I’ve never had a professional bike fit or felt the overwhelming need for one. That said, I have often wondered if I would benefit from some professional input. Over the years I’ve simply adjusted and dialled in my position, refining as I get stronger and more or less flexible. I feel pretty comfortable on all of my bikes and I think that the position I’m in is pretty good. But is it really?
MyVeloFit has been on my radar for a while now. There are a number of online bike fit apps around. Many are basic where you do most of the work yourself, but MyVeloFit is different in that you submit your recordings via their website and let their algorithms do the legwork. MyVeloFit promises a “professional quality fit, in the comfort of your own home.” A professional bike fit can easily run you a few hundred dollars, so for as low as US$35 could MyVeloFit do the same thing? Let’s see…
With the MyVeloFit service, you simply pay your money, submit videos of your mobility and riding, then their “artificial intelligence” system does the rest,. There’s no actual human involved in viewing or analysing the data, it’s all computer based using their software. In fact the process is so streamlined I went from registering an account to having bike fit results in around two hours total.
Filming the Videos
To complete the fit, you’ll need to film yourself. First you record yourself running through some key mobility drills in two videos and submit this via their website portal. The third video is a 10 second clip of you pedalling your bike. This is of course best performed on a trainer. I chose to get fitted using my time trial bike. You can select from road, mtb, time trial and a couple of other bike fit types, plus choose either a comfort fit, performance fit or a balance of both. Of course, I went for a pure performance fit.
The entire process was far simpler than I thought it was going to be. No placing dots on your body or lining up points via an on-screen diagram. Their intelligent software does all of that for you afterwards. I filmed the whole lot using my iPad and the filming only took around half an hour including a couple of takes, plus editing to crop out the walk in / walk out of shot.
The Results
Once all your videos have been uploaded and processed via their website, it’ll analyse the data and give you a mobility assessment (mine is good, but not great) and diagrams showing your position at the top, bottom and middle of the pedal stroke. Here’s where you’ll see your fit recommendations. MyVeloFit will suggest adjustments to saddle height, saddle fore/aft position, handlebar or TT bar positioning, plus other information it deems important. You’ll get a bunch of data and images like the ones below:
That’s an aero position I’ve refined over time and it feels pretty good on the road. It’s not super aggressive but still gets me cutting through the air well enough.
The only recommendation that MyVeloFit made was to move my arm pads 10mm rearwards. That’s quite interesting as in the back of my mind I already knew this, the pads are already as far back as they go unfortunately! The Planet X Stealth is a medium frame, but I should probably be riding a small.
Wrapping Up
So was MyVeloFit worth it? Well, I guess so. I purchased the “top level” package at US$75 which gives me a year’s access and fit options for multiple bikes. You could do what I did using the US$35 package (one bike, two weeks access). I certainly found it interesting seeing a computer analysis of my mobility and riding position, so I consider it money well spent. MyVeloFit is one of the few bike fit apps that includes a mobility assessment. After viewing my results I’ll definitely put some focus into mobility. I’ll also repeat the fit process with my Canyon Aeroad later on.
MyVeloFit seems like a legitimately useful tool for performing a home bike fit. Even though I ran through the entire process and ended up making zero changes I still feel it was a useful experience. Yes that’s right, I paid $75 and made no changes. It seems like I may have been right about my position choices and had it pretty dialled already, but it was reassuring to have some sort of validation.
Tempo Cyclist - Tasmania 
I paid €75 for a fit when I last changed the bike. That was a reduced rate from €90 as it was the same shop where I bought the bike. The $75 package for multiple bikes is really good value if it gave you those results. Especially useful for fitting bikes that you don’t use as much if you are an N+1 household. The only difference I can see is the shop also checked my cleat position and dialled them in for me at the very start of the process.
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The cleat position is a big one. I probably should have mentioned that in the write-up. The software can’t do that. I don’t think it checks saddle tilt angle either. There a lot of little things that an experienced fitter can pick up that a computer can’t. If I were having any pain or discomfort, I’d definitely pay for a professional fit. Thanks for the input! 🙂
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I had a Body Geometry fitting done at the local shop that took three hours and analyzed four or five videos… and they lowered my saddle by 2 mm. What this tells us is that we paid attention and learned something good with all of the research we did on bike fit! Well done, brother.
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Yep, attention to detail pays dividends! It’ll be interesting to run through the MyVeloFit process again on both the Trek and Canyon to see if their system recommends changes on either of those.
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I’m looking forward to that post!
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