Secrets to a PERFECT Bike Fit with Ken Ballhause

What I think is even more important for race day, your ability to control your bike when you're in this super confined position where you've got really little vision of the road.

This podcast is brought to you by Trivelo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. I'm your host, Jordan Donnelly, and on my left is former Australian Ironman champion and head coach of Trivelo Coaching, Jared Donnelly. Today's guest is Ken Ballhouse, specialist and world leading bike fitter, who focuses on biomechanics and science to maximise comfort and performance on the bike. Ken holds both a bachelor in Exercise Science and Health Science and as you'll hear today, has a thorough understanding of the biomechanics of the human body and what is required to find the optimal balance of aerodynamics, power output and comfort. His work both in bike fitting and the development of optimal components for the bike is now being utilized by many of the world's top cyclists and cycling teams. Dad, this is another fantastic discussion around what are the priorities with a bike fit? What are the most important questions you need to be asking about your own position and what do you need to learn about your own biomechanics?

Yes, Jordan, it was a really fantastic podcast, one that I really think has got a lot of value for the everyday cyclist and triathlete out there listening. Without doubt, the bike fit is one of the key things that we really are adamant about that should be a priority for every triathlete or cyclist. Time trialing is hard enough, but if you're sitting poorly on a bike, you're doing yourself out of free speed and some good power, and he goes through in a very well structured way so that we can understand the priorities from the correct seat, the seat height, the seat position, the seat comfort, down to the crank size, crank lengths, and to the front end where the aerodynamics of your body position. These are all the things that he goes through in detail and the method that he has to articulate the importance from most to least important is really well worth listening. And I know that it went for a long time, this podcast, but there are so many things that I think the listener will get out of it. And if you don't do something about making sure your bike fit is optimal, then I think you're missing an opportunity.

We do try not to put time limits on these episodes. We do try and just let the conversations evolve naturally and if they they do go for longer, then so be it. We also try to keep in mind that we don't want podcasts to go forever. You know, often if it's too long, then it is hard to get through. But this conversation was just so valuable that it just kept going. So it is a long one, but as always, we only make them long if we really do think they're worth listening to. So here is the episode with Ken, and we hope you enjoy it. Ken, a very big welcome to the Travelo podcast. Thank you very much for joining us. We just want to launch straight into the first question and talk about the overall importance of a bike fit. So can you talk to us about your ethos about it and why you think it's so important for any athlete to undertake?

Yeah, I guess my ethos on bike fitting is kind of the tagline that I created for the bike business that I run, which is really improving the human bike interaction. And for me, that's what BikeFit's all about. It's improving the athlete's interaction with the bike and the outcome that they get from that. And you could look at that outcome from multiple angles. It could be performance or it could purely be comfort. Most likely it's a combination of both. But improving the human bike interaction, that's a brilliant start.

Can we start from the top down? And I'm sure the answer to this question might take us almost half the episode, but you mentioned to us that there is generally an order of priorities that someone wants to think about when they're looking at overall bike fit. So can you take us so much from the top down and what are you looking at first and what are we trying to change straight away?

Yeah, it's a big question, the order of priorities, I guess, really it starts with having a bike that's suitable for what it is you want to do on it. And probably the easiest way that I can explain that is if you want to do a TT or if you want to do the bike leg of a triathlon, you really need a TT bike to be doing that. Trying to do that on a road bike is a really hard task. And it's not that you can't do that on a road bike. You can do it on a road bike, that's fine. But if you want to do it well, you need specific geometry that's going to cater for achieving a comfortable and narrow position. And the only way you can do that is on a bike that has geometry that's designed for that application. The type of bike is the first real question in that, and that is, does it actually suit what it is you want to do. And I guess that's, you know, I get that question quite a bit, you know, will you fit me to my road bike? Because I want to do, you know, such and such trident and yeah, often that's a pretty hard, hard task to do.

How do you go about that? Ken, if someone's in a position where they actually can't afford to upgrade their bike but they still want to get them, maximize their aerodynamics on the bike that they've got, what's your advice to those athletes?

My advice in that situation would be start with a saddle, get a seat on there. That's actually going to get you sitting a little bit further forward. It's going to allow you to achieve closer to the torso angle that you'll have on a TT bike and I guess be happy that you're going to have a compromise here and that's that it's not going to be anything like riding a TT bike.

Yeah.

And there's no reason why someone, someone can't do that. That's fine. You know, for many people that's going to be the way they get into, say, the sport of triathlon.

Does that mean you rule out just TT bars on a road bike? That's definitely not a preference for you.

Wouldn't waste my time with that. That's gonna be pretty uncomfortable to try and do 90 or 180ks on a road bike with a set of clip ons on it. The thing that really sets you up for success on any bike, and it could be a road bike, it could be a TT bike, is choosing the saddle that is designed around the torso angle that you need to achieve. So on a TT bike, your torso angle is a lot lower. You need a saddle that allows your pelvis to tilt more anteriorly on the seat and that's different to riding a road bike. So simply strapping a set of clip on handlebars onto a road bike, it's kind of addressing the problem from the wrong end of the bike in the first place. But yeah, it's not going to be comfortable.

So talk to us about that torso angle then. I feel like that's the first point you're trying to address here is you're ultimately trying to obviously get a bike like a TT bike like you just mentioned, that naturally does that. And then the goal from there is someone like you coming in and helping someone achieve that more and getting what is the optimal range there? Is it totally different for everyone? Is it based purely on aerodynamics?

Yeah, so it's, it's different for the discipline of cycling. So riding a road bike, the normal torso angle that you're going to see is anywhere between 35 and 45 degrees. On a TT bike, you know, which is the most extreme end of the spectrum for positioning, you're looking at around about 15 degrees, maybe a little bit lower for a true elite athlete. You know, straight away there you can see that there's quite a difference. And anyone riding a road bike, they'll be able to relate to the sensation of when you're in the drops. So the most aggressive position on a road bike, the saddle is nowhere near as comfortable as when you're riding with your hands on hoods. And when you're riding in the drops, your torso might be at a 20 degree angle. So it's still not anywhere near as low as it could be on a TT bike. So that when you, when you move more into time trial positioning, a triathlete, even some elite triathletes, sit closer to 20 degrees for their torso angle. And some of your best time trialers are anywhere between 10 and 15.

Is there a variation in your opinion between going too far and being as aerodynamic as you can and then giving up some power because of that question?

Such a good question, right? Like this is, this is the question that every second time trial asks, right? Because it's, that's their experience. They get into a TT position and they're their power drops. My opinion on that has probably changed over the years a little bit. And I think initially I was probably influenced by, I guess more the racing side of things where, you know, the attitude of aero first or aero is everything, you know, really kind of filters through. And initially I would have said, you know, five years ago that my answer to that question would be, yeah, I'd accept a little bit of a compromise in power output. But I think that more as I've, I guess, worked through sort of solving that problem with, you know, the range of elite athletes that I, that I now see and now have years of experience with. I think my answer to that question is no. Your power should be the same on a road bike or a TT bike. You shouldn't accept a power loss. And I think that the power loss is only one symptom of the problems that you start to experience when you get a little bit too aggressive on the TT bike. And the sort of things that people should really start to identify is not just is my power being compromised, but is my ability to maintain my best aero position also being compromised. And I think that those Two things go hand in hand because the moment that you start creeping forward on seat, shifting back, you know, that's, that's going to be at around the same level of extreme as, as when your power starts to be compromised. So, yeah, it's movement on the saddle, shifting forward, pushing back, shifting forward, pushing back, doing that, you know, more frequently than we'd accept. In combination with your power being lower than your road bike, I think they're really good signs that either something's not right or the position is too extreme.

