The 10 Most Common Bike Fit Mistakes - THIS Could Be Why You're UNCOMFORTABLE On The Bike!

Jul 03, 2024

Do you feel

uncomfortable

on the

bike

? It seems like you are always avoiding an injury or having a hard time getting the power right. Today we return to Synergy Performance to discover the

most

common

reasons why your cycling form

could

be holding you back. A few months ago we came to syy Performance and learned 11

bike

fitting tips to get you riding more comfortable and faster, but what about the things we should avoid as a professional bike fitter? Loot has seen it all and here are the

most

common

bikes. adjustment errors coming through your door, what should we avoid first?

I'm going to start with the saddle height. Now that's the only thing I see that is incorrect. Most of the time, it's very, very rare. I see someone coming in here and we don't. Now that we have to adjust the saddle height, we will especially focus on excessive saddle height, so I would say probably seven out of 10 times I lower the saddle height instead of raising it. Generally, excessive saddle height sometimes feels better because it gives you the feeling that you are almost stepping on the pedals. Now we don't want dynamic pedaling that involves stepping on the pedals.

More Interesting Facts About,

the 10 most common bike fit mistakes this could be why you re uncomfortable on the bike...

We want stability and control throughout the entire pedal stroke. Now what happens when you get

this

real sensation of stepping? you're using if we look at pedaling like a clock, you're using two to four very hard, that's very quad dominant, your quads aren't very strong, they're not very good at clearing the LCT tape and especially if you're a triath you need to run off the bike doing a quad dominant exercise um yeah you just tire them out a lot so it's definitely something we see a lot and it's the area where if the saddle height is too high and accessible , I've seen it all. even a sort of 3 and a half CM too high can cause all kinds of discount Under the sun none L in your hands none Ling your feet lower back pain that's hard it's a really easy way to encourage a compensation on the bike, so sit down one side and have unilateral discomfort, then muscle imbalances and all that kind of stuff.

The second is shoes that don't fit properly. Now, when I say ill-fitting shoes, I'm more referring to not respecting the shape of the foot when choosing a cycling shoe. I have a lot of tradition in shoe design because Italian designers probably like really smart looking cycling shoes as a British person and we don't have that foot, we have a slightly shorter, squarer foot with a lot of width and potential collapse of an arch, so when an arch collapses, sterilizes and extends further, you need more with potentially a higher value for you, what happens then is you're trying to get your foot into the hard shoe and then, Sometimes the mistake is also that people measure shoes to fit them.

By the way, are there any telltale signs that someone might be wearing the wrong shoes? If you are experiencing any type of disc discomfort, it can definitely be something to keep in mind. In general, just look at your feet. I would say not. It's not rocket science, stand on a piece of paper, draw around your feet, make sure you're standing so your foot is sterilized, look at that piece of paper, pick up your cycling shoe and look at the shape of the sole when you're standing. . In a way, we want to let the foot relax and play and have space, let those capillaries and nerves do their thing and be calm.

You will find many improvements not only in comfort, but also in performance. They come from the Sho, it's the only area where I would say you invest in your connection to the bike in the foot area; an extra1 will be much better than any other upgrade on your bike, both in terms of performance, because you are letting your nervous system calm down, but also comfort and enjoyment, and that is why we are all here to enjoy our bikes, enjoy them, so the brief configuration of the number three cleats goes hand in hand with what we just talked about about where to size the shoe to accommodate it. that foot then places the cleats too far forward.

I don't know if it's ideologies of tradition that are a little stuck, but it's definitely available on the Internet and now it's still placing the pedal axle under the ball of your foot. Now the problem is if I show you here, if we place the pedal axle right over the ball on

this

first M Hustle, you can see that a lot of the structure of the pedal goes through the toes and, especially if we use a saddle too high, the sole flexes a lot. I promote this trailer driving a lot, so one thing I tend to tell people is to take out the stencil.

