Bike Fit: Optimise your bike position for high performance and injury avoidance

Phil Burt is a top bike fitter for racers, and the book is great when it comes to men's road bike fitting how-to's.I bought the Bike Fit book after not being able to find out answers to fitment problems myself. I mostly perused major cycling websites who had a few pages on fitting, and Bike Fitter's own websites.Finding a 'longer' book that went into more detail was great.Phil has good tips for seat height, leg length issues, hot foot, and recovery.However, as a 5'2" middle aged female 'touring' or 'fitness' non-racing road rider with a 30" inseam and a small 'women's fit' carbon-fiber road bike, I was hoping for more tips to reduce wrist and butt pain while riding that are beyond the realm of your basic bike fit at the LBS. I did some 40 mile rides and then a metric century last month (after riding around 30 miles twice a week for 2 years), and ended up with inflamed tendons in my wrist (DeQuervain's tendonitis, at base of thumb bone), even though the hand and hood positions are 'by the book' (hands align with 45deg. arm), my weight is more on the opposite outside base of my palm, and the bars & hoods are gel padded below the bar tape. Only difference was a little more climbing that I had been used to (but the legs were fine!).1.Brake Hood Placement and bar anglesPhil addresses the standard concerns and issues fairly well, however:Part of the fitting issue for women (with their shorter torsos and arms) is that the brake hoods themselves are so darn long that the hoods need to be high on the bar and the top tube + stem needs to be shortened a lot to get the hoods in the right place, reach-wise, but then everything else is out of place (top of handlebar is too close, reach to brake levers too far while in the drops). I need brake hoods that are 2 - 3 cm shorter, but they do not make them. I was hoping for tips on bar angles and brake hood placement to work around Shimano's lack of equipment for people with the XX chromosome enhancement.So Minus 1 star.2. Seats, pressure points, and lumpsAthletic women hinge at the hip, so there are a lot of seat fitting issues men (who tend to bend at the waist) don't have. No one seems to have a good answer, beyond going to a fully slotted to-the-tip SMP seat or just letting the callouses, grape-sized lumps, and pain tolerances build up via more miles. I have read on the internet that over 30% of female racers have had to have corrective surgery 'down there' (with a 6 week recovery time), and there are probably at least another 30% who need the surgery but would rather suffer than take 6 weeks off from any riding.Understandably, the percentage of women racers who stay with the sport is small compared to men, even though racers usually have the best fitters and get rechecked often compared to regular fitness and touring riders like most of us.I do not like pain and surgeries; With a 60% chance, I am hoping to find a good fitter who has experience with the female anatomy before I start doing any longer distances on a regular basis!3. Low Back pain from hips twistingAlso want tips on how to correct a right hip that is slightly more forward than the other after a ride (per my chiropractor), which stresses and inflames the sacrum area. Seat height is good (very little rocking), Leg bones are the same length (per measurements of X-rays), so it is not uneven leg length. Knee position is straight ahead (not in or out), so I can't figure it out. Phil does not mention how to correct the hip's twisting, only rocking.As I mentioned before, these problems are not commonly brought up in cycling conversations or thought about by guys, so no further deductions for Phil's not addressing them in this book. [Mrs. Burt needs to write a book].If you are a guy, or a racer (who does not sit full weight on the seat for very long), then the book is perfect for you, or as a gift to the new racer. It is one of the better fitment books out there.

My son got a professional bike fit included with his new bike and it was very helpful to get set up. But the professional fitter was clear that his fit was a place to start, based on the current industry standards, but each rider may need to make small adjustments based on their own physiology and riding style.So I bought this book hoping I could save some money and also get in the ballpark for my new bike (that didn’t include a bike fit with the purchase). The book not only provided the information to get a quality initial set up, but provided the details that would help make the incremental adjustments based on the performance/discomfort experienced while riding. We were able to dial in our setups to eliminate sore knees (me) and tight lower back issues (for my son). When we purchased new pedals, the knowledge we gained from this book allowed us to quickly adjust the bikes (mostly saddle height and position) to incorporate the changes in fitment.As an engineer, I appreciate the measurement driven adjustments in a high-end professional bike fit. I also know the guiding principles are based on statistical models of cycling performance. These models are great, and can definitely get riders close to optimal riding positions, but all the fine tuning is based on the feedback of the individual rider. No amount of laser tracking and video capture will tell you how you feel riding your bike. I believe in professional bike fits. I also believe that knowing the principles will allow each rider to perform their own subtle adjustments based on their own body. This book provides that knowledge.Before I made fit adjustments based on what I learned, I often spent evenings with ice on my knee. After reading the book, I was able to make small set up adjustments, even a few mm, and have ridden 7000 miles in 2 years without any knee or back pain.