So is that what you're seeing at the top level is guys are putting out the same power no matter what bike they're on?

Yeah, definitely.

Yep, yep.

For sure. With, yeah, both males and females that, that I work with, it's pretty consistent.

Because we consistently see the opposite. And is. That is. So that is a product of. You're saying one position's too extreme. Does that come down. How do you counter that? Does that come down to just time spent on the bike or making more minute changes to the position?

Yeah, just little, little adjustments. Like that's obviously, you know, multifactorial as well. Like, it's. It wouldn't really be fair to say that, you know, people just need to add more spaces to their front end and bring their front end up. That. That might not be the approach, you know, the approach might be that they need to change their saddle and combat that issue from the back end of the bike.

Yeah.

And that's where I think saddle choice really, really becomes critical on a TT bike. And that's, you know, it's trying to balance that, trying to get your position as extreme as possible and as aero as possible, while not compromising your power output, while also allowing an athlete to be in their best position for as long as possible. And that's where I think over the years I've become, you know, fairly, fairly strict on only really using a few different TT saddles because I've seen it every time that, you know, they're really effective at doing the job that they do. And it's, I guess, the thing that also reinforces to me how important a saddle is for especially a time trailer. And yeah, it's. It is really one of the critical components for any bike, but especially a TT bike.

So let's just go down that rabbit warren and we're not here to promote brands and we never have been, but let's just get your opinion on the types of. Obviously, like, certain types of clothing suit some people better than others. Some people's anatomy would Prevent them from riding certain saddles. And I know I'm in that situation with. I've had some horrible experiences with saddle sores because I can't sit on particular saddles. Are there some saddles that you would be saying stay away from to prevent? The things that we're just talking about where we aren't getting the most, you know, the most power, the most effort, the most effect in performance because we've got the wrong saddle. Can you take us down the saddles you're talking about?

Yeah. So I think we don't even need to mention brands. Right. Like, the width of the nose is really important. Like, that's, I think, the first step in defining what a good time trial saddle is. It has to have a really wide nose.

How does that help, Ken? Well, tell us why the nose is important.

Yeah.

So the last thing that you want to be supporting is your perineum, which is basically the soft tissue between the bones of your pelvis that has the blood vessels that you don't want to be putting pressure on. It also has nerves that you don't want to be putting pressure on. And that's the tissue that, when you're trying to anteriorly tilt your pelvis on the seat, that's the tissue that's coming in contact with the saddle. So the reason why the width of the nose is critical is that's how you support the bones of the pelvis while taking pressure off the soft tissue.

So you're spreading the load almost rather.

Yeah. I wouldn't say you're spreading the load. You're just moving the points of load from being central to wider where the pelvis is. So, yeah, if you look at any saddle top down, and, you know, what you're searching for is something that's. That's wide and not wanting to name brands, but ISM as your kind of benchmark example of a wide nose seat. So second to the width of the nose is obviously the size of the cutout, which is the, you know, the pressure relief channel that's between the body of the seat and that also takes pressure off the soft tissue, takes pressure off the perineum.

Some people might not know what you're talking about there. So can you just explain that section of seat that doesn't exist to the average person?

Yeah. So I guess your traditional bike saddle is, you know, from side to side. It is. It's a uniform shape, whereas a cutout saddle has a cutout, quite literally a pressure relief channel cut into the body of the seat. So there's no contact between the saddle and the perineum or the person. And that's, you know, those types of seats now exist for road bikes as well. You know, that's commonplace on pretty anymore. Any road bike saddle these days will have a cutout. There's obviously differences, but most road seats now will have a cutout as well.

An argument I've heard against that style of saddle is that if someone's sitting with potentially uneven weight distribution to their left or right or vice versa, the saddle could drop, um, and then exaggerate that problem. Does that make sense that that split front end at the nose.

So I, I can't say I've ever experienced an issue where, where there's so much movement independent like on, on the side of the seat, left side versus right side of saddle, where one moves independently to the other to, to any extent that would cause that sort of problem. There's also some saddles on the market that, that retain all of those just sort of design qualities of say, the ISM saddle, but also bridge at the nose. So they don't, you know, they don't actually have any of that independent movement left and right.

The, the actual tilt position of the saddle. Can you just run through why, why and how you go about looking at how the seat should be either completely flat or tilting up or tilting down. What's, what's your opinion on how that should look?

It all comes back to the anterior pelvic tilt. Right. We're trying to promote anterior pelvic tilt, be it through the cutout on the seat, the geometry of the surface of the saddle, which there are obvious differences between brands on that as well. But then also how you set the saddle up on the bike, which is the tilt. And if you tilt the nose of the seat down, it's going to encourage anterior pelvic tilt. You can only really tilt a saddle so far as you're not falling forward. The moment that you start to slip forward on the seat and you then have to provide a counterforce for that, which is either pressing back on the pedals or pushing back with your arms or bracing through your torso, then I think that you've gone too far down the route of tilting the saddle.

Is that why we see a lot of the guys on the Tour, World Tour who are sick forever adjusting themselves back on the saddle because possibly their tilt is too much?

No, I think nine times out of ten, it's poor equipment choice. And I think that people have this perception that by the time you make it to the World Tour, Everything's perfect. And it is so far from that, it's not funny.

That's awesome. That's. I'm guessing you've got some specific examples in mind that you've seen.

Yeah, Like, I mean, you can. After one of the most recent hour records, I think there's a really good interview with the rider that completed it and did an amazing job of completing it. On the, on the discomfort of sitting on the saddle that he was sitting on. I think that that would be a really good reference or reference for that. Right. Like, and that's, you know, that's not to discredit his performance. Unreal. Like unbelievable effort. Right. Amazing.

Could have been, could have been better though. Exactly what you're saying. If you.

Yeah, like, I just, I have that question. Like I'm a perfectionist. Right. Like, and, and when I look at something that I do on a day to day basis or have, you know, spent a lot of time thinking about that topic, you know, can it be done better? That's, that's the question that's in my mind.

Yeah, it's awesome. And I love that we've kind of, you know, we've dove straight into the fact that, you know, this saddle can play so much of a part, which I think most people wouldn't guess would be one of the first priorities that you, that you look at. And I want to keep going down that path, but also bring it back to that point you made before where you can't make the mistake of being too aggressive because the discomfort will be too much or you'll end up losing energy or power. And based on those examples you use where you're shifting, having to force yourself to shift back continuously, but the goal is to get to a point where you are as aggressive as possible so that you can. But to the point of comfort, how long can you. Should you be giving yourself to make that change? Because, you know, if you've got a race in three to six months, you might be under a bit of time pressure trying to try and get there and you want to opt to be a bit more aggressive. So what are your thoughts around the timeframe of changing?

