It’s like going to the doctor. On Zielstattstrasse in the west of Munich, surrounded by start-up companies, you sit in the waiting area. There’s something to drink and cycling magazines. Nervousness spreads. Soon you will be measured, examined and, in the worst case, seen through. A poster can be seen in the treatment area: the “Human Muscular System”. One look is enough – and every single muscle hurts. But that’s why you’re in the Munich cycling laboratory. Looking for relief from the torment. The bike fitting that we are about to talk about is either an optimization craze, a belief in salvation or an opportunity to reconcile with the bike. In this respect: couples therapy.
Bike fitting, which has long been popular among cycling amateurs and comes from professional sports, involves adapting a bicycle to the anatomical conditions and sporting concerns of its rider. Not the other way around. The sentence from your personal environment – “perhaps what you’re missing is not a better adjusted bike, but just a fitter body” – makes you burst into tears. What if that’s true? Fit, English, means suitable, but also suitable. Various options await bikers and bikers who are too fit. From “check” to “performance diagnostics”.
Next to you is the gravel bike you brought with you, which is immediately put on the roll and in front of the camera. In a color, by the way, “Deepest Purple”, which makes you wonder in retrospect whether you still had all the hormones in your closet when you decided to buy a bike. Perhaps they should have spent more time on the frame geometry than on the color selection. That’s the problem anyway: the bike fitting should actually be done before you buy it. That’s at least one shortcoming of cheap online bicycle dealers: you sometimes pay a high price for something that’s so cheap (and comes with, well, “advice” over the phone).
General wear and tear. It’s called: dude
Personally, cycling is now also about the back (ouch), the butt (groan), the shoulders (oof) and the neck (groan). Leaving aside the osteoarthritis in the knee, the arthritis in the ankle and the general wear and tear that is presumably called “age” (60). The aged author still refuses to stop being an enthusiastic cyclist. You would love to be in the saddle more often. Not in the office. Not in the home office. Better on the mountain, by the lake, on the forest path, on asphalt. With Srrrrrrrrrr in your ears – the most beautiful sound in the world that whispers: You are on the way, away, away, there. Ah, what luck. The back sees it differently. Completely different.
It is logical that bike fitting is becoming more and more popular among cycling enthusiasts. The bicycle industry is doing everything it can to flood the market with ever more sophisticated, more special and, miraculously, more and more expensive ways to get from A to B on two wheels and, very happily, to biker happiness. This happiness used to come without any problems on the very first bike with the sensational three-speed gears from Sachs. Just by looking at it.
Later, as a ten-year-old, you sat on the Bonanza bike, and as a 13-year-old you sat on the first Belfo racing bike. Everything was always great. Even without bike fitting. Sit on. Fits. Departure. That’s not the case anymore. Let’s take K. We currently have an appointment with him to go biking on Mallorca in the Tramuntana. Next spring. With him – and with his adhesive tapes in about 25 different colors. K. is a screwdriver, a religious optimiser. You yourself are an unbeliever with a tendency towards nihilism. When you’re out on the gravel or racing bike with K., you’ll hear “something’s wrong” after five minutes at the latest. Then: “Do you hear that too?”
There is always something to optimize
Nope. But whatever. It takes a maximum of another five minutes and you find yourself standing somewhere on the side of the road in a magical landscape trying to figure out why the whirring isn’t quite perfect, the gears aren’t quite clean and the whole frame geometry isn’t quite right somehow. Why you have to screw, shake, jerk and adjust. Using tape markings in 25 different colors that show what has to be where, under what conditions and depending on the position of the sun or the political situation in the world. There is an arsenal of special tools that the Bundeswehr can only dream of.
At least now K. will say what we’ve heard many times before: “You’re sitting kind of crooked on the bike.” Then, after a short diagnosis, he recommends, shaman-style, that you should adjust the handlebars two-point-zero-five degrees upwards – and the saddle four millimeters backwards and one millimeter downwards. All of this together leads to the back being even more insulted than before. Last exit: bike fitting. No one expresses the suspicion that this is something for esoterics and spiritualists.
So this is how you get to the bike lab. If it doesn’t work here, you say quietly to your beloved bike in front of the door, then you’ll end up in the bulky waste. The matter is serious. We’ve also had a voucher for bike fitting for years – a birthday present from the family. For 24o euros, which isn’t much, you get a 90-minute check in which you first check the seat height, saddle position, seat length and handlebar height on the bike and – for yourself – sternum height, arm length, inner leg length and, seriously, the “seat bone width” professionally be measured. All “ergonomic contact points” are immediately adjusted. Foot position and pedal plates are analyzed, the movement sequence is shown via video analysis, and at the end there is also some theory on cycling biomechanics.
Perhaps the most important thing is the diagnostic eye, in this case from Lisa Schrankl, who doesn’t wear a white coat – but ensures trust by listening carefully. The biker especially, even when it comes to couples therapy. My bike is of the quiet kind. It is examined thoroughly – and the data is compared in a database with the information from the manufacturer and other models. Result: The handlebars are much too low. And the saddle – “it’s just that kind of saddle,” says Lisa. In short: “suboptimal”. Which sounds like: wrong.
Now comes the moment that could remind you of a butter trip. It just so happens that the cycling laboratory has a selection of more suitable saddles in stock. Not exactly cheap, it seems. But no matter, you want to know now. Lisa at least says: “If it doesn’t fit, bring it back and try another one.” Sounds fair. You get involved in it. Anything else that can be readjusted in the cycling laboratory will be readjusted. The drive home across Munich is strange: strangely painless. Can this be? The next careful exit is pain-free, the 80-kilometer tour is pain-free and the 120-kilometer route is, there is a God, pain-free. Maybe it’s the bike fitting that moves saddles and handlebars – maybe it’s faith. Doesn’t matter. The love of bikes is saved. Until something pinches again somewhere.