I’ve always been an advocate for getting a solid bike fit. However, I now live in rural Montana and access to a skilled fitter is limited. We have only one local fitter and no one particular fitter within a 2-3 hour drive gets rave reviews from any of the local cyclists. I’ve personally driven 5 hours to Spokane to work with someone I liked but they recently retired. What advice does anyone have for finding someone competent when your search isn’t local and you can’t rely on word of mouth? Also, are there any tips on how to get the most out of a fit session when you may have to travel several hours to do one in person?
This guy does remote bike fits and has a lot of experience may be able to help. He’s in the UK but that shouldn’t actually matter. https://www.philburtinnovation.co.uk/
For mtb use Dialled by Lee Cormack. Available through kindle as well paper copy (I think)
Great question. After you figure out which resource to use, video of oneself is helpful. Get a few different angles. You can see things like hip rotation, heel drop/toe down that you might not have suspected otherwise.
Related to the podcast, I sure do wish Andy and Todd had spoken a bit more. It seemed hard for them to get a word in. Great conversation about fit philosophies and the history of fitting though.
As a reminder, there will be a second episode on fit with these three guests next week. In it, they talk a bit more about how to find a fitter, among many other things (for example, power vs. aerodynamics). They do not specifically address the question of remote or virtual fits, however. I can’t speak to what @andrewpruittedd or @colbypearce would say about this.
For remote fitting maybe leomo?
Either:
(Which only positions the saddle)
Or do it yourself with the device:
(Which also means you can pay them to do the saddle and use the do it yourself instructions to get the handlebar position as a way to get an expert to look at the data and rent the device)
This does bring up a question I had from the podcast where they suggest you should get many fits as your position changes. Which is great if you have lots of money (the last place I got a fit charges $250 for a review fit after 90 of tweaking after the fit) but that gets expensive not to mention how hard it is to schedule an appointment. Wouldn’t the better (more realistic) approach be to get a real fit and then do the tweaks on your own?
So getting a leomo might be an expensive purchase but if you follow the instructions of the self fit above to tweak your saddle position it could be worth it. Could easily tweak your position multiple times a year (Especially if you have a group of friends to split the cost with cause it will mostly be left in the box so easy to share)
Remote bike fit is an interesting solution to work with. I have worked with some clients remotely and it can be an effective method, but there are limits to what you can do with a client remotely. The key is to get good video from all sides, with good lighting and the bike square to the camera. It is also critical to have a detailed client questionnaire, as in person there are many details an experienced fitter will notice without consciously observing, but will potentially go missed in a virtual fit session. With modern phones almost anyone can pull off useful video without too much headache. In my experience you can solve some large scale issues and at times find solutions to finer problems but to really dig into a client, nothing beats face to face interaction.
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Check out all the bike fit content on fasttalklabs.com which includes How to Choose a Bike Fitter and many past Fast Talk episodes on the topic.
Here’s a link to a guy that shared his thoughts on going for shorter cranks, which was mentioned in the most recent podcast.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/rouvy/permalink/877246459651275/
The first thing I noticed was the rocking action of his hips which would imply his saddle is too high. It’s difficult to see from the side, and probably would be better to view from behind.
This is probably the most common thing I see on my club rides, and races (when we had any).