So last night Katie and I made the drive to Covington, LA to attend the BikeFit Pro school. This school travels the world so I was thrilled when I found that it happening so close to home.
This school is taught by Paul Swift and Katrina Vogel. Those in the cycling world might recognize the names since Paul Swift is an 8 time national champion on the velodrome and Katrina Vogel writes articles for Velonews and has PT PhD's etc.
Paul was the first to develop the cleat wedge for cycling. You can find his products in every serious bicycle fitting business. Just to name a few folks using his product: the Mapei Sports Center, Dr. Andy Pruit, grand tour winners and 40 riders in the years Tour de France. Cleat wedges are needed for most people, the running industry makes tons of shoes for people that address this issue but the cycling shoe industry does not. I never used cleat wedges on myself or past clients but I will be doing it for now on. I was told that these products could cause great harm if not used properly, that's one of the main reasons I came to Paul Swift, he developed the cleats wedges and is the leading expert.
Like most fit schools I've been to, we spent the morning going over the basics of fit. BikeFit Pros speciality is shoe/pedal interface. Shoe/pedal interface is the most important aspect of bike fitting. Making this adjustment can effect everything from your foot up to your mid-back.
Today I was the test subject or lab rat. I brought my one of my bikes over and got set up. We went through the interview process and did the pre-fit. Overall I was close, I don't fit myself because fitting yourself to your own bike is kind of like cutting your own hair. Even Paul Swift has an assistant fit him.
I've been having some knee issues and always had a hot spot on the outside of my right foot. We sat me down and measured my foot angles. Sure enough I had a steeper angle on my right foot. We make the calculations and properly wedged my cleats. We used the laser to align my feet and knees, much better than methods I've used in the past. We added 3 of the 1 degree wedges to both of my shoes.
I got back on my bike and the results were shocking. Immediately I felt a huge difference. I felt all of the pressure spread across my foot, I had been compensating for this over the years but now everything made sense.
Overall today was a solid addition to the foundation I already had with professional bike fitting. I'm pretty thrilled to have the proper education to work with cleat wedges and I'm looking foreward to showing people how great they can be.
Tomorrow we will go through a ton of hands-on fittings with random cyclist and finish our BikeFit Pro education.