Yeah, that's a really good question. Obviously creeping up on it is something that you've got to define what's right for you. And I think that the coach actually has a really important role in that because I think it's the knowledge that the coach can bring in that is actually really important in fast tracking that process 100%. And the way that I look at that Right. Is so if I'm doing a TT fit and I'm working towards a conservative torso angle of say 20 degrees, you know, your first step in moving beyond the bike fit is obviously get some time on the bike, understand how that setup feels, and then ask the question, can I go more aggressive? Because it's the question that you should be asking. If you're spending hundreds of dollars on a bike fit or thousands of dollars on equipment, you really should be asking. The question is, can I be more error? And I think that where the coach comes into that equation is to monitor to A, understand what their power output should be and B, help them through the process of understanding if they should go lower. Because that's the next step, right? Drop some spaces out of the front end, go lower, see if you can still do the power that you should.

Be able to do.

Because I think that, you know, without even going to a velodrome and doing aero testing or without even going to a wind tunnel, you know so much information from your power output that is ultimately, in my opinion, more important than any of the aero data anyway. Because my opinion is that you shouldn't be compromising your power output and you can figure that out without a wind tunnel.

The example I'm thinking, and a lot of the listeners know that we, we run our own little time trial on the exact same course that we've been doing it now. And I was actually researching it this morning. We've been doing it for over six years now on the same course. Start and finish is the same street. And we turn around at a local icon, the Black, Black Clock Rock, the Black Rock Clock Tower at. At Blackrock. And so we have all this data and, and if I look at a lot of the athletes data coming from a place where they've had no bike fit to then get a bike fit and their power is reasonably similar, they're not improving their power that much and yet their times are drastically improving. That evidence that you know, you are better off with, with a better bike fit, not only for comfort, but for. You're actually getting an increase in a result. And that's obvious. But for me, just on the weekend I did a trial on myself where I actually added some more spaces to my front end. Having had back surgery just recently, I don't have the flexibility right now to be as aggressive as I was. So the idea was to see how I went from three weeks ago when I did the same time trial and I ended up being able Ken to put out more power and I ended up riding 35 seconds faster than I did three weeks ago with a less aggressive position. But I was able to push more power because I had the opposite to what we're talking about. And can you just talk to that, that example of how the reverse can.

Also be good and the potential multifactorial elements in it as well?

Yeah, and that's, I guess, where I was going to go with, with what instantly popped into my mind with that. And that's. The human body is this incredibly dynamic thing. Right? It's. And I guess injuries are a really good example of this where. And backs especially because when you're talking TT positions and how aggressive they are, you're talking about, I don't want to say damaging because it's really not the right word. Being in a TT position is not. Is not the best thing for your back. It's a compromise spine in some degree of flexion. And the more you do that and the longer you do it for, you know, that's not great. And that really needs to be offset with other stuff that you do outside of riding a bike to help manage the condition of your back long term. As someone's health in that area deteriorates, so does their neurological flexibility or. So that's maybe a little bit too extreme to sort of go to that point straight away. But the interaction of those structures and the nerve roots that emerge from your lumbar spine, you know, that's a really sensitive area. That is, it's easy to aggravate and it's actually really easy to, to compromise your, your neurodynamic flexibility through just simply being in that position for too long, especially with the wrong equipment. And that's, I guess, also another reason why I'm pretty critical about using saddles that promote anterior pelvic tilt because of the flow and effect that has up the chain in your spine, reducing the amount of lumbar flexion that you forced to sit in. So to get back to my point, the, the human body being a very dynamic thing, what you experience on one day might be quite different to what you experience on another day, and it might be quite different to what you experience the next month. And working through that, obviously, you know, that's not a coach's job. That's more the physio or the osteo or whoever someone works with on the side to really manage that situation. It's really easy to go too far when you're in a situation of vulnerability. And I guess I see that with the young athletes that you work with. The things that you see with young people are amazing, right? Like they can tolerate so much versus someone that's, you know, in late 20s or into their 30s. What they can tolerate is so much less than a young person. So that's, you know, even if you looked at, say, the lifetime of an athlete, someone that was racing their bike when they were 20 would be able to tolerate a far more aggressive position. Someone when they're in their 30s or the same person when they're in their 30s. I think the situation that you experienced, Jerry, it's like power is actually more important, and that's what showed in that situation. But, yeah, I guess getting to the bottom of the question of why was your power compromised? That's. Yeah, that's. That would be an interesting discussion in itself. That's obviously really individual specific, but I think there's a fair bit of interplay there in just understanding the biomechanics of how extreme a TT position can. Can really exacerbate certain problems.

I guess the. This golden triangle that we're talking about is, is this aerodynamic level to power output to comfort. You're trying to sit in there somewhere that's optimal. Yeah. Can you give us. Is there a golden answer of how you would define what to aim for? Because it seems like it would be slightly different. Exactly what you're saying for even an athlete older versus younger experience, et cetera.

Yeah, I think that the power output's a really good starting point. I think that that's. That's where you start. Know that you want to be as low at the front as possible, but you don't want to cost your power output. And I think if you just look at it from that perspective, you'll arrive at your lowest possible torso angle pretty quickly. Pretty. You know, you could say that's a pretty crude way of doing it, which it certainly is a very crude way of doing it, but it's. It's going to get you there.

And one coaching point, dad, you make all the time to our athletes is. Is the time spent in it, you know, because you can't just expect to put yourself in a position and maybe ride the same power straight away. Because, you know, you've been riding your road bike for so long in a different position, you know, jumping on a TT bike for the first time is just so foreign. And it might not be a case of just because you jump on the first time, you can't put the same power output. There might be nothing wrong with position or it might be. And you can correct me Kenan, if you think this is out of line, but it might not be a case of positions are too aggressive, it just, you need to spend some time in it. And dad, you went through that experience when you went and saw Ken at the Nationals Masters a few years ago. And the first six weeks was horrific. You went, you went quite far backwards in the power, but, you know, just have to kind of really trust the process and trust that you just need to put some time in. And then after the 12 week mark, you'd gone further ahead, way further ahead than your numbers, you know, prior to the position change.

So, yeah, look, I'd like Ken to talk on this because it was a really good learning curve for me about him. Ken giving me the right, the right optimal position and then me struggling with managing that position because it was so foreign to, to what I'd been experiencing. And I've been riding a TT bike since 1981 or 82, and so my body is used to certain nuances. And then, you know, here I am in 2019 getting set up like, I'm never ridden a TT bike before and my performance went really poorly originally. And I still vividly remember emailing you saying, what's going on? I've never ridden so slow. And I don't know if you remember, but your email return was, if you're coaching someone who just started the program with you and they said after one week that they're not improving, what would your answer be? And obviously you have to give it time. So how much time do you think? And everybody's different, but how much time would you think a change in your position would take before you can actually say that? Now I'm starting to progress.

