Chris Froome’s Bike Fit Saga

If you haven’t read the news already, Chris Froome recently made some comments about his current team bike fit being off by almost 3cm. Here’s the article if you are interested.

There are a number of things that jump to mind when I saw the news about Froome’s fit being off by 3 cm. The first was “of course it is”, he’s not the same rider he was in 2019. He’s been broken and rebuilt. I wouldn’t expect his position to be even remotely similar. However when I read that it was 3cm longer in reach I was quite surprised. A general assumption in bike fitting is that longer and/or lower is more aggressive. I find it really hard to believe that an experienced bike fitter intentionally set his position 3cm longer given the injuries and rehab Froome was going through.

At this point I think it is worth digging into his previous a current bike set ups:

*10mm of headset spacers represents the best information I could find from available race photos. There are some photos of his stem slammed, some with 10mm of spacers, and some with significantly more.

Looking at the above table Froome’s current Factor is not only 29mm longer it is also 28mm lower. Again longer/lower equals more aggressive, and someone who is injured would typically err on the side of less aggressive.

That brings me to the next point: Even though I wouldn’t expect his post life-changing crash fit to be similar to the one he rode in his Sky days, I would expect his current team to at least use his previous position as a reference point in his recovery roadmap and potentially a position to strive towards. In reading the article I don’t get any feeling that this was the case or even a remote consideration. There is obviously some tension between Froome and IPT so perhaps this could be posturing on Froome’s part.

One of the things that stood out the most to me was the abundance of comments, including from industry professionals, about how unprofessional it was of Froome to not be able to feel the difference. Comments like “I can tell if my seat height is off by 2mm, why couldn’t a multi-time TdF winner not notice 3cm.” This is actually extremely common across all levels of the sport. Noted Bike Fitter Phil Burt coined the term “Micro-adjusters and Macro-absorbers” essentially saying that there are some riders who can feel the smallest change, while others can don’t even notice relatively large changes. Not being able to feel the change doesn’t say anything about Froome’s professionalism or ability as a rider. What does strike me as questionable is that neither Froome, nor anybody on the team seemed to be aware of the changes, with the article saying Froome called it an “oversight.”