Retul Fitting for TT Bikes?
I have been suffering from a nagging knee injury for the last several years that was classified as "runners knee". Last weekend was the first time I had been out on my TT bike in a long time. I teach spin 3 times a week and I do mountain biking in the fall/winter months. My knee started to bother me for the first time since the end of last summer during my ride... So I started to question if it is my bike fit. I am wondering if there is any advantage to getting a Retul fitting for my TT bike.
I just participated in Coach Rich's webinar and I am defiantly going to raise my seat up a bit, but I am wondering how many other injuries or potential injuries can be resolved through a better fit. Thanks!
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yes consider getting a fit.
consider ttbikefit. todd kenyon. video yourself and send in. or drive to him in Rhode Island.
Agreed, money well spent for comfort and injury prevention. Don't spend $1000s on a bike and skimp on the fit. I had both my bikes fitted by Jim Manton at ERO Sports when I lived in LA. He is a magician -- I can ride them all day.
If you belong to a local tri club, ask around about bike fitters.
Gabe, what's your opinion on Retul as a fitting system for a triathlon bike specific fit?
@Terra- I second what Robin and Carol said. Todd at TTBikeFit. He can do an online fit or if you have time go see him. My wife and I both have online fits from him.
Rich...I did the Retul fit when I just had my road bike that I did my first 70.3 on with clip-on aerobars. I knew I had caught the tri bug and was seriously considering a tri bike. Using Retul, Jim was able to give me a list of bikes that would be good fits for me. My sense is that most of the quality of the fit comes from the fitter's expertise. Jim seemed to just know a crap ton about bike fitting. The Retul seemed like it was helpful for the coarse measurements, and then Jim fine tuned it with his experience.
I did like that Retul produced a list of compatible bikes. Indeed, I just bought a cross country mountain bike. I emailed Jim, and he looked up my measurements to recommend bikes I should check out. I went with one of his recommendations (the Felt Edict 3).
I was skeptical but I did an on-line fit with Todd at TTFit and he changed my bike fit radically. I've been riding it on the trainer all winter to get used to it and lately I've gotten to take it out on the road. The first time out it felt weird and really squirrelly, but I got two rides of 48 and 38 miles in this weekend and I've really gotten used to it. The one thing I haven't gotten used to is the stress on my neck and shoulder muscles since the fit is way more aero now so it's going to take some time to get those muscles to adapt. Other than that I really like the fit. I will probably be tweaking it some as I go along this year and get more time outside, but so far so good. I would recommend him especially if you're comfortable moving your seat and changing parts out. (Of course you could get your LBS to change parts for you.) I had to change the stem and he recommended shorter cranks which I bought and installed. All in all I had to send him three or 4 videos before we got it dialed in to where I am now so it took a couple of weeks total, but most of that was because of the time it took me to make the changes, take the videos and send them out to him. If you went to his shop it would probably take way less time.
BTW, he gives EN a discount and doesn't charge if he thinks your fit is perfect.