Yeah, I think it's. So first of all, how much was changed? Like, I've done a few fits lately in the last few weeks where, where I've really changed the tiniest things, right to the point where you're like, this is not a bike fit and this is, you know, this is not what you came in for and this is not what I was expecting you to come in for. But I'm not the sort of person that just changes something for the sake of changing it. If it doesn't need changing, I won't change it. So first answer to the question is how, how extreme was the change? The second answer to the question and the way that I've now, I guess started describing this to my clients is the position acclimation process after a bike fit, I think is actually pretty important. And I think it's pretty important to be able to go back to a point where you just do short intervals, short intervals, focusing on quality and just layer on top of that. So I guess the analogy that I use is kind of like learning to swim or like trying to get better at swimming. You don't want to learn to swim with terrible form because you never progress. And I think cycling time trial cycling is a similar thing. You don't want to, you don't want to go and try and do an hour long effort and you've only got, you know, a good five minutes at the start. You just, you want to build off the best efforts you can be doing. So five minutes on a few minutes off, five minutes on a few minutes off. And I think that that's actually really important and probably something that I've actually started giving a lot more advice on in the last probably, you know, two to three years is, is that process and making sure that someone understands that during a bike fit. And I guess the third response of how long should it take? I think it's like anything that, like if you try and put someone through a strength and conditioning program, like are you going to get anything out of, out of a couple of weeks if there was reasonable size change? Probably not. Is it going to be four weeks? I think four weeks is probably a, you know, a reasonable amount of time where you could go from doing successive five minute intervals to doing, you know, 30 minutes in position and still holding a really good position. I think the hard part in that equation is, is how functional is the individual, how strong or how flexible are they, how capable is their body of being in that position? And, and I think Jerry, you're, you know, you're definitely not the dysfunctional person. You're, you know, you've been doing this a long time and you like, you know how to do it, you know how to do it well. And there's obviously that foundation of strength and flexibility there that, you know, if that took you four to six weeks, someone that's, that's not at that level already, it's going to take them a lot longer than that. But yeah, I would have said, you know, four to six weeks for any kind of really meaningful improvements. And I think that that, that probably aligns with, with other athletes feedback as well that you know, it really took a month to, to actually nail it and to then get really confident, bang on.

And I totally agree. And you know, trusting in the process is really important. I think for all the list there is to give it time and do exactly the examples you gave of not trying to flog yourself over 30 or 60 minutes, but just trying to ride really well in that position for short periods of time. And four to six weeks is a really good period because if you've gone from just a road, if you're a very basic beginner triathlete, you've just come probably from a road bike to a brand new time trial bike, you're going to feel uncomfortable with the shoulders and the, the weight of your arms is on your elbows. There's so many things that your body's just not used to and just like going into the gym and doing 50 pushups instead of doing three sets of five push ups over a period of time, you need to allow your body to acclimatize and to adjust to the changes in what you're asking it to do. And I think that's one of the things you did really well and I think that's what you do really well with most of the athletes that we coach. And one particular one, one of our coaches who you've really helped and he's been doing this same time trial now for a period of six weeks and his time has improved a minute 30 from the very first week he did it to last weekend and that's quite substantial. And it's been him combining not only an improved in bike fit with you, but also him spending time in that position. And previous to that he wasn't spending much time on his TT bike at all. So how important do you think is spending time on the TT bike has on your performance?

Yeah, that's. That, that is a, is a really good question because I think that this is, this is something that a lot of people miss. Right. Like it's, or sorry, it's. It's the thing that a lot of coaches in a way over emphasize because I think that what's really important is not time on the TT bike. So if you're just on the TT bike it's time in the position that you want to be in on race day.

Yeah.

So I guess it's. I get this question so often from athletes or feedback from athletes where their coach has just literally got them to do everything on the TT bike. You know, it's every ergo session it's got to be on your TT bike. Like you're going to go out and do your half or your full on a TT bike. So don't ride your road bike. And it's, you know, it seems like it's in a way reinforced that like you shouldn't actually ride a road bike if you're a triathlete, because that's not the equipment that you use on race day. And I think we can kind of, I guess, go down another path with this conversation as well, which I think is really important. And that's around, say, for example, comfort on seats, but trying to keep it, I guess, on topic. I think that the answer to the question is it's quality over quantity and it's making sure that there's priority sessions that are done on your TT bike in your best position, the position that you're going to try and hold on race day. Because the moment that you get used to riding that TT bike in any position other than your best position, that's what you're going to revert to on race day, especially if you haven't actually gotten really good at time trial. So, yeah, I think from, from my perspective, it's, yeah, you've got to be on the TT bike, but it's a balance and the balancing act is really a case of trying to bring in as much quality as you can. Yeah, I think something that is probably not very well known in the triathlon space and something that's, that's better known in more of the track cycling and more of the road cycling space is, I guess also the technique work that you can do to really enhance that. And that's, you know, work on rollers. So basically doing recovery rides on rollers in your TT position, which, yeah, in my opinion, is a hugely underrated training exercise.

I was keen to keep going on with the saddle, if you don't mind. I know we spent a lot of time on this, so forward and backwards movement of your saddle and also height up and down. So give us your theories on the position of higher or lower than you're used to on the road bike and forward or back than you used to.

Because then you also see guys sitting right at the front of the saddle or right back, you know, and you wonder. Yeah. Why that is.

So let's start with saddle, fore, aft, because I think that that's probably the easiest one to address with UCI positioning. We're really limited by what the UCI dictate we can do with saddle position. And that's not actually a problem for. And it's not actually a problem for really short athletes. It's a problem for people that fall in between, you know, athletes that are, say, 170 to 180 centimeters tall. They're the most difficult athletes to fit on TT bikes. And it's in those situations where you're more likely to see the athlete sitting really forward on the saddle, you know, that's a compromise that is actually really hard to work around. That's a compromise that has to be made in that type of positioning. Would I ever promote that? And I think now we need to shift the conversation from UCI to triathlon where those, where those rules are not in place. And no, I wouldn't accept that. I would always want to see an athlete sitting on the body of the seat. And the reason for that is the pressure relief channel really needs to be located under your perineum. It really needs to be located in that sort of anatomical landmark where it's doing its job. And you won't get that unless you're sitting properly over the body of the saddle. So I think on a TT bike, it's common to the last, say, third of the saddle behind the rider's backside. That's pretty normal. But you definitely wouldn't want to see, say any more than half of the seat exposed behind the athlete because that would mean that they're not sitting on much at the front and that would mean that any pressure relief that's been designed into the seat isn't really going to be doing its job. So does that kind of, I guess, answer that question on saddle, fore, aft? And like, I mean, that can be something that any athlete can sort of pick up for themselves. Right. Like when I get a customer that emails me about a bike fit, one of the first things that I usually ask them is, do you happen to have any side on images of you in a TT position? And so many athletes will have a pick from race day that either an official photographer got, or their partner got, or someone got. And there's so much meaningful information that you can take from those race day images where you spot things that you don't feel or you spot things that you didn't think that you were doing, such as where you're sitting on seats. Yeah. In terms of subtle height, it's actually something that's pretty hard to accurately measure unless you've got specific technology to do it. Right. That's where the motion capture technology really comes in. You know, any kind of bike fit and having the ability to measure the joint angles or having the ability to also measure someone's pedaling technique, which it's the combination of someone's pedaling technique, what they're doing with their ankle or their pedaling, and also the saddle height that really falls into the same sort of consideration. Plus also crank length as well, but that's kind of a separate thing. What's my opinion on saddle height? And really that's a biomechanical question that is simply answered in what are their joint angles? What's the range of their knee flexion, extension and angle plane flexion? That's pretty simple.

Is there an optimal range that you're looking for? Again, just somewhere you find most people are sitting in between, Just like the torso angle.

