F.I.S.T., which stands for Fit Institute Slowtwitch, is a bike fit protocol taught in a workshop setting to bike fitters. The first of these took place in 2002 and 22 years later they'll move from Valyermo, California, to Lincoln, Nebraska.

F.I.S.T. was the first of a new breed of bike fit systems that featured fitting as the rider pedals. This is known as dynamic bike fit and F.I.S.T. started it. This fit system was best executed using a fit bike purpose-built, with the notable elements being saddle and handlebar changes that occurred along an x/y axis.

Fit bikes for this process were made first by Exit Cycling specifically for the F.I.S.T. system. GURU, Purely Custom, Shimano, Retül and others followed suit with fit bikes of their own.

Half the system centered on finding the rider's ideal fit coordinates, a fancy phrase meaning where you place the saddle and handlebars on a rider's bike. The second half of the F.I.S.T. system is prescribing a "complete bike solution" which is the answer to, "I like this position, now which bike do I need to buy and how do I set it up?"

The answer to that question required identifying and naming of a pair of bike geometrics not previously a part of cycling called "stack" and "reach." These refer to the rise and run from the bottom bracket to the frame's head tube top and stack and reach have now become ubiquitous in cycling. Not only do all modern dynamic systems use stack and reach, many bike companies now design their bikes using stack and reach as design inputs. Stack and reach were first named and described here on Slowtwitch more than 20 years ago.

This is the history of F.I.S.T. and everything in cycling that has flowed from it. The workshops will move to a new location but the system remains unchanged as do the instructors teaching. Learn about the new workshop location, here’s where you sign up for workshops.

The most likely difference with this move to Nebraska will be less rustic lodging, world class food, and arguably better gravel riding (depending on what gravel means to you).

The post F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshops Have a New Home first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

I haven’t gotten a new bike in about 4 years and I don’t intend to get a new bike any time soon. I’m not what you’d call overly frugal; I’m just very happy with what I’m riding. I feel no need to “upgrade” and I write that in quotes because I don’t know that a lot of what I might buy as a replacement would be an upgrade.

There are 4 installments to this series because I own 4 bikes. The theme of what I’m writing is not the bike, nor am I endorsing any of these bikes. It’s the decision process that led to each bike. What drove the purchase? (And, yes, each of these bikes were purchased.)

Let’s talk about my gravel bike and I’m starting with this now because there’s a kind of special “event” surrounding this bike that I’ll write about at the bottom.

I don’t know that OPEN Cycles is most known for the WI.DE. They have whimsical model names, all plays on the brand name. The OPEN WI.DE, OPEN U.P, OPEN U.P.(P.E.R.), OPEN MIN.D. I think the U.P. and U.P.P.E.R. are probably the best sellers, but I chose the WI.DE because of where I live and what gravel means to me, which is, lots of granite decomposed to sand, creek crossings, dry washes, steep pitches. These are some of the prevailing features in the San Gabriel Mountains, just north of Los Angeles, where I live.

What this means is: tire width. My first gravel bike, back in 2011 or so, came with 40mm tires. My second came with 38mm tires, which I narrowed to 36mm. I figured the better I got as a gravel rider the narrower I could go in tire width. My reasoning was flawed. I did not hit on proper equipment until I realized that tire width is your friend, not your enemy (up to the point where extra width is of no further value). In fact, this idea has survived gravel and spilled over into every cycling specialty in which I participate: gravel, bikepacking, road and tri. (We’ll talk more about tire width in road disciplines when I write about those bikes.)

Here, then, is the thing I discovered about myself: Tire width is the first driver of any bike I buy or, to put it another way, the lack of tire clearance is the first disqualifier of any bike I might buy. I decide the width of the tire I’m going to ride – road or gravel – and then I disqualify bikes that won’t allow me – or that don’t optimize – that tire width. I disqualify bike models and wheel models. The tire drives the decision first. The OPEN WI.DE made the cut because I just decided to go full monty on the tire width and I’ve been riding 53mm tires for several years now.

After tire width the decision rests largely on whether I can hit my fit coordinates. About that. I respect other’s opinions but I like my gravel coordinates to pretty closely match those on my road bike and by “coordinates” I mean saddle height and set back (these are exact matches), and handlebar placement in front of and above the bottom bracket. My bars (where my hoods sit in space) are about 1cm back toward the BB, and perhaps 1cm taller, on my gravel bike than they are on my road bike (depending on which road bike, which I’ll get to in the future).

For me, this means a frame with a reach of about 385mm to 395mm, and a stack of 585mm to 600mm. The stack has some range to it because I can compensate or normalize for frame stack with stem pitch: I’m willing to ride a stem that has anywhere from -6° to -17° pitch. This of course means that I must be able to place a stem on the bike! Not always a given nowadays. Because hitting my precise fit coordinates is such an imperative to me, here’s where I know am in my list of purchase drivers:

1. Must be able to accommodate a 53mm (2.1”) tire width;
2. Must have a frame stack and reach that allows me to easily hit my fit coordinates;
3. Must have a stem I can change;
4. Must allow me to run hydraulic lines adjacent to the handlebars and not inside the stem.

That final list point is not a requirement, but it is for practical considerations. I just don’t want to have to fiddle with internally routed hydraulic lines when I’m changing stems, and I’m bound do to this on a new bike. Yes, I can get a bike to within 1cm up/down and back/forth via a typical dynamic fit process. But those last few mms you just never know until you’re aboard a bike and riding.

To recap, I’ve chosen a bike because I’ve first chosen a tire width, and then further narrowed down to the OPEN WI.DE because its geometry fits me and because for that final few mms I can micro-adjust to the cockpit because I can place a stem on the bike (and do so easily because the hydraulic lines aren’t required to pass through the stem). Now what?

Next comes the wheel radius. I wrote about this previously and won’t be repetitious except to say this: Every bike designer ought to have a wheel diameter in mind or in this case a tire diameter: what is the radius (or circumference) of the inflated tire. When I ask bike designers, 9 in 10 don’t know what I’m talking about, or why I’m asking the question. When I asked the designer of the OPEN WI.DE, Cervelo founder Gerard Vroomen, he said, “345mm.” Short, sweet, to the point. Which is the wheel radius of, say, a 700c wheel with a 35mm tire. It’s also the radius of a 650b wheel with a 55mm tire. This is important, because the bike will handle badly and you’ll have a lot of shoe overlap if you just slap a big tire on a 700c wheel (unless the frame is designed for that, as most mountain bikes are). So, tire width is not just a driver of the bike model, it’s a driver of the wheel size on that bike.

