Retul Bike Fit

A successful bike fit today. I felt kind of like a lion in a zoo. A bunch of dudes standing around watching this guy take my measurements and check out my bio-mechanics to see how I was currently riding. Though a little awkward, still pretty cool.

The first part of the fit is check out flexibility, musculature imperfections, etc. Turns out I'm pretty flexible, who would have thought? I think it's the stretching I've been doing plus all the work with Liu (my trainer, named one of Chicago's hottest trainers: http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/spas-gyms/70361/flex-symbols/8.html) So that was a bonus. Everything but the flat feet.

The new speedplay pedals, cleats and SIDI Gen5 shoes were all an added bonus. Thanks Mom and Dad for the Ironman support!

So the Retul bike fit process is really cool. http://www.retul.com/ They hook you up to a bunch of nodes that feed a computer set up to read and suggest geometry improvements.

The result is basically that I need a new bike for this back problem. But that's not going to happen this year, so we're going to make the most of what I have. Moved the seat up considerably and the handle bars up so I wasn't reaching. Everything was good on the back minus the aero position.

To get the right aero I needed new aero clip-on bars. Profile T-2's to be exact. So the fitting finished and we tightened everything up. I ran to Element and grabbed the bars. Brought them back to VQ and Cortino and I put them on. Fits like a glove.

We may have to do some modifications in the future for riding outside on hills and such, but this should alleviate at least some of this intense back pain post long-ride. So tonight I try the new fit for a 45 min ride. We'll see how it feels!

In other news: It's not 650 calories a day I have to EAT. It's a 650 calorie DEFICIT from what I was eating. Well, that's totally different! Whoo Hoo! 1,200 cals a day, here I come! Still using the online tracking tool to chart those - it works really well. Good old Lance: www.livestrong.com.

Alright! Back to training!