Bikeland is now FIST Certified utilizing EXIT fit bike for Professional Triathlon Fitting

The F.I.S.T. method of bike fit for triathletes ?
April.06 by Dan Empfield
( www.slowtwitch.com ) Sport is full of "systems." One might ask if all these systems are necessary, since bike riders rode, swimmers swam, and runners ran (quite well, in fact), before any of today's systems. Why do tri bike owners need a bike fit system?

In point of fact, they don't. The worth of any of these systems is directly proportional to their abilities to transfer functionality that is already well-established in sport. A system for teaching a proper golf swing, or tennis serve, results in a student's ability to play tennis or golf in a way quite similar to those who are especially adept at these sports.

A proper road bike fit system is one that helps a rider adopt a road bike fit used by most of the better road bike riders. And a proper tri bike fit system will place triathletes in an optimized position for riding a bike outfitted with aero bars.

In the absence of such a system, we at Slowtwitch.com decided to develop one, and we call it Fit Institute Slowtwitch (F.I.S.T.). This system is the logical extension of the work done by the founders of Slowtwitch, who are also the founders of Quintana Roo, the first true tri geometry bike.

The end result of a FIST fit is a position easily recognizable. Any fan of baseball, tennis, basketball, bowling, or any sport grows to know what good technique looks like. Any triathlete who follows the sport knows what a good tri bike position looks like. You don't need to be a pro to know how a pro rides.

FIST AXIOMS

Noting we've written above is especially groundbreaking or controversial. Rest assured, there is plenty to follow to which certain folks will take exception. And because of this, it's only fair to lay out a few axioms upon which this system is based, so that readers understand the foundation atop which this bike fit system is built. It's only fair we produce these axioms here, because if you don't accept them as truisms you'll probably have a problem with the system built on these axioms. Here they are:

1. MOST PRO TRIATHLETES RIDE ALIKE. Pro triathletes started riding in positions exhibiting bike fit characteristics common one to another, and did so within two years of the introduction of aero bars (in 1987). Furthermore, most good pros ride the same way today as the best pros did in 1990. What do Mark Allen, Paula Newby-Fraser, Scott Tinley, Jürgen Zäck, Wolfgang Dittrich, and Pauli Kiuru all have in common? They were all stars 12 and 15 years ago, and they shared very similar tri bike fit characteristics. What do Normann Stadler, Torbjorn Sindballe, Faris Al Sultan, Peter Reid, Tim DeBoom, Heather Fuhr, Lori Bowden and Natascha Badmann all have in common? They are today's stars, and they not only share bike fit characteristics one to another, they are positioned in ways quite similar to those pros of an earlier generation. These similar characteristics are measurable, identifiable, and we'll identify and quantify them below.

2. FIT, TRIM AGE GROUP ATHLETES CAN EASILY ADOPT THE SAME POSITION AS THOSE RIDDEN BY PROS. What keeps you from the pro podium in the Hawaiian Ironman is not your inflexibility. It's not that you lack the "taint of steel," and that you can't take the pain of your peritoneum on the saddle nose the way Mark Allen could. What keeps you from the podium is that you cannot absorb 400 calories per hour during a race, like Mark Allen could. You heart doesn't have the stroke volume of Spencer Smith's heart. You can't burn the same amount of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute as can Peter Reid. In other words, you might not have a pro "motor," but you do have a pro "chassis," and there is no reason why you can't ride in a pro position. Most fit, trim golfers have the physical ability to swing the club like Tiger Woods, and tennis players can hit ground strokes like Venus Williams. Maybe not as hard, or as accurately, but if they don't exhibit the same basic technique it is not because they're physically disqualified from doing so. It's a myth to think triathletes can't ride their bikes in an appropriate fashion.

3. BODIES ARE SMART, AND CAN BE TRUSTED. Riding a bike in the aero position is an elemental exercise. There are few fine points of technique involved. A rider in his best position enjoys what one might call a "nexus of strength": optimized leverage combined with major thigh muscles firing in concert. By happy circumstance, the important elements of tri bike fitâ€"those exhibited by most of the best pros throughout the past 15 yearsâ€"are freely identified and selected by most of those given the opportunity to find their optimized position. In other words, your body will not betray you.

4. THE OPTIMIZED TRI POSITION REQUIRES MODERATE ATHLETICISM. While an optimized aero position is not difficult to achieve, it requires elements of athleticism in excess of that required for a road race position. While nearly everyone can ride a road race bike in a position not so different from those ridden by professional road racers a smaller percentage, perhaps half to two-thirds of those of those competing in triathlons, can adopt an optimized tri position. This might seem an axiom at cross-purposes with #2 above. Please note, though, the qualifiers, "fit" and "trim."

The axioms above allow us to build a bike fit system.

FIST PROTOCOL

There are two ways a bike fit can be executed. It can be imposed on the athlete by the fitter, or the fitter can artfully enable a process by which the rider self-selects his position. The FIST system endorses the latter methodology, for a pair of reasons.

First, there is utility in performing several trials, at different seat angles, optimizing one's position at east seat angle. An athlete might enjoy a trial at, say, 75° of seat angle, then again at 77°, at 79°, and at 81°. In this case it's important that the rider's body's levers and muscle groups fire at one's best efficiency: that "nexus of power" spoken of earlier. The important components of this nexus of power are detailed below, in the discussion of "seat height" and "hip angle." This, combined with an attention to comfort, result in what we term an "optimized" position.

Once these rider positions at various successively steeper seat angles have been optimized, the rider must choose a seat angle among them. It is common for a rider to indicate a preference to two adjacent seat angles, and this may require repositioning the rider in both of these "finalist" positions before the rider can clearly determine a preference (or, perhaps the rider will prefer a seat angle in between, say, 78° instead of the 77° and 79° angles.


One can execute a FIST tri bike fit without the use of a position simulator, but the instant feedback such an apparatus offers makes this tool especially useful. My personal favorite, made by Ves Mandaric of a design he and I co-generated, is at right.

There is a second reason why the self-selected fit is preferred. When a fitter invests this extra bit of time and executes the fit in this way, he equips his subject with the confidence that his instincts that can be trusted. Yes, there is a set of predetermined data upon which a good fitter will rely, to make sure that the subject is not leading himself awry (outlined in chapters below). Yet the experience a subject gleans from discovering, on his own, the same position ridden by the majority of triathlon's greatest athletes is invaluable.