Then came the groupset and after having ridden a lot of 1x and 2x, what I settled on for my purpose is what SRAM calls its Mullet Config, which is MTB behind the cranks (rear derailleur, chain, cassette) and road from the crank forward (crank, BB, shifters, brakes). It’s all hydraulic and all electronic. For me, RED is jewelry, Force is all-function no-bling. So, it was SRAM Eagle behind the BB and SRAM Force AXS on the road components. Yes, SRAM makes a fully integrated 1x AXS groupset, called XPLR, but I find that this is more a road or tri groupset, because Eagle gets me that 10-50 cassette and that’s killer if you’re riding up 20 percent pitches (which often occurs where I live) and I’m in my 42×50 whenever I’m riding anything steeper than 12%.

And that’s it! That’s how I chose the gravel bike I now ride and have been riding for the past 4 or 5 years. I planned for this to be 3rd in my 4-part series on how I chose the bikes I own, but I moved this to #1 because I am an OPEN Ambassador by virtue of this bike I ride and Ambassadors got an offer I’m going to pass on to you, in case the bike I’m riding is a bike you think might work for you. This was about an $8,500 bike when I bought it, with the ENVE G27 wheelset (I bought the frame and the parts). Pretty much the bike I now ride, built complete, for OPEN Ambassadors is just under $4,500 with this discount ($3,750 with a DT wheelset). OPEN is treating Slowtwitchers as Ambassadors, pricewise, until these builds are sold out. They’ll come with either 700c or 650b wheels, your choice, but just remember that (according to me) you’ll want to match the wheel size to the tire diameter (probably 650b for tires 47mm and up, 700c for tires 43mm and down). OPEN made Slowtwitchers their own discount code and page. This won’t work if you live in California so, if this is your situation email Andy at OPEN Cycle (and the address is just that) and the discount will be honored. You’ll see some other builds offered in addition to the groupset that I ride.

In this rare case on today's internet, we are not getting an affiliate commission. OPEN is not a Slowtwitch partner. We get zippo (which I find refreshing). And that’s it! Next up is a road bike I’m now riding quite a bit these days and I’ll describe how I made that purchase.

The post How Do You Choose a Bike? (Gravel Edition) first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Over the 20-plus years we’ve been hosting our F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshops (this Autumn’s workshop is November 6 thru 10), we’ve hosted fitters from every continent except the Antarctic. Some of the strongest fitters I’ve hosted at The Compound are from northern Europe. In 2016 two fitters came to the workshop who really impressed me. One was Patrick Guillaume from Luxembourg. The other was Hölger Röthig, whose shop Cycle Café is right in the center of the Ruhr Valley of Germany. I drink my morning coffee here at The Compound out of a Cycle Café mug.

Hölger is one of those fitters whose presence causes you to get up very early and drive past a half-dozen other fitters to get to him. Because cycling is important to you. Because every hour spent on an uncomfortable bike is an hour you know you’ve only half-enjoyed. Hölger is an ultracyclist and a RAAM rider himself, which is in one sense the perfect background. We sometimes hear of fitters who caution against the “pro” position because an AGer isn’t strong enough to ride it. Of course it’s the opposite. Try riding 3000 miles in a week and-a-half in an uncomfortable position. Or if you’re a pro triathlete try riding 500 or 600 miles a week in a “pro” position (if “pro” means unsustainable by an AGer). In fact, the “pro” position is probably more comfortable than 75 percent of the AGer positions you see in the transition area.

Hölger impressed me as someone who had the mathematical understanding of matching positions to bikes; along with an intuitive ability to tweeze a powerful, comfortable position out of a rider. I’m glad Hölger came and took our course. But Hölger could have taught our course.

Here are the questions I asked of Hölger as I sought to find out more about him and his business: I haven’t (yet) visited Cycle Café, but I do suspect this is a first-rate coffee and pastry café in addition to a bike and bike fit shop. (We always want our boutique bike cafes to be as good or better than a Starbucks, but they often disappoint do they not?)

Me: What is your sports and educational background?

Hölger: I have a degree in sports science and I did different sports throughout my life. When I was 36 years old I started my career as an ultracyclist which ended up with a RAAM finish in 2012. Due to these long hours in the saddle I guess a felt every pain you can feel on the bike!

Me: What tools and equipment do you have in your fit studio?

Hölger: I started with Retül and switched to Velogicfit 3D. [Hölger just described his motion capture system.] We still have a [Retül] Müve sizing bike, along with pressure mapping [such as Gebiomized] for insoles and saddle. A Wahoo Kickr and Climb along with Wahoo Headwind are in use with Zwift.

Me: What factors drive the changes you make in a fit coordinate? For example, in seat height, it could just be your eye; it could be the rider’s input; it could be what your motion capture system says. And so on.

Hölger: It is a mixture of fit coordinates, feeling of the client and my knowledge. At the end the rider has to be in the most comfortable position for his goals. I’m not stuck on numbers, everybody is different and no fit is like the other. Due to some years of a bike fitting I have a big box of solutions and most of the time it works at the end. My biggest learnings are with para athletes. You have to reset your normal work flow and recognize the special need of the athlete. It is hard if you do this every day but every now and then it is a privilege to work with these athletes.

[Below is my FuBAR question to Hölger. For the purpose of this exercise FuBAR stands for Fitters BAR Exam. What I do is give a set of fit coordinates: pad x/y on a tri bike or hx/hy on a road bike. And then the fitter writes back what bike(s) he/she would prescribe for the customer and why. The FuBAR question quickly, and starkly, separates the pretenders from the professional fitters. If a fitter can’t answer this question it’s unlikely this fitter has a good process for matching a fitter’s coordinates to bikes that match the position. This is frankly an uncomfortable part of an interview with a bike fitter if that fitter is unprepared to address it.]

Me: My road bike fit session ends with me needing a road bike with HX/HY of 630mm and 505mm. What bike or bikes would you prescribe?

Hölger: We could take my bike. Bianchi Specialliissima 59, Deda Superbox 120 mm -8° (32 mm Clamp height) headset top cap is 10 mm, 12 mm spacer would be perfect but custom made. With 3D printing nothing is impossible. Actually my ride looks a little bit different, 110 mm -8° Superbox but with semi cable routing 20 mm spacer and top cap 10 mm.

How do we know if Hölger got it right? Yes, the Deda stem is compatible with this bike and yes it does come in that angle. Above is a screenshot of the output when the front end values Hölger spec’d are plunked into the text boxes. (This is from the hx/hy calculator we host here on Slowtwitch.) So far, so good.

Below is a screenshot of the Bianchi Specialliissima geometry chart and, voila, in size 59cm that frameset has a stack and reach of 575mm and 398mm, and Hölger’s prescription matches to the millimeter on both height and length.

Hölger knows what he’s doing. (But I already knew that.)

The post Hölger Röthig of Cycle Café in Germany first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

More than 2,000 coaches, bike fitters and physical therapists have made the pilgrimage to Xantusia, location of the F.I.S.T. headquarters in Valyermo, California, and they’ll do so again on the 6th of November, 2023 for a Monday thru Friday workshop. This upcoming workshop, November 6 thru 10, 2023, will be the 20th anniversary of F.I.S.T. Covered disciplines are road, gravel and tri. Register here.