Bike fit offers a comprehensive overview of the process of uniting a flexible human body and a ridged bike frame. If you bind your body to a bike with any regularity the history and technical data here will both strip away the mystery and give you a list of whys and hows.I am an amateur rider who sits on my carbon road bike for six to ten hours a week except on those odd days when I sit there for six or seven hours at one shot. I have had three professional bike fits for four bikes in the last seven years, and I got this book to assess whether I needed a fourth. After reading Phil Burt I decided that I probably did.The repeated motion of hundreds of thousands of pedal cycles and many thousands of miles demands that knees, hands, wrists and sitting anatomies are positioned to maximize comfort and generate power. It is one thing to voluntarily push your legs to suffer your bike up the hill in the fiftieth mile of a Century ride. It’s another thing to force your body to suffer from a poorly set up bike.Phil Burt explains the mechanics and processes in laymen’s terms without reducing the complexities to the kind of simple clichés that most of us are used to—put the seat this high because, the seat this far back because. He describes how each adjustment causes other settings to need attention.I finished the book and felt that I could more adequately imagine and describe how my bike was molding my position for better or worse. If I could be considered an amateur fitter before this book I now know that I am a better informed consumer of bike fitters, and perhaps a slightly better basic fitter. I also understand why dynamic fits are a valuable tool for those of us that put in many hours a year on our bikes. So I went for a dynamic fit and felt like it was the demonstration that went with the book.A good read for the serious amateur rider who needs to evaluate the quality of their fit or fit process. And a must read for the parent who is wondering if it is worth investing in a fit for their young rider. A straightforward read if you scan the charts and tables.

Found this useful, informative and well written and contrary to some of the other reviews didn't find it too technical, long-winded nor pushing a Retul bike fit and Speedplay pedals too much - just mentioned their attributes.I will read a second time alongside my bike on the turbo trainer. I think I could set up a camera/phone/iPad or Kindle and video myself, with a plumb bob suspended from the garage roof in the line of shot and then playback on my PC armed with a protractor to measure various angles and positions, thereby achieving much of what a Retul bike fit achieves. I wouldn't have thought of doing this without reading this book.The book is also not just about the "Bike Fit" geometry but includes exercises and tips on how to keep "Bike Fit" in the physical sense.The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I have read most of its content in a variety of cycling magazines, books and websites. This though does bring just about everything together in one publication - so really four and a half stars.

An excellent read that gives a thorough insight to the mystery surrounding a bike fit. Phil Burt tackles each aspect of a bike fit and explains why somethings are important and some are myths that have been believed and followed blindly. Thanks to the book and using a downloadable Bike Fast Fit Elite Apple app I was able to resolve my bike fit issues at a fraction of a pro Bike Fit, gain a greater understanding and be able to repeat the exercise on my other bikes.Thank you Phil Burt

A must read for any cyclist who's into perfecting their cycling technique. A deep introduction into the biomechanics of cycling and how bike fit affects performance. lots of illustration make reading and understanding the materials real easy though maintaining fair level of technical language. Added value is an overview of mistakes in bike fit and potential health issues they may cause - a sort of troubleshooting you mat run yourself through in case you experience any issues during your rides.Definitely recommended for reading and as a go manual for bike fits and tweaks outside of the professional fitting process.

Great book with thorough illustrations although it wouldn't give me the confidence in fitting me to my own bike. I think I would still have to go and pay for a pro bike-fit which is something I was trying to avoid. An enjoyable read, and has all of the history of cycling included which makes for some interesting reading. Equally the training guides are a good introduction on how to optimise your training programme.

Good book, easy to understand & relate to.Disclaimer-I’m a doctor with formal sports medicine training; not sure how it would read for joe blogs.