Crowd-sourcing pro riders’ bike fit.

//Crowd-sourcing pro riders’ bike fit.

Crowd-sourcing pro riders’ bike fit.

Thanks for the Fan Fit.

It’s a brave new world of bike fit, folks.

While all pro cycling teams have sophisticated methods of deterring the optimal bike fit, in the near future this may become unnecessary as fans watching on TV now take over the role of dialing in a riders’ position on the bike.

This week in the Tour of Dustbowl, sorry, Dubai, a real estate broker from Ottawa offered a detailed correction of Simone Andreetta’s bike position. After taking a close look, from his vantage point in front of a TV or computer screen, John R, determined that the rider “needs to lower his saddle by 1cm or 2 cms. I watched him in the breakaway in stage 2. His hips were going up and down with each pedal stroke.”

There you have it. Who needs expensive two hour analysis on a fit cycle, power output research and a $500 session with a Rutel expert when you’ve got hundreds of thousands of cycling fans ready to offer advice for free?

These are experts, people!

After John the Canadian Real Estate Broker has adjusted Andreetta’s positioning, we’re expecting this crowd-sourced fitting to solve lots of economic issues. The floodgate is open and now fans can offer up all sorts of advice on Tom Boonen’s stem angle, Chris Froome’s crank arm length and the forward positioning of Vincenzo Nibali’s saddle.

Really, what’s up with that jerky-jerky riding style of Froome’s? Can we get a consensus on that? Can we open that up for assessment to fans around the world? Can we fix Froome before he takes on the Tour de France again?

What about Mark Cavendish? Anybody spot anything suspicious about his pedaling style? It looks to us like Nairo Quintana’s rocking his hips too much — at least according to Richard, who is a waste water management executive in Youngstown, Ohio.

We’re terribly concerned about Bauke Mollema’s time trial position. Is there anyone out there in the blogosphere that can fix that? Oh sure, those “fitting experts” at the Trek-Segfredo squad “think” they have it “right” but anyone watching on a little computer screen from a few thousand miles away can clearly see his position is “messed up.”

Simone Andreetta was happy to receive the free advice on his bike fitting issues. “It’s nice to get feedback from people who watch you race and so thank him from me,” said the Italian.

This is just the beginning of a profound shift in the art and science of bike fitting. Seriously, what do experts know? President Trump doesn’t need experts and riders don’t need specialists in ergonomics and sports physiology. Just crowd-source it.

Welcome to Fan Fit.

 

 

By |2019-02-03T15:44:53-08:00February 3rd, 2017|Uncategorized|1 Comment

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  1. Jesse March 1, 2017 at 9:03 am - Reply

    Great commentary. As an Ottawa based bike fitter I tried to track this John fellow down for some advice. Alas I couldn’t find him.

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