If you have clicked this option you are obviously interested in bike fits. Bike fitting is one of the most important things you can do for efficiency and power on your bike. If you have bike that doesn't fits you well, you are not going to do well in a race. One of the first things we do, is we position the foot over the pedal spindle. Ryan, step straightforward. The ball of Ryan's foot is approximately right here, it's your first metatarsal. It's slightly in front of the pedal spindle right here. What you are trying to feel, is you are trying to feel the push with your two first toes, your big toe and second toe.
That's going to create the most power over the most efficient spot, which is your pedal spindle. So position your cleat so that's just slightly forward of that. Go ahead and spin again. The next thing we do -- stop at the bottom with this one, is we get your saddle height. You have three bony landmarks on your legs that you used to do this. One, right here is your greater trochanter, below your hip. The next one is a bony landmark on the bottom of your femur called lateral condyle. Down here the malleolus or your ankle, there is device called goniometer that you can use, that will measure this angle. This angle should be between 30 and 35 degrees. It's dependent upon your riding style. If you are too high, your hips will start to rock, and you will start to lose power at the bottom of the stroke. If you are too low, you will also eventually start to lose power and start to get knee pain right in here.
Go ahead and spin again. So he is positioned correctly. That's about what the angle should look like. After we have done his foot and his height, we are going to his fore and out position, and this is very critical for triathletes. What this is, is how forward you are sitting on the seat in relationship to your patellae and the crank arm. When I take this level, and use this plane of the level, I am putting against the outside of the crank arm. Once I get the level perpendicular to the ground, you can see how far Ryan's knee is in front of this level. He is approximately four, five centimeters in front of the plane that the crank arm creates. What this is doing for triathlons, is it's using the crank arm as a lever in the most efficient position. You are trying to get all the mechanical advantage out of it.
So with Ryan's position slightly in front of the plane of the outside of the crank arm, he is using the crank arm as a lever. He is getting the most mechanical advantage out of this lever by being forward and using the entire thing. Also by being forward as he is peddling, he is pulling up engaging the hamstrings and hip flexors, which will be warm when he gets off the bike to run. Go ahead and hop in the arrow position. Also by being little forward in the arrow position its going to open up this angle. If he was in the normal road position, back, this angle would be so crunched that when he starts breathing heavily ,his thighs would interfere with his breathing.
Now that we have gotten Ryan's foot properly placed over the pedal spindle, his saddle height correctly positioned, and his fore and out correctly positioned, then and only then do we fit his upper body to the bike. Now for his upper body, in triathlon one of the most critical things is aerodynamics. You want to be low, and you want to have a very small frontal area, I.e. narrow. You don't want to be so low that half way through the race you are going to be uncomfortable. You don't want to be so narrow that your shoulders or your triceps are going to cease up, you are going to be uncomfortable. You are going to lose concentration of all the technique and your focus of what you are supposed to be doing.
So comfort is key, aerodynamics is important. So you can see Ryan's back is flat. If he was too crunched in -- just slide back a little bit Ryan, what's going to happen is his lower back is going to start to cease up. These muscles are going to start to contract, because he is too crunched. Go ahead and spread back out. Once he spreads out like that, that is going to totally relax his lower back. That being said, he has close to about a 90 to 95 five degree angle, in his arms right here. You want to be resting on your bone structure. You don't want to be holding yourself up with your muscles. That's just going to waste energy and cause fatigue.
From the frontal view, Ryan's arms are going to be as narrow as he can possibly tolerate. What this does is, is it helps you slice through the wind. If you are wide, you are going to have turbulence right here. It is going to slow you down. If you are narrow, drop your head down into your shoulder, you are going to cut right through the wind, and that is exactly what Ryan is doing right now. And once you get all this set, you will love your bike, you will love your race, and you will be rocking.
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