Those of you that follow the world wide side of triathlon will have heard the word “Retul” a lot recently. Over the past couple of years it has been more and more widespread to hear of some of the best athletes in the world seeking out the advice of the specially trained Retul bike fitters to tweak and perfect their positions. The likes of Norman Stadler, Craig Alexander and Mirinda Carfrae cant be wrong and more recently the newly formed Trek / K-Swiss Triathlon team (including top Brits Julie Dibens and Fraser Cartmel) have been publically showing off their new bikes whilst receiving the Retul treatment.
But what is all the fuss about and what exactly does it involve? Fortunately, through my new sponsors this year ‘PureTri’ I was recently able to head up to VeloMotion in Milton Keynes and receive a Retul bike fit for my Ceepo Venom. Right now in fact, PureTri are offering either a FREE Retul bike fit with every “Blue Triad & Triad SL” or a discount of £40 with all other “Blue” Bikes purchased from them. Check out www.PureTri.co.uk for more details.
It's been a long time since my last proper bike fit and in that time, like most people, I’ve slowly tried to get lower, narrower and more aggressive in my position in the pursuit of being more aero and therefore, I hoped, faster. I was interested to see what the initial assessment of my position would be.
So having arrived at the fitting centre, my Ceepo was put onto a platform on a turbo and I was donned with numerous small sticky balls all linked together by a wire. Sitting side on to the measurement camera I pedalled at various intensities whilst the camera took thousands of readings from each sensor, every second and began to calculate various measurements and angles. I repeated the procedure facing the other direction so that both sides could be analysed and calculated. (We DID turn the bike around too of course!)
But what is all the fuss about and what exactly does it involve? Fortunately, through my new sponsors this year ‘PureTri’ I was recently able to head up to VeloMotion in Milton Keynes and receive a Retul bike fit for my Ceepo Venom. Right now in fact, PureTri are offering either a FREE Retul bike fit with every “Blue Triad & Triad SL” or a discount of £40 with all other “Blue” Bikes purchased from them. Check out www.PureTri.co.uk for more details.
It's been a long time since my last proper bike fit and in that time, like most people, I’ve slowly tried to get lower, narrower and more aggressive in my position in the pursuit of being more aero and therefore, I hoped, faster. I was interested to see what the initial assessment of my position would be.
So having arrived at the fitting centre, my Ceepo was put onto a platform on a turbo and I was donned with numerous small sticky balls all linked together by a wire. Sitting side on to the measurement camera I pedalled at various intensities whilst the camera took thousands of readings from each sensor, every second and began to calculate various measurements and angles. I repeated the procedure facing the other direction so that both sides could be analysed and calculated. (We DID turn the bike around too of course!)
Once this had been done, Mike, the Retul engineer let the system process all the data and then brought it all up on screen. There was an abundance of numbers, angles, graphs and lines displaying knee tracking and every little movement I’d made during the testing. He then began to very precisely explain to me what each number meant and represented and most importantly if things needed to change and why.
He explained that I was riding too low at the front, preventing my hips from being open enough on the down-pedal stroke, and too closed when at the top of a pedal stroke. This would lead to un-necessary fatigue in these muscle and a reduction in run performance… crucial for race results where increasingly, even at 70.3 and IM races, it really is coming down to running FAST off the bike. Interesting I thought… I’ve long had cramping issues when stretching these muscles and if I swam the same day as I’d already ridden.
He ran through everything that needed adjusting specifically for me and (without me now giving away too much info) began to outline all the changes that he felt needed to be made. Interestingly enough, some of them would undoubtedly reduce my aerodynamics, but the increased run performance, lung capacity and nutrition absorbance of the stomach that would be achieved would more than off-set this reduction in pure speed from wind resistance.
I jumped off the bike, sat on the sofa and mike set about working on it all. He changed my saddle height by a fraction, put a new stem to change the reach at the front end and made some adjustments to my cleats too. 15minutes later and I was back on the bike trying out all the new tweaks and the Retul sensors were pulling in the data once again.
After a repeat spin from both sides, the same data was reproduced but with slightly different numbers. Just as Mike had said, I now had more open hips and could feel less “cramped” around my mid-rift. I was also much more relaxed in my upper body; both the ease with which I now felt I could breathe and also the comfort of my arms and shoulders at the front end.
I left a short while later with high hopes for the impact the changes would make on my race performance and particularly my run speed off of the bike. Having raced a Sprint Triathlon (F3 midweek Sprint) the night before the Retul fitting and with a Human Race ‘Eaton Super-Sprint’ coming up at the same venue in the next 3 days, I would have the perfect opportunity to see how the changes felt and improved (hopefully) my race performance.
Prior to that though and with bad weather hitting Putney for a couple of days I was back on my turbo in “Hambro Institute of Sport” for a couple of bike sessions. Being someone (maybe the ONLY one) who actually enjoys turbo sessions… my 3 hour ride with half ironman race pace intervals was a great first eye-opener to the improvements of the Retul changes.