Take a look at the template. If you see scuff marks on your toes, it's a good telltale sign that you're probably riding. many toes, which is also not very good, it will also not promote stability, connection, comfort, performance, you can use a lot of these ligaments around the ankle, around the knee, to stabilize that, which does not we want, we want to be stable. I want to be planted and Powerful, the fourth is the angle of the saddle and refers more to when people tilt the nose of a saddle down. This is a little more complex and again we'll look at this in another video about saddle selection being completely complex. on its own, but simply dipping your nose in is usually a trade-off.

I see that something else is not set correctly, so the saddle may be too high. Over time, someone gravitates toward a sinking nose, perhaps unsupported sit bones widen on both sides of the saddle. It means a lot of soft tissue pressure from the front, they dip the nose to compensate. What you need to understand is that this is where your center of mass is if you are placed in this part of the saddle and the tip is submerged. Going down is a slope that will throw your center of mass towards the front of the bike and we rely on the front of the bike to do a lot of the control, basically we don't want to stabilize our mass at the front of the bike, this is where we want for that to happen, so there is a lot of potential for numbness in the hands, lower back pain, tension in the shoulders, which may be due to a possible downward tilt of the nose.

Q Factor Now what is Q Factor? So rather it basically refers to the Q stance. The factor is an element in the bicycle industry that basically denotes the distance from the faces of the cranks, yeah, um, but we'll refer to this basically as why AP part the view from your feet now that bikes are getting narrower, mainly due to aerodynamics design, but also. to help 20 year old athletes go fast in the corners and there are definitely people who benefit from going narrow, but I'm talking about the majority of people I see who potentially have lower back pain, saddle discomfort, some Things to keep in mind this is that a lot of hip impingement, poor hip mobility, all of these things are inclining someone else to look to potentially increase their posture and there are ways to do that, we can see that by simply applying some rubber washers. pedal in 2 thousand inches.

You have to be careful with these, you can't use some pedal systems that can't go more than 4 mil on each side, some wider axle pedals, so Shimano Al tagra makes a four M wider pedal axle. Speed plays a bit of adjustment. Those from iMat like SQ Lab and everything they do. I know Time just released their new pedals and they have three different spindle lengths. You like it, maybe it's progress, that's good. Yes, we like it, there is this too. I stay with these a lot. These are pedal adapters, they basically increase the STS, this one has a 16 mil increase and this one has a 20 mil increase.

I just got these made and I'm using them a lot if you look in the mirror if you see yourself. I have almost this like tiia in body shape, like low banana shaped lower limbs, completely normal, but to keep your knees straight and in line to maintain your comfort in the saddle, you will really benefit from increasing that posture, keep your knees and ankles in line. each other, it's also an area that has the least adjustability on the bike, so on a CLE out of the box on the standard pedal, you have four M of range of motion either way, that's not enough, it's also This kind of gets better as with timing pedals, but there's definitely room for more manufacturers to incorporate this into things.

Crang Link is talked about in depth everywhere. You're open, kind of worms here. I know it's one of those that appear on all the forums. has a different opinion on what is beneficial and how many people I see. I have been using 175 cranks for 15 years and they refuse to change. In general, the cranks are too long, especially for women with 100% like many women.

could

benefit from this like 150 to 160 Market again, it's not good enough if people generally have shorter crank arms and will benefit from using much shorter cranks, yes this tension, this inflexibility in the hips, this crash in The hips, potentially, the knees widen. um these are all compensations that your body wants to escape from this at the top of the affected pedaling.

There's a studio over there. I'll try to find it and access the link below. I think it compares to like 190 thousand. cranks and like 130 there was no noticeable difference in the ability to produce power on those two different cranks there are a lot of um a lot of pro riders seem to go to shorter cranks why do they do it like a lot of inos do? You now use the aerodynamic benefits of 165, so if your cranks are shorter, you can impact your hip more to be able to start a position. Yes, your entire torso can drop, you can drop the front end when We're talking about a speed of about 40 50 000 hours, plus, that's a big savings, it's not a marginal game, yes, and not all professionals have a amazing level of function.