Yep. So 140 degrees for knee extension is like, is pretty standard for TT. Yeah, it's typically so. If you looked at it terms of an absolute measurement from the center of the BB to where they sit on the saddle, their saddle height is pretty close to road bike. If you look at a seasoned TT athlete and a seasoned road athlete, the same athlete that competes in both things, their saddle height will be pretty similar.

So, moving on from the saddle, what's next in terms of priority? And it's funny that we spent most of the podcasts already in just on this one thing. And it kind of shows, I guess, where this whole process can seem a little bit complicated. But where do you go next?

Something that Jerry mentioned earlier that I guess kind of motivates this one. But number one, don't put your TT bike on a no go, which is going to be like a super polarizing statement. So many people ride their TT bike on Zwift, right? Like that's the, that's all the rage. And the reason I say that is when your bike's on an Ergo, it's locked into one position, the bike doesn't move under you. And the thing that you have to learn to do if you want to get really good at time traveling is you have to control every single movement of that bike bike with this innate sense of what it is doing. And learning to ride your bike on an Ergo totally kills that. It just gives you this really false sense of what that bike feels like to ride. I guess the logical reason why you would want to ride your bike on an Ergo would be because that's one strategy that you can use to get your body familiar with the joint angles that you're exercising at. So you're doing your training at the correct joint angles that you're then racing at. And I understand that. I get that. What I think is, is even more important for race day. Your ability to control your bike when you're in this super confined position where you've got really little vision of the road and what you're relying on is all it's Your senses. It's. Yeah, I'd say that that's a, it's.

A, it's a right out there statement. And many people are going to be saying, well I don't have a choice because it's snowing outside and I don't have a set of rollers, so what do I do?

You ride your bike in there, you go, yeah. And that's like, I love the, I love the point. That's just reality of life though, right? Like, you know, we've always got to compromise on something. If it means that that's the compromise that has to be, then so be it. But I guess the key point there is know that you can do better, right? Or know that if, if you've got, you know, if that's your, your, your base training block, know that when it comes time to doing stuff that's closer to racing, if you can find ways of riding in the real world or adding in little things like roller sessions, then that's going to be an amazing cherry on the top to actually bring you up to good race performance.

We totally agree. And we have a race ready phase out of our basin building where I'm putting in the training notes. This has to be outdoors. You have to find a way to do this session outdoors and in so much so if they, if they want to do it on the indoor session and I'm asking them to do maybe, you know, four sets of 20 minutes at the Ironman pace, it's a near impossible task on an Ergo, you're just going to go crazy and it's not an enjoyable thing to do. It's almost making you hate the sport to try and do a session like that. And so outdoors has got so many good things going for it, plus learning how your body can cope with the wind and the variation in terrain and how you're using your core to keep yourself upright and balanced. And they're the things I think the listener needs to really hear. As an extension of why you're saying the Ergo is so much the last resort. And I would agree with you 100%. And I tried to do many sessions on my time trial bike on the rollers and that's not an easy feat for the uninitiated person to ride rollers full stop. But to do it in the TT position, you are going to be a very good time trialer if you can do a lot of sessions on the TT position. So I love you've mentioned that and the reasons why it's really important. But as Jordan said, let's move straight now to what are the next things you think would be the priority.

I think that, and I guess this relates to another question that I, or maybe a statement that I get from a lot of customers is around the notion that everyone needs to ride short cranks in triathlon. But imagine someone coming to you who's over 6 foot tall saying that I need to run short cranks, and then someone coming to you that's 170cm tall saying to you that I need to run short cranks. I don't think that many people actually understand that, like crank length is just proportional to the length of your legs. What's long for someone that's six foot tall is not long for someone that's five foot tall. It's a different thing. It just feels like in triathlon or triathlon specifically, more so than triathlon, that this idea of everyone needs to ride short hasn't really been communicated very well in terms of what that means at the individual level. And that's not to say that I don't promote the use of the correct length crank for an individual. It's like it's one of the first things that I look at all the time. Especially now that shorter cranks are becoming more and more available. Yeah. I think that that is especially for everyone should ask the question of is my crank length appropriate for me? That's a, That's a really good starting point. But also understanding what is the correct length for the individual, that's. That's really critical information.

What's the different factor here for. Because you can get the logic behind why you'd want a shorter lever, but then where's the limit? Why would you be cutting off how short someone goes? Yeah.

So really the. When you're going too short, it's more around. If you're the type of person that is always stuck in the wrong gear, you're going to find it really hard the moment you don't have as much leverage as you previously had. And in track cycling, it's a problem with the gate start, obviously, where athletes are on huge gears and they're going from zero to, in some cases, 70, 70 plus. Right. And they're trying to do that as rapidly as possible. That becomes a problem for. What does that look like for a triathlete? If you've got course with a headwind, a hill, something like that. Right. That's. The crank length conundrum is going to be more problematic than if you've got a flat course and that you're really good with your gear choice. So there isn't really a downside to reducing your crank length for a triathlete as long as you know how to use your gears properly, you know how to ride to cadence, you know how to change gears at the appropriate time, and you've got the right gears on your bike that give you the range that you need. So, yeah, I don't think that people need to look at crank length as being this. I'm scared of going shorter because I'm going to lose power output. I don't think that's the helpful way of looking at crank length because that's really not what the research says at all.

So is this the general order so far of what you're looking at? You kind of, you're starting with saddle, you're going down to leave crank length at the bottom, then you go to front end, or is it based way more on the individual athlete? And for example, the photo you look at, is that where you're starting and just identifying an area that you can see straight away?

No, I think you pretty much hit the, hit the, the nail on the head there saddle, because if, if the saddle's not right, you can't really do anything else. So, yeah, saddle, saddle height, crank length feeds into, you know, achieving the best saddle position. So, yeah, that's, you know, pretty much other than, other than cleats and you know, the setup of someone's pedals, that's, you know, that's the back end of the bike and then, then you move on to, to front end just before.

We go onto the front end. And I know we're probably running out of time, the cleat positioning. And that's a question that I'm getting asked a lot. Do you get asked that question, should my cleats be all the way forward or all the way back or in between? And I know it's very personal, but what's your general opinion on where the cleats should be for a time trialer as compared to a road rider and should they be the same?

Yeah, I actually, I don't really set up cleats differently for time trial, triathlon or road? Yeah, I guess there's a lot that feeds into that and a lot of, a lot of, I guess, experience with the research. And this is, you know, it's not, I'm not talking about reading research papers. I'm talking about being experienced with the research being conducted on cleat position. And I really struggle to accept that the, the athletes being used in Those studies are at all representative of low level age group athletes, let alone being able to extrapolate those results to an elite athlete. I just, I've seen the, I've seen the way that some of that research has been done and with the athletes like the novice level athletes that are being used in those trials and is the data's junk. I don't place a lot of weight on some of the research that's out there. So I guess, you know, from that perspective, I'm then falling back on my own personal experience with it and I'm falling back on my own, I guess, anatomical knowledge of where do you really want the cleat? Under. Under the foot and what do you want to be promoting there? And to me it's all about trying to get the connection with the pedal through the ball of the foot.

Same as running.

