Personal Interview

The  fitting process starts with an interview. Here the rider’s personal information is entered onto an Excel spreadsheet. Not just age, weight, level of fitness, cycling experience and type of riding are recorded here, but also details that will help determine the final position, such as injuries that might affect riding comfort or efficiency. If you suffer from lower back pain or have a weak left knee, now is the time to own up because it’s all taken into account.

Inseam Measurement

Next comes the measuring stage. Using a telescopic
inseam-measuring device placed in between the legs,
we take the inseam measurement minus shoes. Being spring-loaded, the device forces up underneath a rider, mimicking the effect of bodyweight pressing down on a saddle. Heels are placed against the platform back. The type of shoe and cleat the rider uses are also recorded.

Shoulder Measurement

Shoulder width is taken next.
This is a major factor in the
width of bar recommended.

Feet Measurement

Feet next! The
weighted and unweighted measurements are taken for left and right, and a size of cycling shoe is suggested. The arch is also checked to see whether the rider pronates or supinates, in which case stabilising
footbeds might also be recommended in the final report.

Flexibility

Flexibility is the thing most cyclists don’t pay much
attention to, but which actually plays a large part in the way your final, optimised position is determined.

Sizecycle Set Up

With the body measurements and flexibility tests done, it’s time to set up the SizeCycle jig. Based on what we have seen we set the saddle height and make an educated guess at other
factors including bar
height to start with.

Cleat Adjustment

Badly positioned cleats can be at the root of all sorts of injuries. Stopping the foot at key points in the stroke to check the position of the cleat in its float. The top and bottom of the stroke are the points where there is most
variation in terms of instability.

Saddle Height

Accurate saddle height is set using the angle of the knee
when the foot is at the bottom of the pedal stroke.

Getting the saddle height right is an ongoing process throughout the fitting.

Saddle Fore & Aft

We measure the knee over
the pedal spindle using a plumb line. The tibial tuberosity (just below the kneecap) should be directly above the spindle.
Saddle setback is adjusted at this point.

Upper Body

We aim for a ‘neutral spine’ position, so  making adjustments to the stem length and bar height is crucial. We aim for the spread of the rider’s weight between saddle and bars at something like 60:40. So the last piece of the jigsaw is to get the stem length and the hand position right.

Final Measurements

The measurements are transferred from the jig to Bikecad software, and from here we can order your
custom frame or work out the best off-the-peg frame for you, then set it up with the correct length stem, stem rise, headset spacing, saddle height, saddle setback position and saddle-tobar
drop. You get a copy of everything through the post, including a CD with all the interview, flexibility and jig
data, plus the photos of you
with the optimised position,
to use for future bike set-ups or custom builds.