Getting professionally fitted to your bike can be a costly business. Is it really worth it — or can you sort your own set-up quite adequately for free?
Bike-fit is big business. For about £150, you can get your position checked by a trained eye at your local bike shop. Parting company with about four times more cash will get you a physio-led fit with biomechanical assessment as standard; and if money’s no object, you can take it one step further with aero-optimisation in a wind tunnel. Alternatively, you could do it yourself — without paying a penny.
Cyclists have been self-fitting for decades, of course, often with the help of a friend, a mirror, and a trusty plumb line. Is paying someone else to set you up on your bike like buying a dog and barking yourself? Then again, is DIY fitting a risky business inviting injury troubles? Keep it simple and save cash, or pay the experts to see you right — which approach pays off in the long run?
It’s a question on which former Team Sky consultant and British Cycling physiotherapist Phil Burt is surprisingly candid: “I once stood up at a bike-fit conference and said a pretty controversial thing: not everyone needs a bike-fit. Some people — who I call micro-adjusters — are more vulnerable to changes in their environment and contact points. Others, who I call macroabsorbers, tend to be able to absorb small changes — their set-up may not be optimal, but it won’t hurt them.”
Few people understand the importance of correct position better than Burt, and yet: “Not everyone can afford a bike-fit, and you might be able to use rules of thumb to sort yourself out.”
At his eponymous studio Phil Burt Innovation, the bike-fitter extraordinaire wrote his book Bike Fit to help other people do his job for him. Naturally, a book-guided fit is substantially simplified, with more rules of thumb and fewer individual considerations.
Esta historia es de la edición August 15, 2019 de CYCLING WEEKLY.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición August 15, 2019 de CYCLING WEEKLY.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 8500 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Shorter TT bike
A British shop brand that backed two of the greats of time trialling
Gut health
A gastroenterologist's advice on limiting gut distress and improving your microbiome
7 THINGS I LEARNED FROM BREAKING MY FACE
When a crash left CW's Tom Davidson with a titanium plate in his cheek, his perspective on cycling started to change. Here's what he took away from the saga
Syncros Capital SL Aero wheels
Owen Rogers reviews bling carbon wheels with a price tag to match
SRAM Red AXS
SRAM improves shift quality and tackles braking woes of old in its latest road bike groupset, reports Joe Baker
CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?
Cancelled races, folded teams, bankrupters, Britain's domestic road racing scene appears organis to be in tatters. But is the outlook really as dire as it seems? Charlie Graham-Dixon investigates
AMERICA'S GREAT AGAIN*
*But can it last? The US finally has a clutch of star riders again, but is its top-level success built on solid foundations
THE HUB
All the news you might have missed from the last seven days
Lifeplus-Wahoo aim for pro ranks
Continental squad hopes to mark 10-year anniversary with ProTeam status
Matt Holmes kickstarts comeback with Lincoln win
Former Lotto-Soudal rider returns from retirement with victory at big domestic fixture