I had been eyeing this up for a while, feeling that spending a bit on a performance bike fit would bring me more gains than any component purchases, and having seen photos of myself racing throughout the year I knew there were improvements to be made in my position.
So, to Matt Bottrill Performance Coaching it was. I opted for a silver bike fit which comprised of the following:
- Pre fit questionnaire
- Custom MBPC aerodynamic fitting techniques
- Wind tunnel informed decisions
- Full report with photos
- Training sessions and equipment info where appropriate
- Custom parts (pads/poles) fitted in fit where needed
- Sidas Custom Footbeds
- Gebiomized Saddle Pressure Mapping
The price for this level of bike fit was £290. That may seem expensive but for this level of specialism and experience, I’d accepted that it would be a premium price, Matt isn’t the most expensive either…
Booking
I used the MBPC website to make contact with the company to arrange the bike fit, explaining that I’d like to book in for the silver level. Kate (Matt’s wife) provided a speedy same day response with a number of available date and time options for me to choose from.
I chose a suitable appointment date and time and later confirmed with Kate. I would need to bring my bike (obvs), skinsuit, helmet and shoes along for the fit and Kate provided me with a bike fit booking form to fill out ahead of the fit. A few days later I was sent an invoice for the price which was due 1 week before the date of my fit.
A week before the fit I paid the invoice and also sent over the completed bike fit form. On the form were: Personal details, bike model, perceived strengths and weaknesses, current performances, session goals and an indication of any injuries. Everything had been really easy to book in and I liked the relaxed and efficient manner from Kate.
Goals
What would I like to achieve from this session with Matt?
- Optimisation of aerodynamics with my current equipment and capability
- Development of strength in aero position
- Resolution of foot discomforts, improvements to saddle discomforts
- Guidance for training considering my 2023 goals
After a lot of thought I had decided what my 2023 goals would be…
- Sub 22 minute 10M TT
- Improvements on 25M and 50M TT curent PBs
- Sub 4 hour 100M TT
- 4th Audax Super Randonneur Award (200, 300. 400 and 600K rides)
- 2nd Diagonale de France (Perpignan to Dunkerque) Sub 100 hours
To begin with
I arrived with time to spare and got my bike and kit out from my car and then waited outside the MBPC unit within the industrial estate in Coalville, Leicestershire.
Matt arrived bang on time and was very friendly and amiable from the start… once he saw my TT bike he was asking all sorts of questions about it and referencing others he’d worked with on Ridley bikes. We went into the premises and continued chatting about my cycling history and what I want to get from the fit, along with my goals for 2023. Matt was very clear that there would be gains to be made through the process.
It was pretty cool to see some of the medals, caps and prizes that Matt had achieved over the years, notably the FT Bidlake Memorial award was hanging up on the wall… awarded to Matt in 2014, for winning the Men’s National Championships at 10, 25 and 50 miles, the RTTC Circuit Championship, breaking three competition records and being crowned Champion of Champions.
My bike was quickly mounted on Matt’s turbo trainer and he began assessing the bike and discussing possibilities… we talked budget vs big money – some of his customers come in with bikes worth in excess of £20,000 and barely ride them, but clearly I was not one of those people.
We talked about kit upgrades and I expressed that I’d like to try and do what we can with minimal kit upgrades. Cycling is a hobby for me and I didn’t have the inclination to spend big on parts that I already had reasonable versions of. At no point did I feel pressurised to buy anything that wouldn’t be necessary to optimise my fit.
I did bring with me some secondary Zipp Vuka poles, my old shoe insoles and my previous TT bike fit measurements which we discussed whilst I got changed into my skinsuit. Matt made me a strong coffee before we got started on riding and assessing current position.
Shoes
Matt checked my cleat position and I informed him that I always set them to maximum rearward. Cleat position was not adjusted and was fine being all the way back.
I cycled on the turbo in my current shoes and Matt immediately noticed that my right knee swung inwards towards the top tube, but my left knee didn’t. A theory for why my right toes were painful after a spell was due to my clasping of the toes to stop them rolling inwards, in a subconscious attempt to keep my right leg straight.
Off the turbo, shoes off and we got the Sidas Custom Footbed machine up and running. Matt prepared the machine then guided and instructed through the process of moulding the carbon re-inforced insoles to my feet. My right foot was apparently a little unusual and has some high spots behind the big toe, it was feasible to imagine my foot rolling through the pedal stroke essentially compressing the high spots, making my knee roll inwards and putting pressure through my right toes. This was likely the cause of the sole wear at the toes. Matt was confident that he could package the custom soles to mitigate this feature of my foot.
Custom soles done, back on the bike to see the impact. Right leg tracking straight now and not rolling in! Fantastic.
Sitting
Now that my feet were in a stable position we started to assess the saddle height. Small dot type stickers were placed on my hip, knee and ankle for angle checking purposes and then we went onto saddles. Matt had no issues with the saddle type (ISM PR 2.0), but whilst observing me ride Matt noted that I was positioned slightly behind the bottom bracket and my seat height was, relatively speaking, quite low.
Small adjustments upward and forward we’re made several times with me riding the bike after each adjustment to be observed. Matt would check my hip opening by simply placing his fist on my hip to see by how much my rising leg contacted the fist, and periodically he would check the upper and lower leg angles with a measuring stick.
