How I make a living as a Bike-Fitter!
Bicycles are symmetrical, non-adaptive machines, designed and manufactured to geometric averages based on height, limb lengths and proportions. And while manufacturers are growing more concerned about the needs of our diverse cycling population, making geometries and components available in a broad range of configurations and gender-specific designs, each person has unique morphology, flexibility, weight, bone & ligament structure, and genetics – even identical twins.
We are, in fact, as unique as our voice.
To make matters more complex, our knowledge regarding body position is limited to the positions our body as experienced — sensory perception is limited to experience (stimuli). The ability to sense body-position relative to space and gravity is determined by vestibular, kinesthetic, and proprioceptive mechanisms. These send information to the brain for exhaustive comparative analysis –“feels better”, “feels worse” – and cooperate towards finding a unified-balance in stillness and function. This is why nobody graduates from Yoga.
This explains why some cyclists need convincing to make an appointment. They feel the bike “fits fine”, because it does – within the range of consciousness established cumulatively since birth. The purest form of knowledge is experience – the more experiences, the greater the knowledge.
It also explains why clients with injuries tend towards pessimism. They know what they know, based on a set of experiences and “other” data (films, diagnoses, reports), which may, or may not apply to the variable-sets in bicycle fitting. Given sufficient time, variables and adaptation, I believe anyone can experience comfort, balance, and function on his/her bike.
My opinioin is that quality bike fit occurs by eliminating the range of positions/adjustments that are NOT optimal. This process increases proprioceptive awareness, mechanical function, comfort, and endurance. Proper fit also allows a body to quickly adapt to more aerodynamic positions, naturally, because it feels better (not just looks better) to be there. How? The body is always looking to be more efficient. When deep stabilizers (multifidus, interspinalis, etc.) support the trunk, phasic muscles can focus on pedaling, instead of taking up the slack. The result is that a person goes faster, with less effort, more comfort.
And isn’t that the goal?
