Liz Randall's Cycling Blog - a life behind bars

Yesterday I had a return visit to Jason Nichols of Inspired Orthotic Solutions. If the amount of framed jerseys in his waiting room are anything to go by, he certainly is the "Orthotist to the Stars" (and me!). I initially consulted with him a few years ago with regard to my lop sided position on the bike, which he fixed with a small wedge under my right shoe insert. It had immediate effect as someone who'd held me up for standing starts for quite some time and who was unaware of the wedge, commented on how much straighter I was.

I went to see him about a month ago as once again someone had said I was riding diagonally to my bike (!) and yes, the wedge had aged, but when I told Jason of my next endeavour, he was very enthusiastic and supportive and ON THE TEAM! Such enthusiasm and readiness to help is very,very gratifying. So with him setting me up and Ben, mechanic at Spoke(n) chopping off unnecessary bits of extension and start up bars and sourcing a shorter stem I'll soon be in the groove. I don't think I'll go this extreme though!

This visit concentrated on dealing with the "the nose of your saddle must be no less than 5cm behind the bottom bracket" UCI rule. A rule that is just plain unworkable for a shorty like me. The morphological get out of jail free card is that you can have your saddle closer providing the front of your knee cap doesn't go in front of the pedal spindle when the crank is horizontal. When Jason had completed this last measurement he checked where the saddle nose was...it was 2 cm behind the BB.

The only thing I've not yet even touched on is using the double discs. Apparently they feel quite different. Maybe this Sunday is a good time to give them an outing.