Who Should You Trust With Your Bike Fit? Experience, Biomechanics, and Understanding the Rider Behind the Bicycle

One of the most common questions I see online is, "Who should I get a bike fit from?" It's a fair question, but I’ve always thought it misses something important. A better question might be: What experiences and qualifications should someone have before you allow them to influence how your body interacts with a bicycle?

Bike fitting is often presented as a technical service. People think of measurements, laser levels, motion capture systems, and screenshots with lines and angles. Those tools can be valuable, and I’ll occasionally use some of them, but they are only a small part of the process. A bicycle fit is ultimately not about a bicycle. It is about understanding a human body producing thousands of repetitive movements under load, often for hours at a time, and being knowledgeable about the equipment options available to suit.

Cycling is a highly constrained activity. We lock our asymmetric bodies into a relatively fixed, symmetric position and then ask our bodies to repeat the same movement pattern thousands of times in a single ride. Small changes measured in millimeters can alter breathing mechanics, shift muscular recruitment patterns, change tissue loading, and influence how forces move through the body. Riders commonly arrive looking for more comfort or better performance, but many are also carrying years of accumulated experiences—old injuries, recurring pain patterns, asymmetries, movement limitations, or frustrations they cannot fully explain.

Understanding those things has been the focus of my career for more than two decades.

I began fitting riders in 2004. What initially started as curiosity eventually became an obsession with understanding why riders responded differently to seemingly similar changes. I found myself asking questions that extended far beyond bike geometry. Why could two riders with nearly identical body proportions react completely differently to the same position? Why would one rider become more comfortable while another developed pain? Why did some riders adapt immediately while others struggled?

That curiosity eventually led me into formal education. I earned a Bachelor's degree in Exercise Science and Nutrition before completing a Master's degree in Biomechanics at the University of Georgia. My graduate research focused on the relationship between cleat position and muscular firing patterns during pedaling, specifically examining how changing foot/cleat position influenced the way the body organized force production.

The research itself was important, but the larger lesson stayed with me long after the project ended. Human beings are not motors. We are adaptive systems. The body continuously negotiates around mobility limitations, asymmetries, fatigue, previous injuries, motor patterns, and sensory input. Two riders may produce the same power output while arriving there through very different strategies.

That realization significantly influenced the way I think about fitting. I became less interested in chasing idealized positions or fitting norms and more interested in understanding the person sitting in front of me.

My career eventually took me far beyond traditional fitting environments. I spent years teaching bicycle fitting internationally as an instructor, traveling extensively and working alongside leading fitters, clinicians, movement specialists, and educators throughout the world. Through those experiences I had the opportunity to visit hundreds of fit studios across five continents and observe a wide range of philosophies and methodologies.

I have also been fortunate to work with Olympic gold medalists, world champions in road cycling and mountain biking, professional athletes, and riders competing at the highest levels of sport. Those experiences were incredibly valuable, but they also reinforced an important lesson: elite athletes are not necessarily what make someone a better fitter.

The riders who often teach you the most are everyday people.

They are the rider whose knee pain appears every spring after increasing volume. They are the athlete whose neck hurts after thirty minutes despite multiple previous fits. They are the rider struggling with lower back discomfort that no one seems able to explain. They are the person who simply wants to enjoy riding again without thinking about pain every time they swing a leg over the bike.

Those riders force you to think more deeply and look beyond simple mechanical adjustments.

As my work evolved, I became increasingly interested in movement quality and the physical characteristics people bring with them onto the bicycle. That path led me toward extensive training in clinical bodywork and now 12 years as a practitioner, it’s one of the most valuable tools I have. Clinical bodywork differs significantly from what many people think of as traditional massage. It focuses on evaluating and influencing tissue behavior, movement restrictions, and structural relationships that may affect function. And ultimately, it affords me a “license to touch”, which is a major aspect of bike fit…touching. Palpating bones and tissue is a critical aspect to bike fit. If you’re going to a bike fitter, and they aren’t touching you (other than placing motion capture markers) that’s a red flag of their understanding of their role. If they are touching you, and don’t have a license to do so, that’s a red flag.

My clinical training fundamentally changed the way I assess riders because it added another layer of understanding to the fitting process. Muscle tone matters. Soft tissue quality matters. Protective patterns developed over years matter. Previous injuries matter. Structural assymetries matter. Sometimes a rider requires a positional change, while other times they need a fit that accommodates a long-standing structural reality rather than attempting to force correction.

Further expanding that perspective, I pursued doctoral coursework through the Integrative Physiology Department at the University of Colorado Boulder within the biomechanics laboratory. My interests there centered around movement science, human performance, and opportunities to work with adaptive athletes and complex movement problems within cycling. Although I ultimately chose a different path professionally, the experience further reinforced something I had been learning throughout my career: understanding human movement requires looking beyond isolated variables and appreciating the body as an integrated system. And, truthfully, it reinforced the limitations of a research environment on the true implications of how bodies move in the real world - not every aspect of human movement can be quantified…not well, anyway.

That idea remains central to the way I approach fitting today.

I do not view bike fitting as a process of imposing a position onto someone. I see it as a process of understanding a rider and negotiating with the constraints they bring to the bicycle. Sometimes the answer involves equipment changes. Sometimes it involves movement interventions. Sometimes it involves accommodating physical realities rather than forcing textbook ideals. Sometimes it means recognizing that a rider needs help outside the scope of a bike fit altogether.

After twenty-two years of fitting, academic research, teaching, clinical work, and working with riders ranging from first-time cyclists to world champions, I still approach every rider with the same mindset: observe carefully, listen closely, and remain curious.

The goal has never been simply to move a saddle five millimeters. Or value simple kinematics more than the person in front of me.

The goal has always been helping riders create a stronger, more comfortable, and more meaningful relationship with the bicycle.

If you are asking who you should trust with your fit, look beyond equipment and software. Ask about education. Ask about experience. Ask how they think. Ask how they evaluate the body before touching the bike. Ask about their license to touch you, as an individual. Because bike fitting should be a hands-on practice.

Bicycle fitting is not really about fitting bicycles.

It is about understanding people.

Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts on the matter. If you’re curious about my background in detail, here’s a fun little bio and CV to explore - I hope you’ll agree I’ve dedicated my life to riders and movement, and have taken the plunge to create something to connect with them here in Golden.

Thomas McDaniel MSc - Biomechanist | Physiologist | Founder