A number of charitable organizations offer programs where you can train and compete for a cause.
Do your non-cycling friends think you’re overly ambitious (or insane) when you tell them you’re going to ride 100 miles in a day?
With little black sensors
stuck to her body, cords snaking all around
her, and infrared cameras zeroed in on her every movement, Katie O’Connell
could pass as a character in The Matrix. At the very least, she doesn’t look
like she is about to hop on her bicycle.
But at retül studios
in Denver, the art of bike fitting has taken on a sci-fi feel. And as O’Connell
saddles up on her bike, old-fashioned ideas about how to fit a bike to its
rider have never seemed older.
Franko Vatterott,
Todd Carver and Cliff Simms are rewriting the rules of the “art” of bike
fitting. They have traded the tape measures and guesswork of yesteryear for
their high-tech, down-to-the-millimeter system, retül.
The trio, which
opened the studio three months ago, claims that retül is the answer to one of
the biggest problems in bike fitting: in the past, measurements would almost
always vary.
“No one is speaking
a common language,” Vatterott says. “If five different fitters fit someone with
tape measures, you’re going to get five different numbers. But if you get five
guys using retül, all of those numbers are going to be within a millimeter.
That’s creating this common language to help all of these elite fitters
communicate.”
Of course,
constructing a universal language for bike fitters to speak is as tricky as
tape measures are simple.
Riders like
O’Connell are fitted with a string of sensors that are attached along a
six-foot cord. The sensors are placed at points from the heel to hip to wrist.
No bigger than a quarter, these LEDs (light emitting diodes) give off an
infrared light that is invisible to the eye.
But the light isn’t
totally invisible. While people can’t see anything, three infrared cameras are
picking up everything. Everything, down to the angle of the rider’s armpit to
the wrist’s relation to the hip to the exact path the knee is taking. The data
is then interpreted and spit out by computer software specifically designed for
the fitting system.
The computers and
invisible beams of light may seem like overkill. But according to Simms, the
chief inventor of the system, being able to record information while the
cyclist is riding is what sets retül apart. With other increasingly outdated
methods of fitting, riders are stationary, trying to simulate their riding
posture. This bothered Simms because if the rider is static while adjustments
are being made, what happens when they start moving?
“You miss subtle
movements when you take static measurements,” says Simms, who has a master’s
degree in biomechanics. “There are measurements that we do that actually take
into account the movements of the rider. What is the knee lateral movement?
What’s the hip rock taking place? All of those measurements are unquantifiable
if you’re static.”
O’Connell was not at
all static as she churned away on her bike in the retül studio, held in place
on a platform that uses yet more gadgets to measure output in watts and miles
per hour.
While O’Connell was
riding, the retül system was able to pinpoint problems with the way that her
bike fit her. At the bottom of each revolution of the pedals, O’Connell’s ankle
wasn’t extending enough. In retül language, her “ankle angle” was 98 degrees.
After some minor adjustments, that was increased to 131 degrees. Her knees were
also jutting forward of her ankle by eight millimeters; a slight tweak of the
pedals dropped it to three millimeters.
To the naked eye,
the adjustments seem minuscule and irrelevant. But O’Connell noticed the
changes immediately.
“I wasn’t using as
much energy,” she says, “but I was still able to produce more power. There’s a
huge difference.”
Those differences
are instantly calculated by computer software and flashed on a flat-screen
monitor. The pre-adjustment trial showed that O’Connell was producing 135 watts
and cruising at 13 mph. After the changes, she was doing 171 watts and 16 mph,
exerting less energy but still generating more power.
Carver wants to show
cyclists just how much of a difference these adjustments make because,
according to him, it’s not something that everyone thinks about.
“A lot of people
don’t know how much their knees are going in or out or if their hips aren’t
aligned properly,” Carver says. “They don’t think about it, and that’s where
they’re losing a lot of power.”
The retül group
isn’t done advancing the science of bike fitting. They hope to eventually
include physiological data like heart rate and breathing patterns to make their
system even more precise.
But even though
retül is still evolving, Vatterott, Simms and Carver are confident that they
have the best way for cyclists to maximize their potential on their bikes.
And for those
skeptical about all this technology, there’s always the tape measure.
For more on retül, visit www.retul.com. A fit session lasts about 90 minutes and costs $249.
The following offer retül-specific bike fits:
Green Mountain Sports, Lakewood. 303-987-8758. www.greenmountainsports.com
Carmichael Training Systems, Colorado Springs. 866-355-0645. www.trainright.com
Boulder Cycle Sport, Boulder. 303-444-2453. www.bouldercyclesport.com