Yeah, and that was exactly what I was going to say then. I don't think it's really any different to running. It's as a human being applying force to the ground, forced to the pedal. In the instance of cycling, the connection is through the ball of the foot. Connection is not through the arc. I definitely wouldn't position someone's cleats so far forward that their toes are over the pedal. And you know, they're having to do a lot of sort of clenching with their toes to feel like they have stability. I think that that's a real key sign that the cleat is too far forward on the shoe. Yeah. I think my advice to anyone there would be if they have the sensation of they've got to use their toes to grip, then potentially the cleat's too far forward on the shoe. But as a general rule, I'd try and identify the head of the first metatarsal, which is basically the, the knuckle of your big toe. And I'd try and get the center of the pedal somewhere just behind that point.

That's a good general recommendation. I know that would be hard to do because it would be, again, you look at someone's foot, but yeah, I guess that's a, that's a good place to start. And then are you. If we're starting to look at kind of components, if you talk about shoes, the pedals themselves, are there differences again, like the saddles, where you're looking at certain styles or brands that are preferential?

Yes. Yeah, that's. There's a really good analogy there between I guess, sort of shoes and shoes and saddles. I don't have any one brand of Shoe that I think is the be all and end all of cycling shoes. I really think that that comes down to the foot shape. And as you guys will know, the shape or, you know, the variety in foot shapes is unreal. Shoe manufacturers definitely have a hard job in trying to cater for that full range of foot shapes that are out there. So, yeah, the best advice I could ever give to anyone on trying to identify their best shoe is, you know, try as many on as you can. Try and find that one that actually matches the shape of your foot, you know, and it's the width of the foot, it's the length of the foot. The length of the shoe is really important because that in some ways defines where you can put the cleat on the shoe. You know, if someone oversizes their shoe in length, it then pushes their cleat further forward on their foot. And I've seen a fair few instances actually where someone might have a really wide foot and, you know, their strategy for dealing with that is to upsize their shoe a number of sizes and it then gets to a point where you can't get the cleat far enough back for them to actually get it to work on their foot. Yeah, super important to find the best fitting shoe for you. Length, width, and also the volume within the shoe.

Your belief is that the feet are super important. So what else do we need to know about it and what do you want listener to understand?

Yeah, so I guess it's, you know, the relationship between stance width and also the rotation, the rotation angle that you need to have someone's foot set up on. And probably the easiest way to think about this is when you look at someone, someone does do a squat, for example, the angle that their feet sit at somewhat represents what their neutral foot position is. You know, there's some nuance there, but for argument's sake, let's just say that the way that they do it, a double leg squat, is their neutral stance. And largely that's what you want to try and replicate on the bike or the way that their foot is sitting over the pedal. For the overwhelming majority of people, that means that their heel sits closer to the crank than their forefoot sits. And depending on the size of the athlete's foot, that then creates problems around the width of the pedals. Because for a, for a small person, for example, or someone that's got, you know, size 40 shoe, the ability to rotate the foot into that position is quite different to someone that's got a size 46 shoe. When you've got A larger shoe, you're taking up more space or more real estate you've got to play with to achieve that position of the foot. And that's when wider stance pedals start to become. So I guess it's kind of like crank length in a way. I think, you know, there's some notion in triathlon that people should also run wide stance pedals and that's definitely true for larger people that need to achieve a really, you know, that need to achieve a toe out position, heel in position or a, you know, and maybe a really extreme version of that. You've got to run wide stance pedals. That's the only way you can achieve it. But that's quite a different, I guess, set of problems to someone that's got a smaller shoe faces.

And how much are you trying to influence that, I guess even that foot angle and influence that by changing these positions? Because once again, it seems to come down to this question of what is their natural foot stance? What are they naturally doing compared to, are you trying to even train them a different way? Because they might, it might just seem highly inefficient or, and we know we spoke just before off there about, you know, running technique and there's inoptical running techniques where you're running coaches are actually trying to help them change the way that they're landing on their feet and trying to like before, get that big knuckle down and that outer width down evenly. Same thing with cycling. Are you willing to try and push someone to try and I guess change that technique and angle and adjust their biomechanics?

Yeah, I think that the answer to that is really in what you can train and what's anatomically just a product of that person's bone structure and joint structure. Definitely you can train pedaling technique. You can absolutely train pedaling technique and improve that. And probably a small part of training pedaling technique also manipulates the angle that someone's foot sits on and another way that that can be changed that's, you know, how important it is, is quite individual specific. But I think orthotics play a pretty big role in improving cycling performance or at the very least they play a big role in improving the consistency of someone's foot position. That can then be really helpful when it comes to dealing with say, for example, knee injuries. So my, my approach for changing it would be more around teaching pedaling techniques and or incorporating an orthotic in their shoe. And I think that that definitely changes the angle that someone's foot can sit on. I guess, you know, what you're talking about more broadly is should you change someone's cleat setup and say, for example, that someone's neutral stance is, you know, very much toe out, heel in, walking like a duck, should you change that so that their toes point straight or that their heels line up, you know, centrally between their toes? And my experience there is that that would be a really good way of giving someone ITB pain. And, yeah, I don't know, I actually think that's probably like anything, when you, when you operate a service and someone doesn't contact you afterwards, you've often done a pretty good job of making them happy. Right. But when you've, when you've done a bad job and someone's not happy, especially if you've given someone knee pain as a result of a bike fit, they're going to be really pissed off at you over the. Well, it's now, this is seven years that I've been doing it. I can only really think of a couple of instances where someone hasn't been happy with the way that their cleats have been set up. And yeah, I think that that's testament to just being pretty strict on working through that process in a fairly methodical way. And I guess trying to identify what someone's neutral stance is and really, I guess I think that's at the core of how I set someone's cleats up, is to work around, you know, what is their neutral, what's straight for them. Scared's the wrong word, but I'd be really cautious of going straight with someone's cleats set up when their neutral stance is toe out or forefoot abducted.

Orthotic playing a really important role, major role in assisting with someone whose stance is really so far away from neutral is that the person who needs the orthotic or the neutral stance person also could benefit from the orthotic.

Yeah, I think the way that I look at the importance of the orthotic is how mobile is someone's foot. So if you're looking at someone without socks on, bare feet marching up and down on the spot, and you can pretty quickly spot how much movement is taking place from like the moment the foot comes in contact with the ground to when they're actually loading up their body weight over their foot, and the movement of the subtalar joint sort of during that action, I think is probably a better way of looking at how much can someone benefit from orthotics. I think, I guess when you've seen enough People and a real range of human abnormalities. Sometimes that real toe out stance is. You couldn't actually correct that with an orthotic because that is, that is truly their neutral foot position. And you know, there's other conditions, I guess I'm the perfect example of that.

Right.

Where I've got so much collapse through my subtal joint as I load up my foot, that my toe out stance where when I'm standing flat on the ground is definitely not my neutral position. And that's where an orthotic is sort of super useful with my, with my own cycle.

Is there anything else you want to mention about the foot or can we go to kind of the front end and talk about is that that's the last piece of the puzzle for you? Just, just you kind of tinkered that at the end or are you looking at it the whole way through?

Yeah, I really think that.

Yeah.

So on the foot.

Yeah.

