Tips from Peak Bike Fitting

Lee has years of experience both riding ultra-cycling events and setting up bikes to allow people to be at their best while riding. Here are some tips from him to Tor Divide participants and bikepackers in general.

Top tips with Lee Endres from Peak Bike Fitting

Before you do any event it's good to check in with yourself and your bike. How are you feeling? There are three main contact points you have on the bike: hands, feet and bum. Out of those three, where are you feeling the most pressure? Do you get tingling or numbness in the hands or on the saddle? Problems are often multifaceted but here are a few quick-fire remedies for common problems: 

Quads burning during riding

This is usually a symptom of a saddle that is too low. Try lowering it in small increments (5mm), get back on the bike and try to see if it goes away. Remember to pop some tape or mark your seat post before you make any changes so you know where you started from! 

Feeling like you're sliding forward on the saddle 

This is likely to be caused by two main factors. First of all, the obvious one: check the pitch of your saddle. If the angle is pointing down aggressively then it's most likely that. Imagine putting a ball at the back of the saddle and letting it go, there's only one way it's going to go - down! The other reason could be that the saddle is too high. Cyclists who move forward to the nose of the saddle are effectively lowering their saddle height as you are getting closer to the bottom bracket - it's your body self selecting and trying to avoid injury! 

Pressure in hands

This could be caused by many things. The most common issue would be that the bars are either too high or too low. Try playing around with the stem height and see if anything improves - and remember that lowering the handlebars isn't always a bad thing for endurance!

Saddle discomfort

Unfortunately there are so many reasons why this can happen. The biggest clue I can give is this: it's rarely the saddle! Imagine if your saddle height is 40mm too high - you are basically hyper-extending to the bottom of the pedal stroke, and moving over a hard piece of plastic in between your legs - ouch! Regardless of saddle choice, this will always be painful. The best reason to book a bike fit is for issues like this as they can have long-lasting effects. 

Knee pain

Quite a common issue, and I usually look at cleat positioning for this one. In all my history of bike fitting I have had no bad ramifications with moving the cleat as far back as it can go. When you move the cleat forward towards your toes, you are essentially pushing all of your power down and letting the small bones in the foot take the grunt of it. It leads to numbness and also is just not a very ergonomic way of doing things. Check your cleat position and try moving it back, see if it improves things! 

Numb feet

The main reason for this is shoes that are too narrow. Many people have wide feet, but there are very few cycling shoes brands that cater for it. Double check how your shoes feel - do all of your toes rest on the bottom of the footbed? Is the shoe comfortable? The other main reason could be cleat position - check the cleat and see if there is anything odd going on. If you do have wide feet try looking into brands like Lake and Bont. 

Bike fit

All of these suggestions are simplified, of course, and are just quick experiments you can do to see if anything improves. The best way to get to the bottom of a problem is to book a bike fit with someone who can look properly at your position and adjust things while you're sat on the bike. In my bike fitting studio we have many tools to work with, but the bike fitting jig allows the fitter to see the changes in real time and gives you the ability to feel what's going on as changes are made.

Good luck to everyone for the event, most of all enjoy it! 

As a Tor Divide 2024 rider you will get 10% of the total bike fit with Lee. Please click this link or the images below to book.