The workshop takes place about an hour from Ontario or Burbank Airports, and 90 minutes from LAX, in the high desert section of the San Gabriel Mountains. Most registrants stay at the B&B next door.

The workshop costs $1,395 with a $495 registration deposit. Those attendees who wish can borrow gravel bikes for daily rides. The bikes on loan are a size run of OPEN WI.DE with SRAM AXS/Eagle 12 speed 1x electronic mullets. (See more about the riding at Xantusia.)

F.I.S.T. was the first dynamic bike fit system, and the first to prescribe complete bike solutions following the establishment of fit coordinates achieved as the rider pedals.

The post Next F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshop Set for November first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

Most of the time when I say “dynamic bike fit” I have to explain what it is. So here's what it is just in such case you and I are together and this term comes up in conversation.

Dynamic bike fitting is a type of prescriptive system, that is to say, when done correctly such a fit session tells you how to sit aboard a bike, and then “prescribes” a bike (or bikes) that matches those fit coordinates (seat height and setback, armrest or handlebar height and fore/aft placement).

The alternative to dynamic is “static” and when I began cycling, in the 1970s, static was all there was. Static bike fit systems use as inputs limb length measures or even cruder metrics. For example, one way you knew the “cockpit” of the bike was correct is if, when seated on the bike, the road handlebar’s “tops” obstructed the view of the front hub. The saddle setback (or cockpit distance) was determined by placing the back of your elbow against the nose of the saddle, and your fingertips should – if fitted correctly – extend to the center of the tops (where the handlebar passes through the stem). Then you sit on the saddle with your shoes off in your stocking feet. With a straight leg, your heel should just graze the top of the pedal. That’s how you chose the proper seat height. That’s how we were told to fit ourselves to our bikes and this was pretty much the state of the bike fitting art even up to the highest racing levels.

Things got a little more advanced in the 80s and 90s with the Lemond and Hinault methods, which still relied on static measures but considered inseam, femur length and so on. This gave way to a bunch of systems that were all static but we got our first rudimentary fit tools.

For the first time that I knew or noticed the results of certain systems not only defined fit coordinates but also prescribed the geometry of your custom bike. At the forefront of systems like these were – of course – companies that made custom bikes and such fitting required more advanced tools, notably fit bikes.

The first fit bikes were offered by custom bike makers and I call these “angular” fit bikes as opposed to what I call “X/Y fit bikes.” Angular bikes like the Waterford Fitmaster above resemble regular bikes. This was the start of anything that approximated dynamic bike fit. You used a static system to establish fit coordinates and then you set up a fit bike like this according to those coordinates. Voila, that fit bike matched the geometry of the custom bike the fitter would have his custom bike vendor build for you. Seat and head angles, top and head tube lengths, were all just read off the fit bike. Examples of angular fit bikes like these were made by Serotta and Calfee and as you’ll note every company I’ve mentioned made not only fit bikes, but custom bikes.

Dynamic bike fitting means your fit coordinates are not only a function of your body’s dimensions but how you ride a bike. Are you a toe pointer or a heel dropper? A spinner or a masher? A hard core criterium racer or a duffer? Answers to these and more inform your geometry and the one way that these angular fit bikes were “dynamic” is that you could, once the fit bike was adjusted to your statically-generated coordinates, pedal it. You could see how that bike was going to ride before your fitter had your frame custom built and I suppose this is when dynamic bike fitting first crawled out of the primordial soup and made its debut on land.

These angular fit bikes fell short in certain areas. None of them were really designed to have a high-quality, precise resistance unit; none were made so that fit coordinates could be changed quickly, during pedaling; and most importantly none of them gave you metrics that would help you purchase production bikes.

A new fit bike by EXIT Cycling, a couple of those bikes are in the pic above, was built according to specs I needed. This bike incorporated a pair of terms I coined in 2003 for the purpose of prescriptive fit sessions: stack and reach. Those metrics are now ubiquitous on the geometry charts of bikes of every kind. My ambitions for these terms were more modest when I coined them: I simply wanted a way to compare the heights and lengths of all bikes so that we could prescribe the bike you needed based on your fit coordinates. The EXIT Cycling fit bike was the first to adjust up and down, and back and forth, across X and Y axes, and this allowed the bike to tell us the stack and reach of the frame we were looking for. I had this fit bike built as a necessary adjunct to our F.I.S.T. Bike Fit School, ongoing since 2003. (Registration is here for our Autumn 2023 Workshop, November 6-10.) A few years later Retul’s fit bike mirrored a lot of EXIT’s features and also output the stack and reach of frames based on a rider’s fit coordinates.

Subsequent X/Y fit bikes, like the GURU, the Shimano, and the Purely Custom output a slightly different set of metrics – HX and HY – which were the “stack” and “reach” from the bottom bracket to the handlebar clamp rather than traditional “frame” stack and reach, which measured from the BB to the head tube top. HX/HY has a particular utility better suited for prescribing, which I won’t detail but which we teach in our bike fit workshops.

Here’s one feature of these newer fit bikes that is of prime importance: They adjust easily and quickly, up/down and fore/aft, saddle and handlebars, with the rider aboard. Ideally, a fit bike is constructed so that the fit coordinates can be changed while the rider is pedaling. This is the “dynamic” in dynamic bike fit: A static fit system does not care how the rider pedals. you can exhume Abraham Lincoln from the grave and determine the geometry needed for his racing bicycle, because static systems only care about limb and body lengths and dimensions. Dynamic bike fitting cares about how you pedal. Dynamic fitting believes that two people with the same dimensions could easily end up with a different set of fit coordinates. Not too different, because all dynamic systems believe in some sense of “sameness”, that is, these systems believe that there is a correct saddle height, hip angle shoulder angle and so forth, and the point of the acceptable ranges in body angles during a Retul fit session is that almost all physically sound riders do ride with a posture inside of those angular ranges.

So, then, dynamic bike fitting is like a religion with denominations. F.I.S.T. is our denomination born here on Slowtwitch, sort of the Presbyterian version of dynamic bike fitting. Then you have the offshoots from F.I.S.T, such as GURU, Retul and so on. They’re the Baptist and Lutheran versions. But for our differences we all believe in 3 things: 1) Bike fitting at its best occurs when you’re riding a bike, so that you and your fitter can detect the difference immediately when a change is made in (say) aerobar elevation as you’re pedaling, ideally under the sort of pressure you feel when you’re in a race; 2) While there are differences in how each person should be set up on a bike, dynamic fitting does not exploit variances from norms (a protocol designed to favor the “need” for a custom bike) but honors norms; and 3) Dynamic fitting is the first and only bike fitting “religion” to prescribe what we call a “complete bike solution,” based on the fit coordinates achieved during a dynamic bike fitting session, which include production bikes.

