Croston Cycles Bike Fitting Blog - Hold Your Form!

Welcome to the Croston Cycles Bike Fitting Blog. We offer bike fitting in store and Nick Thomas, our expert and qualified fitter, will be using this blog to share his tips and ensure you maximise your cycling comfort and performance. This week we look at the subject of 'holding form' and cycling performance. 

Achieving the correct bike fit with the rider adopting the most efficient position during a bike fit is all well and good but this is irrelevant if the person can’t maintain the same position when riding the bike in the real world.

There's been a real spate of this in recent years with the development and progress of aerodynamic positions. They may feel fine during the bike fit and when cycling on the turbo, but holding it for an hour or more on the road and whilst trying to steer, may be a different task entirely! 

Let's start with the basics. Often, the cyclists we deal with have no idea how to sit correctly on the bike. An important part of the bike fitting process is therefore correcting posture but the most important thing is explaining how to maintain the correct position when riding. It’s much easier to adjust your position with continual feedback from someone standing next to you but how do you ensure you’re maintaining the same position without any help? 

Many road cyclists ride with a slumped position which results in the pelvis being posteriorly rotated and the hands struggling to reach the handlebars. The result is the following:

1. Excessive tension throughout the back
2. Inadequate weight distribution through the upper body
3. Ineffective use of core postural muscles
4. Reduced efficiency and power

Here's 3 basic checks you can make to assess upper body and lower limb posture and efficiency. 

Check 1:

When the cyclist achieves the correct position with a more extended posture (and more anteriorly rotated pelvis) the centre of the front wheel is partially or fully obscured by the handlebars. 

Check 2:

Your hands should be rested into the hoods, not creeping back towards the bend in the bars

Check 3:

The knee should track directly up and down over the foot when cycling with minimal deviation in (adduction) or out (abduction) from this direct line of travel. Adducted knees are often due to inadequate hip stability (e.g. ineffective glutes) and abducted knees can be a compensation for inadequate hip mobility at the top of the pedal stroke, tight glutes. Often it’s because the person simply doesn’t realise how the knees should track and the once aware the fault is instantly corrected.

Conclusion:

Riding posture affects comfort and efficiency so must be an integral part of any bike fit and a good bike set up is only effective if the cyclist maintains the correct position when riding the bike. By regularly completing the above checks the cyclist can maintain the correct posture and ride with greater comfort and efficiency.

Don't always presume that the 'ideal position' is something you've seen on social media! We get sold an 'optimised position' that we're unable to hold in the real world. 

Nick Thomas is the resident bike fitter at The Endurance Coach, based at Croston Cycles. He is a fully qualified bike fitter and expert in lower limb mechanics, holding a BSc (Hons) in podiatry. A 90 minute bike fitting session costs £75 and you can contact him using the email address: nickthomas@theendurancecoach.com or see more about his fitting services by GOING HERE.