Me: 6'2", 195 - 200, 56 y.o., road biking for 8 years. Bike: 2014 Specialized Roubaix SL4 Expert, 58cm.

Over the last calendar year I've doubled my mileage from 2,400 to 5,000 annually. I purchased my first new bike a few months ago and have been pushing even harder to build speed. About two months ago I noticed pain and a bump on my right Achilles so I sought professional help with a sports chiropractor and a podiatrist. In medical terms, I have chronic inflammation due to overuse. I've been resting and getting Graston treatments with the chiro, who's also been doing adjustments to eliminate a functional leg length difference due to tightness on my right side. It's all working itself out so I decided that I should probably get a pro fit while I'm at it.

I went to a fitter well known to several folks in my club. I always knew I needed some tweaks, especially with my feet/shoes/pedal. I asked him to do a "basic fit" for $95 but we spent a lot of time working on cleat positioning and shimming. He's also a certified BG fitter.

I told him about my injury and about some of the steps I had taken to adjust my fit. He wrote down everything I told him, asked some additional questions, took all the basic bike measurements then asked me to get on the bike. I pedaled for a few minutes then he took some more measurements. I got off the bike and he went to work.

In the end, the ONLY bike change he made was to raise the saddle 1cm (I had lowered it trying to alleviate my Achilles pain), move it forward 1.2cm and change the saddle angle from +3.1 to -.09. This resulted in a slightly shorter reach but an increased saddle-to-bar drop.

He spent time watching me walk barefoot, had me kneel on a chair and measured my forefoot angle and finding the center of the ball of my foot with my shoes on. I had recently bought some Specialized BG footbeds (medium arch) but after measuring using the Specialized Arch-o-meter, he determined I should use the high arch footbed. That was the first change. Next he determined that my right forefoot was Varus 5-degrees...meaning the foot leaned to the outside, so he put in a varus wedge under the BG footbed. Next he determined both feet had mild varus along the whole foot so he installed a Varus wedge between the cleat and shoe on both sides.

He moved both cleats forward to "neutral" (I had them all the way back) and he angled the right cleat to bring my heel in a little bit, because my right foot is a bit more "duck foot" than the left.

After all the iterations, I really felt the difference in my feet on the pedals. They felt very solid and the weight was evenly distributed across the bottom of my feet. He also noted that my right knee traveled in a bit of a figure 8 when we started but that it was tracking almost perfectly with the adjustments.

For healthy riders, he sets them up with a 30-degree knee bend at the top of the stroke. He said that because I was still recovering from my Achilles issue that he would put me at 35-degrees. He said when I was heeled completely that I should come back and we'd raise the saddle again to try to get to the 30-degree bend.

And of course, he used to Specialized Ass-o-meter to measure me for saddle width. My bike came with a Romin 143 (the smallest) but I could tell it was a little too narrow. A friend lent me his 155 and that's been an improvement. After using the Ass-o-meter, he said I was right on the cusp between the 155 and the 168. My friend also has a Romin 168, so I might ask him if I can try that also before making my purchase.

All is all I felt this guy really knew his stuff. He listened carefully to my input/feedback and explained most of what he did in language I could understand. At one point he had me on a massage table in order to check if he could see any functional leg length discrepancy but wasn't able to find any appreciable difference.

I'm going to do a short ride in the early morning and then hope to do 50 miles on Saturday...and maybe rest on Sunday depending on how I feel.