Learn Bike Fit from a Pro

Steinmetz has helped Rinny and Crowie with their bike fit.

What do Craig Alexander, Mirinda Carfrae and Julie Dibens have in common? Aside from being world-class triathletes with 70.3 wins under their belts, they're all connected to Mat Steinmetz. Mat who? Steinmetz might sound like a nobody when you line his name up with the likes of these A-list triathletes, but he's certainly not one to be forgotten...once you look him up like I had to (yeah, I'm clueless sometimes when it comes to who's working with who unless I revert to Google). The reason being: Steinmetz works with three-time Ironman World Champion Alexander as a training advisor, coaches Dibens, and has helped Carfrae with her bike fit through his work as a Retul bike fitter. And he's an accomplished triathlete in his own right. According to his bio, he was the 2008 USAT Age Group Long Course National Champion in the men's 25-29 age group.


As he puts it in a conversation with Siri Lindley at Triathlete.com, "I work with Julie Dibens and I do a lot of consulting for Craig Alexander. I work for Retul, so I see all these athletes all the time, and I’ve even helped Rinny out with her bike fit. I consult and have a lot of athletes bounce ideas off of me, even though I don’t have any sort of official relationship with those athletes."

Now's your chance to get one of those consultations...or come close. Whether you want to gather information to best your competition next season or hear some professional athletes' success stories from the advising angle instead of the athletic one, you'll want to meet Steinmetz when he speaks at Trek of Highland Park on Wednesday, Jan. 28. The event starts at 6 p.m.

He'll speak about his coaching and training experiences with Alexander and other elite athletesas well as the importance of bike fit. And as someone who was first fit incorrectly on a bike, the bike fit really does play a large role in the athlete's success. Even when you are an average joe like me. 

Steinmetz is one of Retul's time trial-focused bike fitters and has worked with cycling teams like Radio Shack, Garmin and Team Sky, plus Garmin/Cervelo cyclist Tom Danielson. But it's not guesswork that has created success among many of Steinmetz's athletes--he uses scientific research and some of the most advanced tools in the business to help the pros race at their highest level. Surely some of that can rub off on other triathletes, right? I'd like to think so.

Need more cajoling to attend Wednesday's event? Read more about it at Pace of Chicago. If you already know you want to attend, please RSVP by clicking here.