Subject: RE: bike fit and racing teams... Someone like Lance would often get a completely custom Trek made just for his body. That probably happens sometimes for the super studs that each team is built around. But really I think that for the most part the riders adapt to the bikes. Between a rider's adaptability and a bike's adjustability you can usually meet in the middle somewhere. Remember that these are young, athletic, flexible athletes. Also remember that on a road bike a person can find the hip angle they want pretty readily because they don't have to be very concerned about their stack. This is because they spend their time in a peloton catching a draft. If you were to gather a whole bunch of side shots of all the guys in the Tour de France I'm sure you'd see a lot of variability in exactly how much set back they are using and stem length and heights. With TT bikes, there isn't as much variability available because they must all find an aero position and the UCI rules add tight constraints on TT bikes. So that's where you will see a lot of TT positions that look fast but painful. No one really knows how much power they can put down on their TT bikes versus their road bikes for sure. It's probably normal to find that it's less power due to their pinched off hips...but they are probably still faster due to the aerodynamic benefits. So they are just doing the best they can with the sponsor's bikes and you shouldn't by any means assume it's a perfect fit for them. Oh, and another thing...there have been some bike companies that when asked why they made their TT frame in a certain geometry they indicated that they did this because it was what their pro race team needed! So you can't really call those frames 'custom' but in a sense they were. |