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Olympic Athlete Jarrod Shoemaker's Bike Fitting With Todd Kenyon
By Todd Kenyon
12/16/2008 |
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Todd Kenyon of TT Bike Fit recently had the opportunity to analyze Jarrod Shoemaker's position on the bike. Below is the summary of how it went. Check out an entire GALLERY of images from Jarrod's fitting.
Last week I met Olympic Triathlete Jarrod Shoemaker at a Vasa elite swim clinic where I was helping Coach Al Lyman with stroke analysis and demonstrating Vasa use. Jarrod mentioned to me that he is never comfortable on the bike, and that bike-related issues can sometimes compromise his running strength. So two days later he paid us a visit and we got to work diagnosing and hopefully correcting his issues.
Since Jarrod is primarily a draft-legal ITU racer, his was a different fit than I usually do. In his case he rides a road frame with shortened Zipp aerobars (they are not allowed to extend beyond the brake hoods). Most of the time he rides like a road racer on the hoods, but if he needs to bridge a gap or pull or even breakaway (not a typical tactic for him with his running strength) he should be able to use the aerobars. However, it was quickly apparent that he wasn't comfortable either in the aero position or the drops.
A second major issue plaguing Jarrod has been foot and lower leg comfort, including soleus cramping - not good for a run specialist. So we initially spent a a while looking at his cleat placement and his knee tracking. Front view motion analysis indicated that he was very asymmetrical in his pedal stroke - one knee tracked wide and the other close to the frame. The wide knee also tended to track diagonally outward.
Looking at Jarrod's cleats we saw a fairly forward cleat placement, which I expected based on his calf issues. I moved his cleats back notably to shorten the lever arm pulling on his calf - especially important considering his size 13 feet. We also spent a good while working on angular cleat adjustment and Q-factor (foot spacing/distance from centerline). We won't be certain if we hit the optimum setup for a while, but we did manage to get his knees tracking much more evenly and better aligned with his feet and hips.
I had taken some measurements of Jarrod earlier, including his center of gravity. This, along with some balance tests on the bike, led me to believe that his saddle was set too far back. Too, he had the tendency to sit forward on the saddle under moderate load. When combined with his dislike of the aero/drops position, I was fairly certain he needed to go forward. We set the saddle based on the center of gravity estimate, and also adjusted the saddle tilt slightly. Subsequent motion analysis showed that even though we moved the saddle a fair bit, he only adjusted his seating position a small distance forward. So he now had more saddle under him and was also sitting at a steeper angle, which helped to open his hip angle. This also allowed us to lower his front end slightly. We recommended a longer stem in light of his shift forward and upon examining various reach parameters. His saddle height (based on knee and foot angle under load) was fine all along, so we simply made sure to maintain the same angles.
All in all we moved a lot of things around, but we think we improved his pedal stroke, comfort, and power output at least in the aero/drop position. As with any fit, only time (and mileage) will tell for certain if we got it right. As we do with all of our clients, we will keep tabs on Jarrod's progress and if things don't improve we will have another go. We think this is absolutely essential: even if your fitter is top notch there is no guarantee that everything will be perfect on the first try. So the fitter should always be willing to listen to subsequent feedback and make additional adjustments if necessary.
Check out an interview from when Todd worked on Karen Smyers' and Dede Griesbauer's bike fits here. |
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