In 2011 Trek came out with its Speed Concept and this bike came with its own prescriber. Why? That bike had 5 sizes, 6 stems, and pedestals and wedges and hardware designed to make it highly adjustable. It was so adjustable that a single pad X/Y could generate quite a few different solutions (a size M frame with a mid/far stem; a size L frame with a low/near stem; and so on). We were already using pad X/Y (the rise and run from the BB to the aerobar armrest) as a set of necessary fit coordinates, but Trek was the first to build its own prescriber for its bikes and for tri bikes these kinds of brand-specific prescribers became a necessary part of the bike prescribing. When you go to our fit assistance threads on Slowtwitch (for Cervelo, Canyon, Quintana Roo and Trek) our expert bike fitters ask you for your pad X/Y and walk you through this process.

Finally, a digression if I may. I wrote a piece within the past week on prescriptive systems, intentionally published right before this one because brands that make highly tailored products will succeed or fail based on how they deal with this. By “highly tailored” I mean a product that has a lot of iterations. An air fryer doesn’t have a lot of iterations, but a wetsuit does. A triathlon wetsuit company might offer 5 models and 16 sizes per model. Which of those 80 is your ideal wetsuit? We have a mini-crisis right now in triathlon wetsuits because the size charts these companies produce are often really off, and the sales channel for tri wetsuits is almost exclusively mail order.

The wetsuit industry is a mess because certain brands – blueseventy, Sailfish – have pretty solid, proven size charts. Others… not so much. Same with cycling apparel makers. You can make a really great wetsuit or cycling jersey, but you can be abysmal at matching a consumer to his or her ideal product and size. Your training regimen is also the result of a prescriptive system.

AI training platforms are precisely this, but even old style coach-and-athlete relationships are examples of prescriptive systems: you provide inputs, your coach provides a custom-prescribed output. Systems that prescribe a product based on customer inputs must be fact-based, science- and engineering-based, and rigorously tested.

In my opinion and experience whether it’s nutrition, wetsuits, bikes, saddles, training regimes, we are in a place where industry offers, in average, low-quality prescriptive systems but consumers apparently need to be burned more and worse before they, as a bloc, rise up and demand better. Happily, dynamic bike fit systems are prescriptive, and they prescribe complete bike solutions simply based on math.

The post What is Dynamic Bike Fitting? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

There are two new bikes in our household – one road and one tri – and I’m going to write about them both. In each case I’ll write about the process of getting the bike: how we chose; why we chose; what size we chose and so on. In this case the bike is a Litespeed Arenberg and it’s my wife’s new road bike. We had a list of imperatives driving the decision, but in general the bike needed: to fit, handle, be comfortable, be of a sufficient quality, and as features offer 12-speed, electronic shifting, disc brakes, with the capacity to upgrade touch points.

Tanya’s height is in her legs and if there’s one area where women might be morphologically distinct from men – for bike fitting purposes – I tend to see a somewhat higher percentage of leggy (high waisted) women than I do of men. That said, I don’t stipulate to the existence of women’s geometries. Bikes fit people, not genders, and geometries fit morphologies, not genders. If your height is in your legs – as is the case with many men and many women – that’s a particular geometry. If you’ve got a long torso and shorter legs – which can be the case for both men and women – then that’s another geometric style.

Tanya’s existing road bike is a Giant Defy. It’s got electronic shifting but it’s first generation. Her Defy has a 10-cog cassette and she’s had that bike for 7 or 8 years. Her new Arenberg has Shimano 105 electronic, 12 cogs in the rear, and retail on this complete bike is $3,950. One reason I recommended the Arenberg to Tanya is that it’s a top caliber frame built with what I consider one of the two best groupset deals going: SRAM Rival AXS or, in the Arenberg’s case, Shimano 105 Di2. Each groupset is an aggressively-priced version of each company’s latest groupset tech.

Back to that Giant Defy, it’s “endurance” geometry. As you know if you read what I write on this subject, I hate that. There is little about the Defy that makes it endurance. It’s a really great bike that’s built with a lot of stack for a given reach. Remember, stack and reach are the rise and run from the bottom bracket to the head tube top and it’s an absolute measure of a frame’s height and length for fit purposes.

In Tanya’s case, her Defy in size 54cm has a stack and reach of 566mm ad 376mm respectively. That’s a lot of stack for that amount of reach. To give you a sense of this, one of my road bikes is a Cervelo R5 and that bike has a stack and reach of 547mm and 380mm respectively. The R5 is by no means a “long and low” bike. A Cannondale SuperSix EVO has in size 51cm a stack and reach of 535mm and 378mm so, functionally the same length as the Arenberg but 31mm lower. Tanya already has about 25mm of total headset spacer and top cap sticking up from her frame on her Arenberg (and on her Defy) so putting her on the Cannondale would have raised that up another 30mm. She’d have had her handlebars perched on top of a pole vault pole.

Of course my wife could have ridden that Cannondale, in the next size up. The size 54mm has a stack and reach of 555mm and 384mm, but, it’s a centimeter too long for the stem I’d like her to ride, and it’s a centimeter or two too tall. The Arenberg is a better fit. It’s got a stack and reach in size 54mm of 565mm and 375mm, which is to say, an almost dead-on match to her Defy.

I’ll be off this jeremiad with just this final sentence: whether my wife races on the road or rides a grand fondo her position is what it is aboard her bike. Her frame choice was not determined by use case but by a geometry that placed a frame underneath her. The imperatives – what I considered important, fitwise – was a front end that made sense. A stem not too long or too short. A stem not angled way up (I prefer a -6° stem or a -17° stem, or something in between). A sensible number of headset spacers (I prefer no more than 25mm of total headset top cap and spacers between frame and stem).

There are of course handling considerations. I wanted a reasonably long wheelbase for her size because her center of mass is higher than normal (because her long legs push her a bit higher in the air). The Arenberg in her size has a longish 420mm chainstay, and a longish 586mm front center (due to a 72° head angle and 45mm fork offset). There is 76mm of BB drop, which is lowish and sinks her down a bit toward the ground. In other words, the things that do make this a sort-of endurance frame are the design choices that happen below the waist of the frame: these metrics down around the wheel axles and wheelbase line. The Arenberg will be a comfortable, predictable handler and will be so because the designer of this frame made these design choices.

But when we received the bike we were not quite done. Shimano’s shifter hoods are longer than they used to be, and that affects fit. But the handlebars spec’d on road bikes these days are shorter than they used to be (in bar reach), and that someone offsets this. Still, in my fit studio I have two pieces of equipment on which my subject rides: my fit bike, and a Wahoo KICKR ROLLR. I don’t use the latter for stationary training (I’m on a KICKR and a Climb). I used the ROLLR as an easy way to take the next step after a fit session. The fit bike is used to establish a rider position and prescribe the bikes that will fit that position (e.g., to give me the stack and reach of frames that will work). Then the bike is ordered, and built, it shows up, but there still might be a little noise in the process. The new bike, with rider aboard, goes on the ROLLR before it goes out on the road. This is a lot easier than putting the bike on a trainer because I don’t have to take the wheels off. And, the ROLLR has a bit more roadfeel than a typical trainer.

