The Bike Fit

I was always a little sceptical about bike fits. Probably a not-so-good one many years ago with a side order of apathy, a lack of anatomical knowledge and probably a bit of stubbornness too, has meant I’ve avoided them for a long time. I’ve always thought of them as a bit of a numbers game, maybe even gimmicky in some cases. The most watts or the most aero doesn’t necessarily mean the most comfortable and it’s that balance, the subjectiveness of it plus other factors has always made me think how can a bike fitter actually know what works, or what’s better? In my eyes, my position hasn’t changed much in the last 15-20 years, I don’t have any major issues with it, therefore my schoolboy logic tells me why change it?

So, it was interesting when the opportunity to have one dropped in my lap recently. Scott Millns at https://fitmybike.co.uk contacted me and we got chatting. As an ex-bike shop owner and mechanic, I considered myself well versed in frame geometry. I thought I was dialled in on bike positions based on my cycle racing past, but what became apparent, despite no major issue with my current position, it could still be improved.

Read on for a breakdown of my personal bike fit experience in Scott’s studio near Hinckley

For an exclusive 5% OFF a Bike Fit with Scott at Fit My Bike use the code GRAVELTON5OFF via the button below

What is a bike fit?

In very general terms, a bike fit is the process of adjusting a bicycle to match a rider’s body dimensions, flexibility, and riding style to maximise comfort, efficiency, and performance while minimising the risk of injury. In recent years, professional bike fitters have diversified into additional services too, such as pedalling analysis, saddle fits, shoe fits and cleat fits. All added together and you can guarantee a few of things. 1. It’s going to take a few hours to complete one properly, 2. You’ll be given a raft of data and metrics to mull over and 3. your wallet may be significantly lighter too, so the question is, are they worth it? Well, I’ll get to that and give you my honest opinion at the end of this piece but for now let’s dig into the detail while I take you through my experience.

Why I had a bike fit?

Given I’ve already admitted I was a sceptic, it’s perfectly reasonable to question why have a bike fit now? The story is quite straightforward. Over the past 3 years I’ve built up a following for Gravelton Events, and the popularity of my gravel rides is growing. Scott Millns from Fit My Bike reached out and asked if there was any way we could do something together. I’m quite protective of my audience. I don’t want to monetise things or spam them for the sake of it but if there was something I thought my subscribers could benefit from, then I’m not averse to helping anyone including Scott’s business, or riders that might want to use his service. So, I went to see him for a chat initially and look at his operation. Firstly, I was struck how down to earth and welcoming he was. Straight to the point too, a trait I like in people. Secondly, after a lengthy discussion about bike fits and seeing how he approached his, my scepticism morphed into intrigue. Scott offered me a taster, so I took him up on the offer and he booked me in. My intention was to go with an open mind.

The Experience

So let me take you through what happened and then I’ll fill you in my results and what the major take-aways were for me.

Booking – this is very simple; you can book directly through Scott’s Fit My Bike website. Select a time slot based on his availability or just contact him directly. Bike fits are currently priced at £195 based on 4 hrs which I think is very reasonable.

Pedalling analysis and cleat setup are included in your fit too, but at one wattage and crank length.  Testing crank lengths at different wattages is an additional session and cost. Additionally, Scott lets his clients try shoes on if there’s an obvious issue with their incoming shoes.  It’s just a question of time available.  Scott says ‘If they’re trying shoes on, we have less time to complete the fit so I recommend they book in for a free shoe fitting first if they’re unsure.  It’s free if they’re buying Lake shoes from me or have already booked a bike fit.’

The Questionnaire + Prep – After you’ve booked, Scott will send you an email with a link to a form to fill out. On here you can explain what issues you may have, what outcomes you are looking to achieve from the fit and a bit about your cycling and physiological history. It’s worth spending a good 20-30 mins on this being as detailed as possible to arm Scott with everything he needs to offer you evidence-based advice. You’ll also received detailed information about what to expect when you arrive. In addition, you’ll be reminded to take a drink, a towel and what cycling clothing is appropriate for the session.

Arrival – Finding Scott’s studio is straightforward and well connected. He’s based on a business park on the outskirts of Hinckley. Getting there is straightforward. M6, M69, Jn 1 and then it’s a minute on the B4109. His studio sits above an excellent Motorcycle apparel showroom, Motocentral, well worth a visit in its own-right if you’re a biker, but if you go inside and introduce yourself, the guys in there were super-friendly and helpful whilst Scott came down and met me.

