As one of GURU's founders, and as the person currently responsible for our fit program, I've had the opportunity to perform hundreds – if not thousands – of personal bike fittings over the past decade. Based on that experience, I'd like to share with you, via real-life examples and guest contributors, some of the insights on fit we have gathered over the years. These learnings can hopefully contribute to a better understanding of why “every true rider deserves a custom bike.” Ultimately, if we can get even one cyclist off a badly fitting bike, it'll be worth it.
Christopher Kautz, MA
– Guest Contributor
– Guest Contributor
Christopher is one of the founders of PK CYCLING, one of the leading cycling fit studios in the U.S. He has dedicated himself to helping cyclists and triathletes achieve the same level of precision in fit and equipment that they apply to themselves. Christopher has personally performed fits on numerous top-level athletes, including Tour de France riders, Olympians and Ironman Hawaii champions. He was gracious enough to share some of his thoughts with us on the notion of bike fit.
Think about something a simple as a shoe. If you were to put on a shoe that’s even 1/2 size too small and just walk around your house, you’d very quickly stop caring what the shoe was made from, and be concerned only with putting on the proper size shoe. Now envision running in that shoe and how uncomfortable your foot would be.
Extrapolate this concept to something far more complex, the fit of a bicycle. There are many parameters to the proper set-up of a bicycle to insure that it fits properly making it far more complicated than selecting the right shoe size. However, many athletes ride on the wrong size of bicycle as they have focused on the details such as frame material rather than fit. This is akin to wearing the wrong size shoe simply because it’s made from high quality leather.
The fit of a bicycle is where the relationship between a rider and bike needs to begin, just as one begins shoe shopping with size. Ensuring that the athlete is in an optimal position to be comfortable, stable, balanced, powerful, and efficient is the proper foundation for riding. Custom bikes translate the correct position for the athlete into mechanical perfection, allowing for handling and ride characteristics unmatched by any stock bike.
Case in point:
The Before
When Jennie came in for a fit, her old set-up was causing her discomfort. She was also having difficulty using the drops and descending effectively. The fit on her old bike had several hallmarks of a poor fit that are quite common. Her saddle was too high and too far back, causing her to overreach to the pedals and round her back. In addition, her reach to the bars was too long, and the bars were too low. The effect of this was that she had to lock out her arms to reach the front end, which gave her neck and shoulder discomfort and made bike handling difficult. She rarely rode in the drops as a result of this. Jennie’s existing bike could not be made to fit perfectly, despite equipment changes, as the top tube on the bike was too long.
The After
To fix Jennie's set-up problems we built her a custom Geneo.
Compared to her previous bike we shorted the top tube 2 cm and made the head tube slightly taller. With this new fit Jennie is able to keep her elbows bent when reaching to the handlebars, allowing for a more natural athletic position that is more comfortable, power, stable, and efficient. She can now easily ride in the drops and descend with more confidence, and her neck and shoulder pain is gone.
A demonstration of triathlon fit parameters, featuring Dede Griesbauer on her Crono.
