Getting fit--in more ways than one!





One thing I have never been good at is bike fitting.  What is that exactly?  Basically it involves adjusting your bicycle--the seat, bars and pedals--to their optimal position to fit your body and riding position.  I am sure that over the years, I have had a pretty terrible setup on some of my bikes and relied on my body to somehow adjust to the bike rather than the other way around.
Gotta Get Fit!!

Why is bike fitting so important?  Well, in some of the previous posts, I mentioned that Katelyn was struggling with some pain behind one of her knees and also had some back pain.  When the bike fit is done properly, the chance of chronic injury diminishes and the rider is much more efficient.  With that being said,  I set up appointments for Katelyn and me to go down to Turlock to visit with CJ at Elite Physical Therapy and Fitness.  Aside from being an elite cyclist, CJ is also a physical therapist that specializes in bike fitting.  What better person to get us set for our long bike adventure!

Getting the proper saddle height is one of the most important measurements you can have on bike 

Katelyn went first.  The first thing CJ noticed was that her hips were out of line--one side was higher than the other which meant that as she pedaled, one side would have a different pull length.  This issue would possibly be the source of her having pain behind only one of her knees.  He laid her out on the table and, through a series of stretches, worked to realign her.  Next, he put her on the bike and watched her pedal.  At this point, I wanted to crawl in a hole because her bike fit (that I had set up) was absolutely terrible.  The saddle was forward too far and the seat was ridiculously too low.  Because of this, her efficiency was lacking and it was causing her to pick up some bad habits in her pedaling.  CJ made adjustment after adjustment to the bars, the seat, and then finally to her shoes themselves before finally declaring that the fit looked great.

Next came my turn.  Not gonna lie--I was pretty nervous to get on the trainer and have someone watch me pedal.  After all, I think I am a pretty good cyclist and my ego wasn't ready to take the verbal slam that it had taken with Katelyn's fitting.  Instead, he watched me pedal for a minute or so and then said, "did you seriously set up this bike yourself?  Because it looks great!"  He made a minor adjustment to move my saddle back a tiny bit but that was it.  He also made a copy of all our bike measurements in case we needed to get service at a bike shop along the Pacific coast so they would know what our bike fit settings were.

Now it's back to getting the other type of FIT--the pedaling way!

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