Bike Measurement – The session consists of several elements. Firstly, Scott will accurately measure your existing bike setup using his laser-guided jig. Those numbers then get transferred to the bike fit jig itself, so you start in your current position. For this session I had taken my Dolan GXA gravel bike as it’s the bike I’m currently riding the most outdoors throughout the Winter.

Rider Measurement – But before I got to do any pedalling, the attention turned to me. Scott took me through a series of physiological checks and measurements to give him everything he needed from my body’s perspective.

First up were my shoes. He seemed satisfied with my SPD cleat position, right back over the pedal axle and then he removed my insoles and made me stand on them on the floor. Here he was looking for obvious gaps or foot overspill that may indicate shoes too big or too small but again Scott seemed happy with my setup. Then an actual foot measurement by length and width to confirm my shoe size was correct, which it was and nice to know.

Next, I stepped onto a plate that captured a temporary footprint highlighting my arch type . No flat feet for me, still all normal and even.

Then I kneeled on a chair with my legs and feet dangling off so he could measure any natural forefoot tilt in either of my feet. Again, I was pretty square.

Scott’s next bit of kit was pretty cool. Seat bone measurement. This consisted of squarely sitting on an innocuous looking box until it beeped which pumped out a measurement in mm. The tech is a strain gauge under the seat that measures the distance between your seat bones. This would help determine what width saddle I needed if there was an issue.

My penultimate measurements were a simple height, inseam, shoulder width and arm-length check and then Scott judged my flexibility by making me touch my toes and sit on a table and pull each of my legs to my chest and roll back to see how my trailing leg dangled. This indicates how tight your hips, hamstrings and IT bands are.

There was a lot more measuring and checking of me than I expected, but in a good way. I thought it was very, very thorough and it’s important to point out that for every measurement Scott took or piece of equipment he used, he carefully took time to explain how it worked and what it was doing or the reason for it before checking I understood.

The Fit – Then I jumped on the bike and Scott attached 20 reflective bobbles (8 each side, 4 on my back) to my feet, ankles, knees, arms, back, hips and shoulders ready for his four infra-red cameras, positioned in four corners of his studio, to capture my movement on the bike when I pedalled. This is where taking in Scott’s advice on appropriate clothing for the fit is important so they don’t drop off as you pedal.

At this point Scott now entered my bike and personal measurements into his bike fit software. What I really liked about this, before we did the cool motion-capture stuff to come, was the database contained 17 million records, and he was able to range and compare me against this extensive database of riders to see if I was out of ‘average’ range on any aspect of my physiology or bike setup. Interestingly, it confirmed I had long legs and a short reach for my height, something I’ve always assumed to be the case and made some initial recommendations to my bike setup. This was now the bit I was probably most sceptical about because I believe everyone is different and your bike position is as unique as your fingerprints. However, I was about to get schooled.

After I’d warmed up, his software was able to record an accurate motion-capture video of how I pedalled. It calculated the angles of my knees, my hips etc and how my legs tracked up, down and side to side as I pedalled. Viewable from any angle and as close as you want. Additionally, the pedalling analysis showed me a breakdown of how force was applied on each side through my pedal stroke. It highlighted some minor left-right discrepancies which was interesting to see.

Scott’s approach to bike fit’s is very sensitive to rider feedback. He understands and explains he can make you output more watts or generate more speed for the same effort, but this doesn’t always equal comfort and if you’re not comfortable you risk injury. Music to my ears, so what’s the trick? Scott simply starts you off on your current position and then moves some key positions to their extremes and then dials them back while constantly asking for your feedback until you find a sweet spot where it just clicks and feels right. So, for example, my bars were lowered to a point it was uncomfortable and then too high, then lowered back down until it felt right. It was the same for bar width, bars fore and aft, saddle fore and aft and saddle height and tilt too. It’s a process that takes time and was worth it to be honest. As you near where you should be, the changes in feel become very subtle and you must concentrate to spot them. The beauty of transferring your current position onto his jig is it had levers and handles he can turn to dial in changes to any aspect of the position down to the mm very, very quickly. It’s very accurate and reinforces how small changes can make very big differences in how it feels on the bike.

When you’re done, the ‘new’ measurements are taken and allow Scott to include them in a detailed report.