When we ordered the bike from Litespeed I asked for the bike to be built with a specific front end config (stem length and pitch, and the number of spacers), because I knew her fit coordinates. This allowed Litespeed to cut the exposed hydraulic brake lines exactly to length. Another imperative of mine were exposed brake lines running underneath the handlebar tape. This allows me to make a stem change (or a handlebar change if we want) in 15 minutes rather than 2 or 3 hours. Tanya rode her new Arenberg (once we got it) on the ROLLR to doublecheck the fit and we got lucky: No changes needed to be made.

This last thing – exposed brake lines – is why I own a Cervelo R5. If I get another road bike I have my eye on a Specialized Aethos, because it’s made in my geometry, appears a great bike for what I like to do (climb and descend) and, again, it’s got exposed hydraulic lines. The sorry fact is that even if bikes are adjustable they are rarely adjusted if it means de- and recabling hydraulic lines in order to change a stem or handlebar. The exceptions are aero bikes that anticipated the need for adjustment, like Cervelo’s S5 or Cannondale’s Knot system for its SystemSix road bikes. More and more folks are riding handlebars they don’t like and bikes that don’t fit in order to get the Ducati look and, like buying a Ducati, you throw your leg over the saddle and ride and just hope it fits.

This was the process we went through when getting my wife’s new road bike. We made some changes to the stock Arenberg. Tanya is wedded to her Infinity saddle. I had some Dura Ace C60 wheels that I was not at the moment riding so I put these on Tanya’s new Arenberg along with 28mm Vittoria Corse N.EXT tires mounted tubeless. In fact, I’m going to swap Tanya wheel for wheel. I’m riding a set of CADEX Allroad wheels with CADEX 32mm road tires on my Cervelo R5 and while Tanya loves the Dura Ace wheels she hasn’t yet ridden them in gusty sidewinds. I think she’ll fare better with the CADEX wheels so she’ll give those a try. (The Arenberg is optimized for larger road tires and can accept tires up to 35mm.

Tanya rides Shimano SPD offroad pedals for both road and on her gravel bike. She likes a lot of lights on her bike, and has one front light and 2 rear blinkers always going when (daytime) road riding. She (and I) love Ergon grips when on our mountain bikes and she likes to reproduce that feature on her road bike. Redshift Sports makes grips for road bars and we’ll retrofit Tanya’s handlebars with these (she’s been riding with these on her Giant Defy).

Tanya likes to carry a lot of stuff with her, so she needs a high volume saddle pack and top tube storage. For the life of me I don’t understand why road racers don’t go for top tube storage. Triathletes do, and gravel racers do. Bosses for this do not come standard on the Arenberg; for $55 Litespeed will add them. This is a new storage unit from Profile Design, with enough volume but thin enough so your knees don’t hit it when you’re out of the saddle. It’s the Explorer pack and while it’s made for gravel add this to the many gravel products I’ve imported to my road bike.

And of course the license plate.

Should you get a Litespeed Arenberg? No, you shouldn’t. Unless as with Tanya that particular bike checks the boxes. For her, the frame quality, fit geometry, handling geometry, front end motif, and value made this one of a very few bikes that worked for her. These were the important elements to us, and by front end motif I mean a front end that can easily be changed for comfort and fit. As you might tell from this bike touch points (aka contact points) are important to Tanya, so, the saddle and exactly how her hand rests on the handlebar are non-negotiable for her (and for me in my own riding).

Note I’m not writing a review of the Arenberg; I’m writing about the process by which we chose the Arenberg. We listed our imperatives and chose a bike that matched them. The sister brand to Litespeed is a partner here (Quintana Roo). While I don't always pay full retail for the products I use, I did for this one.

The post Choosing Our New Road Bike first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

I tried as a consumer to buy products from the manufacturer as far back as 1985, the year before I first entered the industry side of triathlon, so I’m sympathetic to the urge to bypass the middleman.

Buying consumer direct (B2C in industry lingo) is a much bigger thing now than it was in 1986. But B2C (business to consumer) is not for everyone nor every purchase. When do you need a bike shop in between you and your product? Let’s pick two product categories where I have some specific history: bikes and wetsuits. On the wetsuit side I have an announcement to make on that, so I’ll not consider wetsuits today: Wetsuits are Part-2 of this 2-part series. Today is all about bikes and let’s tackle the 3 things you need to reckon with before you buy a bike using the B2C channel.

The 3 Considerations When Buying Bikes B2C

Sizing expertise:

Here is where the pendulum begins to swing away from the bike shop and I know I’m going to break some china here but over a 15-year span the major bike industry brands got heavily into ecumenical bike fit only to more recently (according to my observation) retreat from it. By ecumenical I mean a fit process that produced a brand-independent outcome. You got a set of fit coordinates from a fit session, followed by a list of complete bike solutions that matched those coordinates, regardless of which headbadge was riveted onto that bike’s frame. Ecumenical solutions are less in vogue at your local bike shop then they were 5 or 10 years ago.

We here at Slowtwitch began a *thing* back in 2002: Dynamic Bike Fit. The idea is that you are fit aboard your bike as you are pedaling it, rather than getting fit based simply or mostly on your limb and torso lengths and/or your range of motion. Dynamic bike fit tooling and in most cases the protocols were more or less descendants of F.I.S.T. (our bike fit protocol brand). Companies involved in this were Cannondale (with the GURU brand); Specialized (with its purchase of Retul); Trek Precision Fit (using Purely Custom’s excellent fit bikes); Shimano (with the introduction of its excellent fit bike); and to some degree Giant. I now don’t think I see any of those brands advocating for bike fit with the ardency they did at their zenith (though I’m happy to hear and report if any of these brands think my observation misses the mark).

As a result I am left with the following: If it’s a highly individualized high-end product (a bike must fit you; a floor pump is less individualized), there’s less reason for the shop to middle the transaction if it’s not wedded to fit as a pre-sale discipline. If getting the right bike, in the right size, set up correctly, is important then the shop has to be better than a B2C transaction. Nowadays I question whether that’s the case for the great majority of bike shops. If a Slowtwitcher can go to a good bike fitter, and/or place his fit coordinates in one of the Fit Assistance threads on our Reader Forum (Cervelo; Canyon; Quintana Roo); can get a bike built to exactly match those fit coordinates such as the Fit Ready process (the template for which is shown above); and can be hand delivered ready to ride to your door (see an image below of a THRU van getting loaded for delivery); is the bike shop a value add or a value subtract?

