Cesar's Bike fit at Boulder Center for Sports Medicine

The photos show Andy Pruitt being interviewed by Neal Rogers and Andy Pemberton of Velonews TV. Cesar being interviewed, and then Cesar on his time trial bike with the reflective sensors used in the 3-D imaging.

This week we went to the BCSM to meet with Todd Carver and Andy Pruitt to get feedback on Cesar Grajale's bike position. This is a tough time of year to conduct a bike fit as Cesar, and most riders, still have important races to compete in. Making changes during the season isn;t always advised but we wanted to take advantage of Cesar's trip to Boulder and set up a consultation with the local experts.

Andy determined that Cesar is tight in the hamstrings and gets the majority of his reach to the bars from bending his upper back (this isn't too hard to see with the naked eye). Cesar's pelvis tends to also tilt to the right so his right hip is slightly in front of his left hip. Another finding which was no surprise to Cesar was that he tends to collapse his heals and arches in and this is evidenced by Cesar's heals hitting the frame as he pedals. There are even marks of Cesar's bikes which show where his heals hit the frame.

Cesar's time trial position was dramatically changed because he was way too far forward which reduced the amount he could utilize his larger butt and lower back muscles. He was rotated so far forward that his plum line from his knee landed well in font of his toes.

Pruitt added wedges to his shoes just under his cleats to add more support and lessen his heal rotation inward. Cesar imediately loved the feel of this slight change and even motorpaced the next day and said it helped him a ton.

The next move is to allow cesar to finsih out his season and then make more dramatic changes to his bike fit this fall when he has lowered intensity and volume. I suspect we will raise his saddle a bit and pull him back in his position to a lesser degree than we did on the TT bike. Cesar will also need to spend time with physical therapist to get more feedback on what exercises are good for his tight lower back, hips and hamstrings. He just started stretching last winter and lifting more so he still has quit a ways to go.

The exciting part is he has a great deal of improvemnt to go and yet he has amazing results right now. i can;t wait to see how fast he is in 2007 and beyond.

Ciao
DF