professional wheel measurement, what is the current level of knowledge?

Especially in winter is the time to make a few adjustments for the coming season. You don't have to train so much and you have time for performance diagnostics and bike measurements. The latter, the optimal adaptation of the athlete to his time trial bike, is underestimated and often adjusted by hand.

I also never took it for granted and always drove by feeling. Only the wheel measurement by a specialist opened my eyes. In one fell swoop I was almost 10 minutes faster on the 180km, of course I was also fitter than the year before, but the whole thing had a not inconsiderable influence.

Like so many, I was way too low on the handlebars before. I think I had a superelevation of over 20cm between the saddle and the handlebars. Some can do that, but for me personally the angle between thigh and upper body was too steep, which meant that parts of my glutes were no longer properly supplied with blood halfway through the distance. Usually after about 100km I drove into a performance gap, from which I could no longer recover the entire remaining bike distance. Happened for example in Hawaii in 2008 when I thought that I would never reach the second transition area. At that point, I was putting everything on diet.

Now I was there on Saturday when Andi and Frank were measured in the Bike Imperium (Abenberg) and I was able to take a look at both of them. Compared to my analysis back then, this was technically much more advanced on Saturday. First the two were measured and the correct angles of the different parts of the body were determined for an optimal position to each other.

Interesting to see in the picture above is the different performance levels of Andi's legs on the time trial bike. The higher curve represents the left leg and the lower curve the right leg. Often this happens especially after injuries and completely subconsciously, since the body “spares” one side from now on. The disadvantage, however, is that the athlete naturally tires more quickly because one side is stressed too much.

Together with the information on how the athlete's foot behaves during the pressure phase or where the strongest pressure points are measured, this results in a very good picture of the entire pedal phase. Above you can see that Andi pushes with the front part of his foot, but also rotates his right leg while driving, which can be seen on the side line. Of course, this is not optimal, as it wastes strength and consequently the right leg, as seen above, presses less than the left.

This knowledge will of course be of no use to his competitors, firstly, the error is now being fixed by the specialists and secondly, nobody has driven past him before! If I remember correctly, neither a Jan Raphael nor a Thomas Hellriegel could hold Andi's rear wheel this year. Except for the Krelli, of course! ;))

The process is supervised by Jörg Brummer and his orthopedic specialist. The measurement takes about 3 hours and costs between € 120 and € 195. An investment that is worthwhile in my opinion, compared to the result that comes out of it, namely faster competition times!
If you are interested in such a survey, here are the contact information:

Bike empire in Abenberg
Jörg Brummer
09178-998476
info@bikeimperium.de
Below you can see the whole process again cut together in a video:

Merry Christmas!
krelli