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Cycling

Bike Fit

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I had a bike fit at Speeds Cycles in Bromsgrove today, something I felt was necessary based on my list of injuries. I’ve only ridden the bike once but already felt there was room for improvement. Lovely folks, specific thanks to Owen for the time and thoroughness and Hannah for the coffee!

First up Owen checked my cleats and ended up making some fairly significant adjustments to get foot/knee/ankle position right. First up was locating the bone in the side of my foot with a very technical masking tape and pen!

Bike fit cleat adjustment

With this located we adjusted the fore and aft position. After some pedalling and the extensive use of frickin’ laser beams we were able to fine tune the side to side position too. At this point it became obvious that I need to work on my foot position on my right leg, I assume that the knee injury is to blame, as I am not keeping my right foot flat on the pedal stroke.

Next up we moved the saddle back by about 10mm to align my knee correctly over my foot, the laser beams were back for this too!

Bike fit saddle adjustment

Bike fit knee alignment

Moving to the front of the bike, we measured my shoulders and discovered that I needed some slightly narrower handlebars. The standard fit on my 56cm frame were 42cm wide which were making me v-shaped at the front. As a result we ended up with some Zipp Service Course 70. They have a few other bonuses, they’re lighter, the drops are more comfortable and the top of the bars is flatter and also more comfortable.

Bike fit handlebar swap

After we’d got the handlebars the right size next we needed to work on my forward reach; this was one of the areas I had identified as needing work as I had been struggling to reach the hoods comfortably. We tried a shorter stem, this was a 90cm in the pictures, but reverted back to the standard 100mm after further analysis.

We added an additional 3mm spacer to raise the bar up and also reversed it to get a positive 7 degrees as my core isn’t strong enough yet to get down low enough.

Bike fit additional spacer

Overall feel much more comfortable but have been asked to pop back after a few rides to update Owen and make any tweaks if necessary.

Thanks guys! Great value for money!

Bike fit done!

Finally I did try to swap out for this beauty at the end, right frame size, right handlebar size, right colour…. Wrong price mind and I think Hannah Drewett would miss it!

Hannah Drewett's Trek Madone Project One

Cycling, Running

Final run of 2014… And the first in 256 days (apparently)

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A run; the final run of 2014!

Well yesterday was a significant day, I had my first run since ‘completing’ the London Marathon in April and also the final run of 2014. Suffice to say that last run didn’t go well, with pretty major damage to most ligaments in my right knee. Months of physio later, an inguinal hernia and a hernia operation we reach today. The knee is not quite 100% yet and I’m strengthening my quads and lengthening my hamstrings on the physio’s orders but I really wanted to get a run in.

It was an ideal time to try, ice on the ground and freezing cold. Having recently moved house, finding my running clothes was not too easy either! All that said I was relieved to find that I settled into a nice steady pace of around 7:30 per mile, sadly in not too great a distance I also discovered that not running in such a long time has an impact on your fitness and stamina! I had only planned a short run anyway but backed off a little as the heart rate rose a little too high.

Things are a little achy today, as expected, particularly the calf muscles which is common with my Brooks Pure Flow 3 due to the natural running style. Fingers crossed as I am not planning any long runs I should be able to build up strength and speed for triathlon events, I’m planning to sign up for the salubrious Halesowen Tri in April!

Speeds Cycles – a new local bike shop!

In other news I also visited a local cycle shop Speeds Cycles near where we’ve moved to, handily they’re a Trek dealer. I managed a bit of drool too as they had a Project One bike in the window in my colour scheme, from speaking to them it turns out they sponsor Hannah Drewett and it was her bike, see below.

Hannah Drewett on her Trek Custom Project One bike
Hannah Drewett on her Trek Custom Project One bike

She also works on their blog and they’re working to get her in for talks in the evening too. All stuff to look forward to, as well as the bike fit i’ve arranged for early in the New Year – I’ve decided it’s a sensible thing to do given the knee injury.

Happy New Year all!