Ebisu in for a fit

About 100 miles into the SFR 300k workers ride (which I abandoned at mile 162 of 187), I began to feel pain in the inside of both of my knees. I was able to continue riding for another 60 miles, but I know the fit needs some adjustment. M. is still coming back from her injury last year after the Shasta Super Century, and the Ebisu Road is new to her. We finally decided to go to a local fitter with good reputation to get ourselves fitted on our bikes.

Rick at Eden Cycles in Castro Valley comes highly recommended, both online as well as by a couple of personal friends. He fitted M. first, moving her seat slight forward and up, and moving her stem higher, brake levers higher on the handlebar, and rotating the handlebar downward slightly. He also spent quite a bit of time adjusting her cleat positions.

When he got to my bike, it was a little embarrassing because I have been building my own bike for 6 years now, and always thought that I do a good job putting the saddles, the stems and the handlebars at the right place, but apparently they weren't super close on the Ebisu. My seat has to go up almost a full centimeter. I also needed to get a shorter stem (the Pearl 10 is really 11cm long) and a seatpost with longer set-back to compensate for the short rail on the Brooks saddle.

Rick told me to get these parts--long set-back seatpost from Velo Orange, and a true 10cm stem--then come back to him. I want to make sure that the top of the handlebar can stay pretty close to parallel to the ground, so I decided to get a 9cm stem. Because switching in and out of quill stem is so much pain, I decided to go with Velo Orange's stem extender/threadless stem combo. Maybe once I get the fit dialed in I can get a Nitto Technomic Deluxe that's the right size.

We went back two weeks later, as M. needed another look on her cleats, as previous settings cause some slight knee pain. Rick played with her cleat adjustments for a while and actually made a visible improvements. He send M. out for a test ride and began fitting me. He ended up moving the stem/handlebar up 8mm, and rotated the handlebar down ever so slightly. He also adjusted my cleat positions. I went out for a test ride and felt really comfortable. Rick does know what he is doing.

We came home and I stared at the bike for a while, and something isn't quite right. The stem was a little too high. After using a level I found that the stem is actually a hair higher than the saddle. Rick raised it up so high because I told him I spend quite a bit of time in the drops, and he wanted me to be comfortable there. I think that with time my flexibility will come back to early season form, when I did 3 brevets in a 5-week span. I moved the handlebar down for about 5mm so the handlebar is lower than the saddle again. I haven't tested the set-up on a long ride yet. Hope to do it this weekend.

Other changes on the Ebisu include moving to a lower-Q-factor crankset--Sugino AT used as a compact double with 50/34 chainrings and a Shimano R700 compact double front derailleur. I probably will eventually move to a 46T large ring so as to have more ridable gears, but for now the 50T works.

Update (6/6/2010):
The fit has largely worked for both of us. I have no issue so far. After a follow up, M also had no issue for a few weeks. After a longish and hillish ride in Menodocino, and sat in a car for 5 hours coming back to the Bay Area, she woke up next morning with some IT band tightness. To help with that I decided to get a slightly longer BB spindle, since her cleat has maxed out in terms of lateral adjustment.

The recommended BB spindle length for the Sugino XD-600 cranks is  113mm, and at the time her Ebisu had a 107mm. I though getting a 113mm would surely help. After I got a VO 113mm bottom bracket from Box Dog Bikes, I compared it with the 107mm BB, and realized that the large majority of the 6mm difference sit on the non-drive side of the BB. The long BB gains 1.5mm on the drive side and 4.5mm on the non-drive side! To help gaining even more on the none drive side, I put a 1.8mm spacer ring on the drive side cup.

After a longish and hillish ride. She felt fine, but later in the day, the medial side of her left knee (inside) felt some pain. After reading various internet sources on knee pain and adjustment, and knowing that the non-drive side has gain 2.7mm, even though a spacer is put on the drive side, it was pretty clear that the additional external rotation that her left knee experiences is giving her some problem.

I went back to Box Dog Bikes and got a 110mm VO BB this time. The 110mm version has almost the same drive side spindle, but the 110mm one is 3mm shorter on the non-drive side. I placed a 2.5mm spacer ring on the drive side to have all the length on the drive side. After installation, the drive side has the same protrusion as the week before when the bike had 113mm BB, and the non-drive side has the same amount of protrusion as when the bike had 107mm BB. After 3 days of riding in Tahoe during memorial weekend, she is feeling OK. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this will work finally.