I would have paid money to be stuck on an island with Mary Ann and Ginger eating coconut pies all day.

[reuben]

Originally Posted by vespasianus

As a kid I would have paid money to be stuck on an island with Mary Ann and Ginger eating coconut pies all day.

Mary Ann. I like down to earth people, and try to be one myself. Ginger was high maintenance.