We weren’t done there though. Scott allowed me to try different crank lengths and saddles too including a pressure map.

With many professional riders adopting shorter cranks in recent years, they’ve created a bit of a buzz in the industry, so it was worth a look, from my perspective, to see if they lived up to the hype. Having ridden 172.5mm for 20+ years after migrating from 170mm born out of the ‘more leverage’ argument, I was intrigued to try some shorter ones. Scott had already confirmed my physiological measurements indicated a 170mm being optimal for me, however he did concede everyone is different though. 170mm felt fine, I couldn’t tell much difference anecdotally, only another pedalling analysis would confirm if the change was beneficial. 165mm though was quite a stark difference. I could feel the smaller circle I was pedalling but it didn’t seem to affect my leverage or power transfer but did feel like my foot was getting past the rear of the stroke quicker. All anecdotal still but eye-opening as I thought I’d hate it and didn’t. Instead, it’s just planted seeds now, so I might try a set of 170mm if I can pick up a pair cheap.

The final section of the fit was trying some saddles and taking some pressure maps to show how shape affects comfort and efficiency. For this, Scott placed a pad over my existing saddle. It has over 400 sensors which track the pressure points I apply during a short recording and pumps out an average. The recording length can be adjusted, if necessary, but Scott has found 8 secs works quite well from experience. It was apparent on my current saddle, which I feel ok on, there was excess pressure on left. We tried a few focussing on narrower ones due to my narrow seat bone measurement. Some felt awful, some ok but the point was to highlight the benefit a specific saddle fit would have if you were struggling finding one that works for you. Scott’s jig can swap and realign saddles in seconds, and you’ll go through 40+ of them on a specific saddle fit with him. It’s one of the most comprehensive fit sessions I’ve ever seen.

Note the pressure mat covering my saddle. As I pedal, 400+ sensors track the pressure I make. Scott’s software records this and takes an average to create a pressure ‘map’ which you can see below. Red is the most pressure, indicating a ‘hotspot’

Conclusion

After 3.5 hrs, which I have to say went by in a flash, my opinion on bike fits had changed. It was quite an eye-opening experience and for someone who can be a bit of a data-nerd like me I was excited to receive my personal report that Scott writes up and emails shortly afterwards.

Based on my feedback, my proposed new position dropped my saddle a few mm which Scott did adjust for me at the time, but moving my bars back 20mm (100mm stem to 80mm), dropping them 8mm (removing spacers) and fitting 40cm bars rather than the 42cm I had on was something I could do myself.

View the comprehensive bike fit report Scott produced for me below

The biggest changes I noticed was my bar width. It’s clear now I have narrower shoulders than even I thought I had and the 40cm bars just clicked when I dropped onto them. The other big change was taking my bars back 20mm, that’s a lot but if I think how I’ve been riding I don’t hold the hoods, I slide my hands back a touch and rest the heel of hand on the bend of the bars. Fine, but numbness and pain would occur on long or bumpy, offroad rides. My new, proposed position puts my hands directly on my hoods now, spreading the load across my palm. A good test for this position was riding in the drops then taking my hands off the bars but remaining in position and monitoring how engaged my core was. Could I support myself easily? If you’re too engaged, because you are leaning too far forward, it will contribute to fatigue earlier on. That was a real nugget Scott left me with which convinced me my bars would be in the right place further back as we found. Scott explained ‘So this test is used to adjust the saddle fore and aft position. If we can find a better balance point, that then takes weight off your hands and we adjust the reach to this. So it’s a combination. The other benefit is a closer proximity to the brakes and gears to control the bike than being back on the extensions.’

So, I’ll be buying new bars and stems shortly to fit to my bike and then after some testing I will report back for Part #2 of this little project we undertook.

In the days since my fit, I’ve been mulling over the experience, and I honestly have to say I’m a bit of a convert. I don’t mind telling everyone I was wrong. I’ve never actively discouraged anyone from getting a bike fit but I’ve probably never encouraged riders to pay to have one either but that will change from now on. As riders, we spend a lot of money on kit to get a bit of extra speed or comfort and sometimes we are reticent to spend good money on a fit because the value is kind of hidden and maybe perceived as a bit of a punt, but based on my experience I’d say do it. It was great experience and book through Scott, he’s a great guy to get onboard with.

For an exclusive 5% OFF a Bike Fit with Scott use the code GRAVELTON5OFF via the button below