If I can generalize the major bike brands, in my view, figured out during the pandemic that bike fit only gummed up the works. People just wanted bikes. There were in many shops transaction rooms where you paid, your bike was placed in a clean room by the bike mechanic post-assembly; and after he exited you entered to retrieve your bike. There’s not a lot of bike fitting going on in that environment. But for bike transaction purposes the pandemic is functionally over now; we’re in the middle of a bike glut (except for tri); and the value of the bike shop reemerges. Or not. This is why the independent Bike Fitter is the business model to watch, and it is in my view a perilous time for shops to abandon fit (although those shops may not see their peril now).

Mechanical expertise

This is where the bike shop remains as relevant as ever. With the advent of hydraulic disc brakes bikes got really hard to work on, unless you know how to bleed brakes and you’re literate with hydraulic line, barbs, olives, compression nuts, and you have either SRAM or Shimano bleed kits (or both) and DOT fluid or mineral oil (or both). My Centerlock Lockrings affix with either a 41mm, 16 notch spline tool or the same 23.4mm, 12 spline tool I use for my cassette lockrings. Fortunately I have both. Do you even know what I just said? If you buy an electronic bike are you literate in either the SRAM AXS or Shimano eTube Project apps? Do you know how to change the coin cells in your road shifters and do you have those at home, at the ready? That’s what bikes have become.

This is why the most useful Bike Fitters are also mechanics and offer full service repair. This is the class of business that bike shops need to be wary of. Of course, bike shops can flank and outmaneuver the Bike Fitter by, simply, being the Bike Fitter. Don’t give up that expertise. Don’t be fooled by the false economy of the pandemic. But I digress. You will need to get your bike worked on and the very first bit of mechanical work is in getting this bike you just bought to match your fit coordinates. This is the biggest problem in the road, gravel and tri bike environment today: You’re not buying a bike anymore. You’re buying a motorcycle. If you’re riding around on a new bike and it just doesn’t feel as comfortable as your old bike, well, this is why. Because these bikes are so hard to adjust you must make sure you’ve got a bike shop that’ll work on your bike; or a Bike Fitter who’s a mechanic; a mobile bike fitter; or you just became your own mechanic.

Return threshold

My wife is a big returner. I am a non-returner. She enjoys the return process, whether in-person or online. I hate it. My threshold for returns is either low or high depending on which one of those means I’m least likely to return what I bought. If you’re like me you’re not a great candidate for buying (for example) wetsuits over the internet. How much worse if we’re talking bikes. For this reason I’m a really big fan of boxless complete bike delivery for those engaged in B2C transactions.

I tell the brands who’re contemplating this: The big thing is not the delivery; it’s the retrieval. Brands are experts at packing bikes. Consumers are not. If the bike needs to be returned for any reason (wrong size, warranty, recall) the process is a lot better for everyone if the consumer simply hands the bike to a driver, as with Tri Bike Transport. Just, this thing – your personal return threshold – is something you should consider before you engage in an important B2C transaction.

Role of the Bike Fitter

So far the most important B2C bike brands have not embraced the Bike Fitter into the sales process. Consumer direct bike brands haven’t shunned the Bike Fitter channel as an important resource; they just aren’t part of the sales process. One company that I will be talking about some this spring is Kú Cycle and you may like and want a bike from this brand or you may not. The reason I mention Kú in this context is there should be a logistical handshake between the Bike Fitter and any B2C bike brand and this brand understands this and has a granular pathway to purchase that embraces and includes the Bike Fitter.

It’s a regret of mine that some brands that I really admire – like Canyon and Quintana Roo – do not have this handshake in place. It is on some measure the fault of the Bike Fitter community for not embracing and pursuing this; in some measure it’s my fault because certain of these brands have expressed willingness and I have not sufficiently pushed through. (More work to be done here.)

Role of the Bike Shop

Finally, let’s consider the case of Cervelo. This is the co-number-1, along with Canyon, most wanted tri bike brand by triathletes who read Slowtwitch. Cervelo prefers the more traditional B2B channel, that is to say, Cervelo sells not to you but to businesses. Bike shops. Cervelo relies on the shop to assemble its bikes; to make sure the customers are safe, powerful and comfortable aboard their bikes. Cervelo requires that the shops have the expertise to do all this and to work on its bikes and handle any warranty or recall issues. Cervelo carefully selects its retail stores and it has the brand command and gravitas to get its pick of the best shops. How long that remains a viable plan depends on whether these shops retain their attachment to fit expertise; whether they remain committed to triathlon; and whether they remain independent (e.g., how many of Cervelo’s retail chain will end up a Trek or Specialized store?).

Not to belabor, but can I refer back to mechanical expertise for a moment? Today, the biggest problem in the bike industry is bikes that go out the door not properly fit to the customer. This didn’t used to be a big deal because you just changed the stem or did some other ministerial fix. Today what was ministerial now raising heaven and earth. Not so much with tri bikes, but with road and increasingly gravel getting your new bike to fit you often means pulling and reinstalling internal hydraulic lines, front and rear, rebleeding, new olives and needles, and you can’t do that. This is how the shop makes its margin. If the shop isn’t willing to do this it doesn’t deserve its margin. Conversely, if you need this done on your B2C purchase you might have just blown the savings you thought you got by going consumer direct.

So to recap, if you choose to buy from a shop, demand that this shop earn its margin by selling you not a motorcycle, but a bicycle, fitted to you with the correct amount of mechanical housing or hydraulic line. If the shop employs expert fitters using modern fit tools – like a conforming fit bike – you might need to pay extra for the fit session. But you shouldn’t pay extra for the mechanical work to make a new bike fit you if you’re buying that new bike from the shop. If the shop is unwilling to make the bike fit you at no extra cost to you, that shop gave you a great reason to buy a Canyon, a Ventum or a Litespeed. But if you choose to buy a Canyon, Ventum or Litespeed use the tools here on Slowtwitch (such as the fit assistance threads); make sure you know your fit coordinates; and buy your bikes with a plan in place for getting that bike to match your fit coordinates. And, have a plan in place for how to service your bike when necessary.

The post Buy From a Bike Shop or Direct? first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

I'm going to engage in a little shop talk to bike fitters right now and if that's not you you're welcome to read, but apologies in advance for catering to a narrow slice of our readership.

We still think proper bike fit matters around here. That might seem argumentative and in truth it's unfair to suggest that the major brands have stepped back from that view. So I'll explain but, before I do, here's where you go if you simply want to sign up for our March 20-24 F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshop. (Registration is here for our Autumn 2023 Workshop, November 6-10.)

If you consider the big brands en masse – Trek, Cannondale, Giant, Shimano, Specialized – each planned and spent significantly on well-conceived dynamic fit initiatives. If you look at that same group of 5 I think it's fair to say that most of them (I don't pretend to speak for them all) no longer feel that the job of bike fit has to be done by their retailers. I'm sure a number of them believe that the bike fitter is more important now than ever; they just don't think they need that fitter to work in their stores. They no longer believe that a fully-vested, professional, tool-intensive bike fit session is a required part of the bike sale transaction.