No, there's probably nothing else that I, that I really want to add there. Yeah, I think it's an area of the human body that is extremely individual specific and it's, I think actually pretty hard to get right. But I guess I hope that the listener can kind of take away from that, that start with the shoe. Start with the shoe and really find the best fitting shoe that you can. Because that's, that's absolutely critical to cycling no matter what it is. Sort of. Everything else can fall in line from there, but if you don't have a decent set of shoes, you're going to really struggle. So, yeah, how I approach a bike fit beyond that, I don't really think that you can do much with the front of someone's bike until where they're sitting on the bike has been fully defined. So I guess by that what I mean is that if you're moving around on the seat, that then has a flow on effect to the joint angles that you see at, specifically at someone's shoulder. So it's really hard to do a good job further up the chain or the front end of the bike if the back isn't right.

So where do you go with the people who are sitting, in your opinion, wide, their arms are out, they're catching more wind. What are you trying to do with the front end as the last. If you've got everything else right, you've got your seat right, you've got your height, you've got your right cranks, you've got your right shoes. What's the last piece of the puzzle to get that? And we all Know that if you we can get our head and our arms in as aero a position as possible, that is going to be better than sticking our head out into the wind and our arms as wide as possible. So what are your goals here with broad shoulders?

I think that you absolutely just nailed, nailed that with that statement. So I guess everything that we've spoken about so far is, you know, it's almost, you know, arrow isn't even really a part of the equation. And that's not entirely true, but that's almost the way that we've spoken about it. But that is almost also the way that I view aero bike fitting as well. The magic happens at the front of the bike for aero. The magic doesn't happen in using an aero pedal or an aero shoe. The magic happens at the front of the bike because that's where the bulk of the aero gains are made or where the bulk of any of your aero gains are lost. So, yeah, absolutely. Trying to always prioritize a narrow forearm position and an easy way to think of this if you're a triathlete, if you've got enough space that you're going to fit a drink bottle in between your forearms, you're really not in an optimized TT position. And I use that example because it's actually, it's one of the challenges that I think we're really trying to work on at the moment with the Sync Ergonomics brand is to come up with a bottle solution for triathletes. Because we get the question all the time, right? Like, oh, what BTA solutions should I use with this cockpit? For years, the response has always been if you're sticking a bottle in between your forearms, you don't have an optimized position. And that's really not what our brand is about. So we don't support that. Trying to find a way to build that functionality into that series of components is actually a lot bigger challenge than you would think from the surface. So, yes, step number one, narrow forearms and as comfortably narrow as you can tolerate or achieve. And I think that that's also where the training strategies become really important because if you're not very confident in your TT position, one way that you can counter that is to increase the width of your forearm. The increase the width of your arm cuffs, which increases the width of your forearms, which increases the width of your base of support.

Yeah.

Obviously there's a lot of interplay between your bike fit, what you do to try and acclimate your position and your options to set up and focus on error. Probably one of my biggest focuses over the last, say five years with any kind of TT work that I've been doing has always been around angling the front end. The reason for that, on a TT bike, your center of mass is so far forward at the bottom bracket that you're always falling forward. Your body weight is always trying to rotate forward around the bottom bracket. And that's just, it's purely a product of if you want to be in an aero position, you've got to be that far forward. Like there really is no other strategy for dealing with that other than providing something at the front of the bike that provides a counterforce. Simply angling the arm cuffs. Everything that we do in, in our work is, is all always around high hands position with an angled forearm support. And there's varying degrees of that. But I think that as a, you know, as a, as a fundamental characteristic of what I would consider a good TT setup, it's yeah, definitely the front of the bike needs to be angled up. That can be achieved really easily with a lot of sort of low end basic systems that are more your clip on style aerobars because thankfully you can just rotate that whole assembly around the base bar. And I think that that's actually something that a lot of people don't really cotton onto is that you don't really need to go out and spend money to, to make that change. Most people, if they've got a clip on aero bar on their bike, they can do that.

Interesting. I was going to just go back to 2011. I can still remember Cadell Evans in his TT position when he won the Tour de France in 2011 and we happened to be on the TT course watching him that day ironically. And looking at his position to the position that you see Remco in now, it's just like such a foreign position that he was in. Imagine what's your opinion on that and, and how that's changed and how much faster Cadell could have gone with something that we're talking about now.

It's amazing, isn't it, when you look at the evolution over that, you know, it's not even really that long a time period, but yeah, and I guess looking back on that time as well, I think. Was it around the same time that Floyd Landis was. No, it probably actually would have been a little bit earlier that Floyd was playing with his time trial position and I think, I think that Floyd was potentially one of the first UCI athletes to really exploit a higher hand position where Cadell Was the opposite a low hand position? Yeah, I don't really have. Yeah. And I think that the more that you play in this space and the more that you learn about it, the more that you realize it's hard to be super, super critical of someone's overall aero setup without having some way of analyzing it. And it would be really interesting to see a CFD investigation of Cadell's position versus say Remco or any of the current day performance and really understand what the strong point was of Cadell's position. Because I know that there was a lot that they tested to end up at that final position. And I know the people that were doing the work and I know that they're not stupid people. I know that there were reasons why they went there. I don't know what those reasons were. And it would be an awesome investigation to see, you know, old versus new. What I think is, is actually a super. And I'd love to see someone do the, the actual breakdown of this, but it's the evolution over the time period of Rio Olympics. Well, I guess probably Paris Olympics next year. But looking at pursuit times and team pursuit times, because I think that the beauty of that is obviously we're talking about an indoor velodrome, so environment is a lot more controlled. But those, you know, every cycle where that record is getting faster and faster, you know, that's testament to the evolution of positions. There's a little bit of skin suit and a little bit of helmet in there as well. Physiology is largely excluded from that, although ganna is obviously your physiological outlier. But yeah, I think that that's a really interesting quantification of the evolution of of T2 positions over the last 10 years.

I want to touch on a little bit more about, you know, some of the stuff you might have been working with with some top athletes. But you did just mention drink bottles before and I, I want to see your thoughts on this. I don't know if you're a fan of Dylan Johnson at all on online, but he is a gravel racer and so he went and did some wind tunnel testing on himself and just was trying all different forms of equipment styles and seeing if there was any equipment style that would make him faster, especially over an 8 to 10 hour race and the drink bottle them and they found the most efficient position for him was having a actual water carrier backpack and that outperformed drink on the front, drink behind him, behind his back there. Do you have any thoughts on that or had you seen that or do you think there's any validity in that? You know, for triathletes potentially, that'd be.

Really specific to torso angle. You know, how much you're exposing that pack directly to the flow coming over the rider's shoulders and the rider's helmet. So yeah, that be a really individual, specific thing. I couldn't see a camelback on the back being useful for any TT discipline. Obviously what all the rage is at the moment with, especially with triathlon, is sticking the bladder down the front of the jersey. So basically closing down that space or closing down that cavity below the chest. And yet everything that I've seen of riders exploring that is, that is an extremely beneficial way of, of, of getting error gains. So yeah, although it's, you know, I find it amusing seeing some of the, some of the athletes spending the first, you know, minute of a race trying to like, stuff that, stuff that down there and get that right and then, you know, readjust, might have lost that.

Adjusting it and just start riding.