Some, there will be some people in the pon who have asymmetries that have potential tension in the HP flexors and all that. So again, I'm probably going down that path as well of just comfort and when you understand the evaluative scope, yes it's related to comfort, but a big point that's overlooked has more to do with safety, so I see a big compensation in the body when someone doesn't like the connection. from the front of the bike they almost move their hands further back along the bar, they move from the point of the lever to holding onto a sort of curve of the bar, you might notice that you do it, you might You don't have hands or you have some. kind of discomfort, you go, maybe it's my reach and a kind of lower back pain tightness in the upper body if you feel like your shoulders almost pull back around your torso to almost connect with the front of the bike B A Signal potentially reaches or the type of height of the bars is not set correctly now from my point of view, yes comfort is king but we also want to be safe and if you have to change your rear position pull on the brakes and slow down , and that can take half a time. second, one second, to reposition yourself before having to brake for a car or an obstacle, that's not ideal, so one thing I see a lot is people moving the nose of the saddle too far forward on the rails to compensate for excessive reach . don't do that, it will throw off your weight distribution, you will throw a lot of weight, your core mass towards the front of the bike will put a lot of pressure on your hands and if this is the area we are trying to gain better connection and feel comfortable throwing all that f weight because it is not ideal, so we set the four and a according to the rider and the goals they are going to achieve, we do it first before even looking at the front of the bike because then you make the appropriate reach adjustments for that angle of the gear lever.

It is now very common that you see people sometimes turn the shifter into a fairly aggressive up position to reduce the overall reach of the bike. Now yes, some people do that to compensate for that, but there is also no similar type of user manual and you should have it like this and what we are looking for is Stano and Sham who designed that lever to connect with your hand on a normal type of De that way it's not going to affect any kind of wrist action, so I see a lot of potential numbness in the hands.

This kind of causes a lot of elbow flexion, neck compression, upper body tension, so if you're running the shifters, kind of an aggressive lean will promote you to move your hands further back because that angle is too aggressive and then if you do all that bar movement you will lose access to the drops because now the drops are pointing towards the ground. more like on a flat surface MH and again if you're holding the drops and you don't realize this like no one told you or um, no, yeah, you haven't noticed, maybe you have this feeling of being It comes out like a compression collar.

There is a lot of tension, so instead of turning the bars or the shifter is up toreduce the scope, what is the correct way to reduce the scope? A really cost-effective way is three: drop the bar down, yes, unwrap the tape and lift the lever back to a flat position, now yes, depending on the different shapes of the bar, we can probably get a reach reduction of half a centimeter centimeter by simply placing the gear lever in the correct place on the bar, next is the movement of the bar, something very common. actually just very wide bars, especially for women, maybe with a little narrower shoulders, same as most of them.

I also see 40 42 CM bars on a small women's specific bike and you don't need to narrow them down, um 34. CM bars, yes, 36 lets you use a lot, but those 38 CM, all we're trying to do is basically make match the width of your shoulders to the bars, keep this in a straight and comfortable line, what happens when your bars are too wide is a You have a lot of requirements to almost lean a little more on the front of the bike, but a trade-off What we see is a lot of this, like a wrist twist action if you feel like you're doing that and that's more comfortable, it's pretty common that you probably want to change the suboptimal geometries of your bars a little bit now, this is a field, many different bike manufacturers, models, they all vary, um 54 is not generic across the board, it will not fit the Same size charts are great, so inseam length, height is captured from the stadium, if you're in the middle of a 52 or 54, chances are that's right there, roughly, this fit range is decreasing, right? with integrated pits, the possibility of getting that perfection out of the box is becoming more difficult, so definitely the method I would promote for this is to buy first, after riding aggressive geometry, when it is probably not the best bite for you, a really common one is like Tac sl8 um good looking bite amazing looking bite but it was designed for highly functional runs if you're on the border of two sizes for example and maybe have a poor level of function flexibility is something what you need to work on, may be better. opting for the 56 instead of the 54 and being able to use less stack space in height six some things to keep in mind are the height of the head tube, yeah, like a big, big one, because you have a very limited range of adjustment.

Keep in mind that there are some geometries that were designed for racing and when we sit at a desk all day and work and want to get on our bikes for a few hours a week to enjoy them and go fast. Comfort is speed and If you are not comfortable, if your nervous system is not calm and at peace with the connection with the bike, then it will be difficult to progress and reach your PE for performance, please let us know if you have adapted any of these bikes.