The brands that think this have a point. But if we go to any grand fondo or triathlon I think we'll agree that the need for a proper bike fit remains. It's just now more likely to occur in a fit studio, or by a coach-fitter, or in an independent high-end bike retail store. Maybe by a physical therapist with a bike-fit-centric practice. Less so in big brand company stores.

In triathlon, a wrench just got thrown into fit because of the new full-length forearm aerobars. I wrote recently about the incidence of these bars in the age group race in Kona, versus in the pro race. Not only are these aerobars moving to the age groupers, they influence fit.

This means our upcoming bike fit workshop, March 20-24, will not be the same as in years past, as we will reckon with these bars and the positional changes that attach thereto. Beyond that, the saddles are changing. I wrote about those as well. Accordingly, in this workshop upcoming we'll work with saddles and aerobars we haven't had at our previous workshops, and we'll instruct on how to fit with these.

I might add that the landscape is changing a bit, and bike fitters are a more likely place to purchase bikes and accessories that will remake the transition areas at triathlons worldwide, North America included. We know of bike brands now whose sales outlets consist exclusively of bike fitters.

As to that upcoming March 20-24 F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshop here are a few details. It's Monday thru Friday, $1,395 total with a $495 deposit and the balance paid when you're here. Most folks stay at the B&B next door. You may bring a bike or borrow one of ours. We have a size run of OPEN WI.DE gravel bikes, SRAM electronic mullet 1x, HED Emporia 27.5" wheels with 53mm tires, ideal for the gravel we have. Our rides are optional, some folks run the whole time (road or offroad), and we offer a number of opportunities to swim for those who must swim. (A number among our staff will swim at least once during the workshop.)

We are not COVID-restricted. Our workshops are indoor-outdoor, and we're spaced so as to, hopefully, avoid transmission. We are all somewhere between triple and quintuple COVID vaccinated, and I believe we'll all have had the flu vaccine as well. (My blood is by now 20 percent vaccine I think.) But we no longer require vaccines or masks of attendees.

One final related note: Many of you who're bike fitters have bemoaned the difficulty in getting the fit bike you want at the price you want. If you're looking for equipment we have scoured the earth for new and used fit bikes of the kind we believe are most appropriate for dynamic bike fits. We have a few dozen now we're going to try to find good homes for. Please contact us if you are looking for a fairly-priced unit on the secondary market.

(Registration is here for our Autumn 2023 Workshop, November 6-10.)

The post F.I.S.T. Bike Fit Workshop Schedule for Spring 2023 first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

For most of the aerobar era – 35 years and counting – pro women’s bike positions have not been as optimized as those of the men, in my opinion. Why? The largest single reason is that the bikes weren’t adjustable enough to accommodate the ideal position of many of these women. The bikes were either too long or too tall so many women (and shorter men) couldn’t get into the positions they needed.

This was partly the fault of the bike makers; partly the fault of the shorter-statured buyers who make up this market. The most obvious solution for a person 10 percent smaller is a bike that’s 10 percent smaller, including wheels that are 10 percent smaller (and for that matter 10 or 20 percent narrower). Shorter riders were presented that choice with the 650c wheel size (571 bead diameter) and rejected it; and have that choice presented now with the so-called 27.5” or 650b wheel size (584mm bead diameter).

That said, there are ways to make a bike today with a 700c wheel that is both low enough and not overlong. Cervelo does a good job of moving the front wheel axle forward to provide smaller riders with a proper cockpit distance while avoiding shoe overlap. The integrated aerobars or aftermarket aerobars in the pricier bikes offer a low enough position for most shorter riders, and Profile Design makes its Subsonic bar for those who need a lower front end on a less expensive bike.

If you look at the positions pro women rode in Kona they’re quite good. (At least I think so.) They’re also very similar to what we saw in the men’s race. Women in the pro field at this year’s Hawaiian IRONMAN had pretty compact cockpits, slightly upturned arms, and were appropriately low. But as with the men’s positions you’d need to add for the most part.

I chose the first 3 images above because the positions were pretty much congruent; because they’re top athletes; and because they each do something well – or at least I think they do it well – that we’re starting to see among the best men and women. The first image above is of Lucy Charles-Barclay, and as you see she rides pretty low, tighter than most, upward arm angle to match the aerobar style she’s using (a full-length forearm system from Cube) and, finally, note how her helmet matches her position and her morphology. The second image is of Fenella Langridge who placed 6th in this year’s Kona. She’s not as low nor as tight as Lucy. Should she be? I don’t know; I’m not her fitter. But I’d say that Lucy is on the aggressive end of the “consensus” spectrum and Fenela is pretty much square in the middle. I show Fenella because she also seems to have found a helmet to match her body and her position. Then just above we see race winner Chelsea Sodaro, who’s pretty similar to Fenella both on position and in the way her helmet choice is a good match.

Laura Siddall has a great position and she has a talent for riding with a rotated pelvis and a flat back. The one obvious difference is that she doesn’t show that shape as do the other women. We’re going to write, in detail, about Sam Laidlow’s position, and how his upper body achieves a shape through, chiefly, really narrow elbows. There may be a rounding of the shoulders and a shrug that, in combination with the right helmet and perhaps a longer cockpit, gives him a uniquely good presentation to the wind. If there is anything new and notable about today’s positions – not just in triathlon but in high-end TT racing – it’s that the shape is the thing. It could be that Laura’s talent for a flat back could be put to even better use with some attention to the shape from the high back and shoulders forward (and a helmet to match that shape).

Lauren Brandon didn’t have the race she wanted but it seems to me she’s paid attention to her presentation to the wind and the choice of helmet to augment it.

Anne Haug is 5’5” and that qualifies her for a smaller-wheeled bike. But she’s not riding one and, as you see, she gets acceptably low and pretty tight in the cockpit aboard a bike with 700c wheels. This is – as noted – due to the attention Cervelo pays to this. There’s a lot that goes into this. The bike has to have a shallower head angle and to keep the trail constant the fork needs more offset. This means cutting a new mold for the fork and you either invest in this or you don’t if you’re a bike brand. Cervelo does. Other brands don’t or, just as likely, their designers don’t even know what I’m talking about or don’t care.

I love everything about Daniela Bleymehl’s position. The one difference between her and some of those listed higher up is the helmet. Her position is great. Is that the best helmet for it? Maybe so. I don’t think you can tell just by eyeballing (and this is just one still image). But my instinct tells me Lucy’s the gold standard and I think Daniela could pretty easily get there, if *there* is as productive for her as it is for Lucy.