Yeah, precisely. And I think that, you know, it's, it's really easy for, for people to, to lose sight of how tangible is that game or what does it mean to actually fully exploit that gain? And you see it all the time, not just with aero, with everything else, but what's the cost benefit trade off of trying to do that? And I really think that that's probably going to be the next real innovation in suits for triathlon is going to be how do you incorporate that functionality into the suit? Because it seems to work. Any of the error data that I've seen on that, it works. And it's not, you know, a question of will it work for one athlete and not for the other. Yeah, I think I'm pretty convinced that it works for practically every athlete. It's just a case of how you.

Can see an inflatable suit coming in to the front of our, of our tri suits where you can just, you can just inflate it rather than stuffing around with. So, you know, it's got to be the way we're going.

That same, I guess kind of innovation has also been seen in UCI TTing where rather than sticking the radio down the back of the suit, which is traditionally where most people have put it, it's now being put in the front of the suit. And not only that, the radio is being put in the front of the suit in a bag that is very padded for that radio and that does a really good job of filling up that space as well. But it's so that same, I guess, working on that Same sort of principle of filling in the cavity below the space. That's where, yeah, probably not in the last little bit, but definitely around the time of Blumenfeld really sort of, I guess coming becoming a lot more prominent in triathlon. You know those comments around, around his specific body shape, you know, saying how unaerodynamic he looks, but in fact that, you know, that real barrel chested appearance is actually, you know, that's, that's advantageous from an arrow perspective because it's doing the same thing, it's filling the cavity below the chest.

So for all those people out there who've got a pot belly who knew that it was going to be an advantage.

Yeah, I think probably in the case of Christian, a huge set of lungs taking up space and yeah, it would.

Contribute to his insane VO2 max. That's brilliant. So yeah, you're working with a lot of high level athletes. What are we seeing at the top level? I know we've gone on a long while here, a bit over time, but yeah, to finish off, what are you seeing or doing at the top level where the gains are a lot more marginal? Where are you, where are you finding some improvements both in terms of either positioning or other components?

Yeah, so I think this really is separated into two kind of separate discussions. It's the UCI specific stuff and it's the triathlon specific stuff. Right. Because so often with UCI one of the things that you're limited by is the equipment sponsors of the team. What can you get away with doing with an athlete? You know, that's kind of like this constantly revolving process of what saddle can be utilized, what crank length can be utilized. And I can, yeah, I can probably give a, like a real practical example of this in, in Grace Brown, obviously she's doing amazingly well at the moment for, for Oz second at the World Championships, just recently beaten by all of six seconds, which is, is, is agonizing. You know, her development over the last few years, you know, reasonably involved with, has, has really revolved around, you know, saddle, crank length, you know, all those fundamental kind of foundational, positional, I guess, philosophies. And I'd say that it's actually awesome to, to work with the athlete to that level to know that the next time around, which is going to be, you know, World Champsing Olympics next year, all that stuff's done. So now, now it is time to really hone in on, on all of the kind of the next fun things. But for athletes that are fortunate enough to be in her position where everything is done, there's nothing more that we can do. Saddle, cranks, position on the bike, like, you know, in a sense other than a few millimeters here and there. That's all done. So that's, there's so much that can be validated and confirmed with skinsuit helmet. And I guess you only really arrive at this when you, when you have to be perfectly prepared for the situation and you can I guess really, I guess sort of sit back and think about, well, what is it going to take to be perfectly prepared for the situation. But so many of the things that have to come together for the day for that type of athlete are course specific. So what speed are they going at? What your angle is that wind going to be at? Right. And I guess so much of the development that ultimately is going to take place next is going to revolve around trying to be perfect for those events on those days in those places. That's cool. I think that that's when you're actually, you're nudging what's possible of human performance when you have to be that specific about how you're approaching it.

That's a brilliant example. I love that. If you take some of the fun stuff and apply it to the age group triathlete, the biggest questions and age group will be asking me is okay, if I don't have access to every bit of the best equipment possible, what's the best bang for my buck? What should I be trying to upgrade?

Make sure your bike, make sure the thing that you're trying to utilize, make sure that that's up to the task. It really comes down to, I think there's, and maybe less so these days because I'm doing a fair bit less bike fitting and yeah, really, I guess seeing closer to your elite athlete than your, your novice athlete. But for any bike fitter that's working with the novice athlete in terms of that development, you, you really arrive at a problem pretty soon, pretty early in the process where the equipment is no longer up to the task. And that's, you know, that's not to say that everyone needs to go out and buy the top of the line bike to start their journey. In triathlon, that's absolutely not the case. But when you're at that point where you want to do the best that you can, make sure that the bike that you're starting with is up to the task. And I think for triathlon really that comes down to geometry. It comes down to making sure that the bike has integrated hydration. You know, it really Cracks me when, when a bike company markets a bike around being a triathlon bike and it doesn't have integrated hydration, it's like so what the. The customer then has to go and strap on a third, fourth or fifth party solution just to try and achieve that basic functionality that is just a product of the sport. It's not a tri bike. That's a half baked solution that you've marketed as a tri bike. Integrated hydration for triathlon is in my opinion a must. Integrated storage for food and for obviously carbohydrate and some kind of spares. Like you shouldn't have to strap stuff on your bike. The moment you strap stuff on your bike, you're either ruining your position or you're costing aerodynamics or yeah, you're just adding on extra weight and it seems a bit unnecessary.

Anything you would like to finish off with to leave the listeners with any final understandings about bike fitting in terms of philosophies or just gaps in knowledge that you see most people have. Any, any final thoughts?

I guess the way that I approach bike fitting is it's, it's very much anatomical and biomechanical knowledge is, is kind of the thing that underpins what I do. And I actually think it's bike fitting as a, as something to try and do well is, is actually really hard to do because you kind of, you're reliant on a whole bunch of mechanical skills to work on a bike. You rely on basically the ability to assess someone's physical condition. So you know, that's in a sense a degree in health science. Also trying to understand the biomechanical side of it, which is a degree in sports science. So it's actually this amazingly diverse skill set that's required to do it really well. And I guess I haven't intentionally gone down like I didn't start my degree at uni thinking that this is where I was going to end up, but that's just the path that I've been on. That's not to say that someone can't do it without that skill set, but it's just I actually think it's a really hard job to do. It's just one of those things that I see it done so badly so frequently. I don't really have a lot of confidence in many of the people doing bike fits and I don't know what it's like elsewhere in the world, but definitely, definitely in our part of the world I think use your experience, ask questions to people, listen to lots of podcasts because that's probably where you are, where you actually find out a lot of meaningful information on the various things that feed into getting better on the bike.

We've been brilliant on this podcast. You've given us a lot of articulate information about just getting an understanding of a lot of things that, as you're saying, are quite diverse and quite complicated. And so I think it's been some great starting points and a great in depth points for any listener to start just thinking about. And I think nailed it. Then at the end when you said it's about asking as many questions as possible and so you're learning to ask the right questions about what to look for. So thank you very much for jumping on dad. Any final comments from you?

No, just thanks so much, Ken for your time. And I know that everyday triathlete and cyclist out there will have a lot more knowledge now from listening to your advice. And you've really made it quite clear and simple, starting with the seat, working your way down to what's below knee level, and then finally you know what you can do with the front end. And that's a really logical way to go about it. And really grateful for your input and I'm sure lots of listeners will be really pleased with what they've got out of this. So thanks again, mate.

No worries. Thanks for having me on.

That's it for this episode. Thank you as always for listening and we'll see you in the next one.

Sam.