Finally, Matt settled on a position which he felt I was looking good in with my saddle adjusted upwards by ~10mm and my fore aft position pushed forward some.
One of the key items we discussed as being desirable was a flat sole through the bottom of the pedal stroke. Mine was slightly lower than this with my heels dropping down lower than the mid of my foot at the bottom of the pedal stroke. This was corrected by raising the saddle height.
A second key item was the fore aft of the saddle. I was behind the bottom bracket but was adjusted to be a little in front of the bottom bracket. Matt said this would help with power generation and to demonstrate this he had me put out some reasonable power and then gradually move my position backwards on the seat. Matt could tell once my glutes had disengaged and I could feel it almost like a switch turning off. Too far back and you could feel the glutes go floppy and disengage.
Lastly, regarding saddles we discussed the ISM saddle that I already had fitted… no issues with it observed, and to double check Matt hooked up the pressure mapping equipment to it, which showed a low enough numerical value and colour range not to have any cause for concern, or a need to change anything.
Front End
Onto the front, we’d discussed keeping the budget down and trying to work with what equipment I had as much as possible, which for me meant keeping the Zipp Vuka poles and possibly the elbow cups. However, the front end of a TT bike is so critical in supporting an aerodynamic position that after assessment Matt needed to swap out the cups for high sided cups… (some 51 Speedshop items) this is a key part of Matt’s positional technique.
Next he took out the Zipp 50mm spacers for the aerobars and then moved the stem up a little on the fork steerer by moving spacers around (moving from above the stem to below the stem) to bring the base bar position up higher. This quite dramatically dropped the cup position lower. My back was flattening with the lowering of the front and the raising of the seat. The last step was to narrow the pole width spacing, by removing my standard Garmin mount and fitting a 76 Projects pole mount, which would make for easy visual access to the Garmin data screens. The idea behind all of the front end work was to make me as narrow and tucked as possible.
Technique
This is where Matt’s advice is all aimed at. Until now he’d set up my bike to enable me to achieve an aerodynamically efficient position relative to my body and equipment. Now I would need to try and utilise these techniques to be able to practice and sustain the desired position.
Essentially the techniques are simple…
- Drop your head down
- Push your chin forward
- Push your arms/elbows outwards to narrow the shoulders, pulling up on the poles (downhills)
Working on the positional engagement was quite tough and a very handy thing that Matt did was to video me whilst engaging the different parts of the technique. This would help me when on my own and trying to practice.
Helmet
We did try out a few different helmets to cover the hollow behind my neck and top of my back. This is an area where it is ideal to have a continuous line/flow off the back of the helmet. I’d come pretty close with the bike fit changes and my current POC Cerebel helmet, but further optimisation through a different helmet choice would be available. Matt’s recommendation of helmet type for a long term gain was the Kask Mistral (in large). I could have purchased the helmet from Matt, but as I wanted to keep costs down I chose not to make the purchase, and I felt no pressure from Matt regarding this.
Aero Drills & Training
Matt provided a couple of key training sessions for me, first was an interval session of 2.5mins on 5mins off where the goal is to practice the aero position for every 2.5min interval. He’d said to look at doing this in front of a mirror so I would be able to start to see the changes in my shoulders. The idea is to push into the pads and pull on the end of the poles, training the muscles around my neck and shoulders to get stronger. The second key session was a high cadence 20s/40s session, one which I’m already familiar with, but doing this with high cadence should activate the glutes (which was new to me).
Matt also sent me a link to his Training Peaks coaches page and set me up with a range of workouts and other helpful information for training on and off the bike. The off bike training was accessed through Training Peaks, and this linked me through to the MBPC Winter Training Foundation Program for Strength & Conditioning. It was a little confusing as to how to access the instructional videos, but I got there without too much hassle. All of the exercises can be done without weights.
As well as the 2 Key sessions Matt included in his wrap up email the Training Peaks link provides 24x turbo trainer workouts that can be completed across a month to help train the aero position. If you link your Zwift and Trainer road accounts the workouts will appear in Zwift for the timing that they appear for in the Training Peaks schedule, but, I took a download of all the workouts to be able to conduct at my own timing and to be able to repeat in the future.
Reflecting on the experience
Looking at the before/after I can see that my back is much lower and a little flatter, my head is lower and closer to my hands and my hands are higher. From a front end point of view my shoulders are narrower than when I arrived. The above should equate to better aero capability.
Going back to what I wanted to achieve from the Bike Fit with Matt…
Optimisation of aerodynamics with my current equipment… 2023 racing will tell, but physically I am punching a smaller hole through the air as I know my shoulders have narrowed. I definitely feel as though I am more aerodynamic.
Development of strength in aero position… That is up to me and my training. I’ve got all I need to make it happen.
Resolution of foot and saddle discomforts… The Sidas insoles have straightened my right leg and hopefully this will remove the toe clawing that I was showing. Saddle pressure mapping has provided confidence that I’m not dangerously over pressured.
Guidance for training… Matt gave me plenty of practical sessions and things to work on. It’s up to me to be consistent, train with intervals and balance my commutes, distance and intensity.
Matt’s parting words for me… You’ve got no excuses now!