There are two aero bike positions struck by two riders that have never resonated with me: Dave Scott and Daniela Ryf. They have won the Hawaiian IRONMAN World Championship 6 and 4 times respectively, so their positions obviously don’t need to meet with my approval. Do I think Daniela’s position should change? No. I just note the differences between her and others’ positions. She’s not as forward in the saddle, not as low in front, and the forearms are flat or even slightly down. She’s a throwback to riders from 15 years ago. I wonder if she gets the full benefit of that SwissSide aerobar with her aerobar tilt. Either her position is perfect, or she’s proof that the engine always prevails.

Not all positions are low, and Laura Philipp rides with a more open hip angle – not quite as flat a back – as most of the others pictured here. But some of the strongest riders in IRONMAN throughout its history – Jürgen Zäck and Normann Stadler come to mind – rode with a position you wouldn’t single out for the small frontal profile.

Sarah Crowley is another example of that. The adjustment limits in their bikes are not the issue here, but I don’t know that lower would be better. These might be the ideal positions. I show them to demonstrate that not all the women in the pro field rode the same way.

Skye Moench seems to me to be a very representative position. Right on the fat of the bell curve. To my eye, the most obvious divergence between the men and the women in Kona this year is that some men – Sam Laidlow, Magnus Ditlev, Jesper Svennson, Josh Amberger – are choosing longer cockpits which, along with narrow armrests – might help them achieve round shoulders, and a better presentation to the wind. I didn’t find any of the women I saw doing that.

But the women have closed the gap to the men in terms of rider positions (unless Laidlow is on to something). Chelsea Sodaro and Lucy Charles-Barclay don’t ride like Sam Laidlow, but their positions are quite similar to and on par with (or better than) those of Gustav Iden and the best of the top men.

PHOTOS: Aaron Palaian

The post Pro Women’s Bike Positions in Kona first appeared on Slowtwitch News.

We’ve had the race, now let’s get down to what it means for you and me. We’re starting with the positions of the male pros and the women will get their turn shortly. All the images you see here were taken for us by Aaron Palaian.

One thing I never thought would change is the bike position. The fundamentals of it. The major fit coordinates. And to a degree I think that remains the case, with an *, and I’ll explain this. What has changed about the position is entirely driven by tech. The top male 13 (at least) finishers in the Hawaiian IRONMAN World Championships were riding full-length-forearm aerobars, and out of the top-35 I can count on one hand those who weren't. While these full-forearm extensions have a terrific comfort advantage – when made and fitted properly – when designed well they provide an aero advantage.

What you see then – the biggest positional change – is the upward tilt of the aerobar. Whether this tilt actually provides an aero advantage is unclear to me. I suspect it does. My intuition says it does. But data rules and I have none of that. If you look at the pics here and compare them to images of top pros in this race from 2008, or from IRONMAN Oceanside 70.3 in 2017, I think you’ll see the difference in aerobar tilt.

The 3 images above show, highest up, Sam Laidlow, who set a new bike course record in Kona of 4:04:36. Just underneath is a pic of the overall race winner Gustav Iden. Just above is Colin Chartier and while he did not have the day he wanted in Kona he is fresh off a huge win at the Dallas PTO US Open race. What Chartier does not have is a set of these new-style aerobars. But I think if you look at these pics above – minus Laidlow – along with the pic below of Braden Currie, you’ll see a pretty similar posture aboard the bike. This is still the consensus position and if there are any changes it’s a very slightly more tilted aerobar.

However, back to Laidlow, he’s got something else going on. Forget the body tech for a moment, the aero socks and whatever else. Look at the transition from head to back. One of the behavioral changes we’re seeing among top athletes is the *shrug*, and attention paid to how air flows around and over the head and shoulders. Laidlow had a McGuyvered version of the new bar style, with liberal use of tape. What you also see from Laidlow is a slightly more stretched cockpit. The jury’s out on this. You don’t see this in the other images above but you see it from Magnus Ditlev below.

What you also see from Ditlev is a slightly higher front end. I think you can get away with this if you find aerodynamics elsewhere, which is in shape (head, back and shoulders), narrowness, and the value you get from aerobars that move the air away from the rider’s torso. Perhaps the best example of a rider trying his hardest to adopt a truly aero position is Jesper Svensson, below.

This isn’t the only position that appears to be wholly aero-driven. Below is a pic of Josh Amberger and I think you’ll see some similarities.

But Svensson and Amberger were outliers in Kona. It doesn't mean they were wrong. But a more representative position is the one struck by Max Neumann below, with a slight bit more of an upward tilt of the aerobars than you’d have seen in prior years, and a pretty much a right angle between forearms and torso. This is what we’ve seen from triathletes almost since the advent of aerobars in 1987. Neumann was one of this year’s big Kona surprises, with just a textbook traditional position.

What you risk with the extended cockpit is discomfort over a 112mi ride through having to hold up your upper body with your spinal erectors. Classic low-back pain among triathletes is due to overlong cockpits most of the time and this is why extended cockpits, with a more obtuse shoulder angle, remain rare even among the pros. Accordingly, the position you see here from Florian Angert is becoming more typical: no to a stretched cockpit, yes to an upturned aerobar.

Are armrests higher? Yes. a little. But I don’t think that means back angles have changed much. When you tilt the aerobars up the hands rise but the elbow drops, which mean the shoulders drop. Pads are pedestaled a little higher on these bikes and if you look at them in the bike rack in transition you’d think the positions are higher. But when you see the riders out on the road, I don’t think hip angles and back aspects have changes much. Of course, there’s Kristian Blummenfelt below.

I remember once offering a critique of Mark Allen’s position as it was back in 1989 when he won the infamous Ironwar. This was perhaps the greatest IRONMAN race of all time, certainly the best I ever witnessed. I caught a little flack from that. How could I layer any criticism on the man who just threw down the greatest race ever? Fast forward about 20 years and I was at a Cervelo Brainbike presentation by that same Mark Allen. He presented using a slideshow, showing images of his bike position from 1989 through to 1995, and how his position evolved from year to year, culminating in what he maintained was his final, optimized position which – ahem – I found to be optimized as well. Which is to say, maybe this is Blu’s best no-draft position. But in truth, he’s fairly new to the no-draft world, and we’ll see whether this is the position he maintains as his racing progresses.

We’ll end with a couple of positions, such as this one by Kyle Smith and if you look at Gustav Iden, Colin Chartier and Braden Currie you’ll see that this is *a* type if not *the* type of position we could claim creates a consensus among top pros. Below is the Oldie von Moldie (that’s a Mad Magazine shoutout) Tim O’Donnell with a very representative pro position.

Same as it ever was for Tim, except his aerobars are more tilted than they used to be. But in truth this isn’t recent. He had a pretty similar position back in 2019.

Seat positions, fore and aft, remain unchanged to my eye. The takeaway for you and me is that we need to pay a bit of attention to these new aerobar styles. When virtually the entire pro Kona field is using these, and altering (slightly) their positions to optimize these bars, we ought to take notice.

IMAGES: Aaron Palaian

The post Bike Positions of the Male Pros in Kona first appeared on Slowtwitch News.