I instantly noticed that there was NO saddle soreness kicking in like usual after the first 45minutes. I was able to happily stay on the aero-bars without even shifting my weight around and remain completely comfortable for ages! This was really good sign! Having been in Mike’s words “toe-y” in my pedalling style, due to my cleat position, the new more central i.e. further back cleat position took a little getting used to, but even here I could feel that the leg muscles I wanted to remain fresh, were now getting a little reprieve that they hadn’t done in the past.
So with two very encouraging and PAIN free turbo sessions done, I headed to Eaton for the race on Saturday morning. After an “OK” swim, I hit the bike course with the same aggression as I had on the previous Wednesday evening. Riding my same, slow cadence and grinding the big gear I was delighted to find that I was riding faster, the legs felt fresher and the back was perfectly happy to remain tucked on the aero-bars without any stiffness throughout the hard riding of the 20k flat, fast course. As I racked my bike in T2 I knew that the run would be were I would hopefully see some of the biggest gains… or at least feel them. And true to Mike’s prediction, the legs felt great. I was able to run seriously hard, but felt in complete control all the time, largely I’m sure because my legs (and particularly the hip-flexors) were in better shape after the hard bike. I managed to polish of the 5k run in 16:29… about a 15second improvement on Wednesday night. Not huge you might say, but over 5k that’s pretty significant, but most importantly for me and the longer distance races I’m focusing on, I knew my legs would be in MUCH better condition for a 21 or 42km run in my forthcoming “A” races.
I really can’t stress enough… if you can’t stay on your aero bars for more than 15 minutes without your back aching, or if you REALLY struggle with saddle sores, or if you find certain muscles such as hamstrings, hip flexors or calves get tight, cramp or tired… then you really need to consider getting a proper bike fit done.
And of course, if you’re considering a new bike any time soon, why not get it with a new bike from PureTri!!!
I jumped off the bike, sat on the sofa and mike set about working on it all. He changed my saddle height by a fraction, put a new stem to change the reach at the front end and made some adjustments to my cleats too. 15minutes later and I was back on the bike trying out all the new tweaks and the Retul sensors were pulling in the data once again.
After a repeat spin from both sides, the same data was reproduced but with slightly different numbers. Just as Mike had said, I now had more open hips and could feel less “cramped” around my mid-rift. I was also much more relaxed in my upper body; both the ease with which I now felt I could breathe and also the comfort of my arms and shoulders at the front end.
I left a short while later with high hopes for the impact the changes would make on my race performance and particularly my run speed off of the bike. Having raced a Sprint Triathlon (F3 midweek Sprint) the night before the Retul fitting and with a Human Race ‘Eaton Super-Sprint’ coming up at the same venue in the next 3 days, I would have the perfect opportunity to see how the changes felt and improved (hopefully) my race performance.
Prior to that though and with bad weather hitting Putney for a couple of days I was back on my turbo in “Hambro Institute of Sport” for a couple of bike sessions. Being someone (maybe the ONLY one) who actually enjoys turbo sessions… my 3 hour ride with half ironman race pace intervals was a great first eye-opener to the improvements of the Retul changes.
I instantly noticed that there was NO saddle soreness kicking in like usual after the first 45minutes. I was able to happily stay on the aero-bars without even shifting my weight around and remain completely comfortable for ages! This was really good sign! Having been in Mike’s words “toe-y” in my pedalling style, due to my cleat position, the new more central i.e. further back cleat position took a little getting used to, but even here I could feel that the leg muscles I wanted to remain fresh, were now getting a little reprieve that they hadn’t done in the past.
So with two very encouraging and PAIN free turbo sessions done, I headed to Eaton for the race on Saturday morning. After an “OK” swim, I hit the bike course with the same aggression as I had on the previous Wednesday evening. Riding my same, slow cadence and grinding the big gear I was delighted to find that I was riding faster, the legs felt fresher and the back was perfectly happy to remain tucked on the aero-bars without any stiffness throughout the hard riding of the 20k flat, fast course. As I racked my bike in T2 I knew that the run would be were I would hopefully see some of the biggest gains… or at least feel them. And true to Mike’s prediction, the legs felt great. I was able to run seriously hard, but felt in complete control all the time, largely I’m sure because my legs (and particularly the hip-flexors) were in better shape after the hard bike. I managed to polish of the 5k run in 16:29… about a 15second improvement on Wednesday night. Not huge you might say, but over 5k that’s pretty significant, but most importantly for me and the longer distance races I’m focusing on, I knew my legs would be in MUCH better condition for a 21 or 42km run in my forthcoming “A” races.
I really can’t stress enough… if you can’t stay on your aero bars for more than 15 minutes without your back aching, or if you REALLY struggle with saddle sores, or if you find certain muscles such as hamstrings, hip flexors or calves get tight, cramp or tired… then you really need to consider getting a proper bike fit done.
And of course, if you’re considering a new bike any time soon, why not get it with a new bike from PureTri!!!
