downtube42

I had my first professional bike fit yesterday, after ~40 years of cycling. I requested an endurance fit, for all-day and consecutive all-day rides. I thought I'd share that here. I'd be interested to hear what changes other people have experienced from a pro fitting.

Started out with an assessment of my flexibility. My 60 year old body, after a lifetime of cycling and office work, is quite flexible in the range of motion that occurs while cycling, and not very flexible outside that range. No surprises there. A discussion of my cycling history, issues, and goals followed. Essentially, I want to do randonneuring rides up to 1200km with as little discomfort as possible.

Then he did an assessment of me spinning on a trainer. Results: hips rocking, slightly straining a bit to reach the bars. Finally, measuring my knee angle at bottom of stroke. About 25 degrees.

For adjustments, first he moved my cleats forward. I had them pretty much as far back as possible, from the understanding/belief that this would avoid hotfoot on long rides. He moved them forward about 8mm. Explanation being increased efficiency. He said it was still a "midfoot" placement, more for endurance comfort than power.

Then he lowered my seat to address the rocking hips and knee angle. Seat lowered so knee angle was 33 degrees. I don't how how much he lowered it, but it seemed a fair amount.

Finally he rotated the bars back. to bring the hoods closer and improve wrist angle.

Surprisingly, no change to seat setback, stem height, or stem length.

We'll see how it goes. I did one 15 mile ride last night, and definitely noticed the seat felt really low. I'll do another 30-40 mile ride tomorrow and see how that feels. I have a 600k scheduled the weekend of the 20th. Hopefully I'll be adapted to these changes.

downtube42

2nd ride results: 5 minutes quicker on my 40k route. That's 40k with 3k feet of climbing. I can't say for sure it's the fit, but surely it didn't hurt. Low back pain seems better than usual.

SJX426 

more updates!

Carbonfiberboy 

Sounds right. I had the same thing, first bike fit at about 70. He brought my hands back 3 cm, and went from a -17° to a -6° stem. He didn't do anything else, the rest was just right by him. I still don't know about the 3 cm. and raising my hands up. Made no difference to comfort on a double, maybe a little slower, hard to say. He said my hop angle was too tight. OTOH, he recommended moving my clip-ons down below the bars rather than on top of them. That actually made me lower on the aero bars than I had been, too low in fact if I'm in a fat phase. I do like the spring loaded arm rests that came with them, gives me more bar top room, OTOH those spring loaded gadgets are noisy and tricky to move into. They took a lot of practice to be able to move into them without killing myself. So it's different, by I'm not sure it's better. He's the go-to fitter in the area.

downtube42

Today I did another ride on the new fit. 38 miles ride with 3,761 feet of climbing. The hardest climb averaged 11.9% over 1.7 miles, on gravel. Hard AF. At the top of the gravel climb, my lower back was definitely sore. I think though that overall I had less back pain than prior to the fitting. No knee issues, or any other negatives I could detect from the fit changes.

No meaningful PRs; I didn't really push that hard.

I still think it's a positive.

epnnf

Glad it works for you, but I never would have thought a 33deg knee angle would. How high does your knee get?