Mountain Cog
Hosted by an enthusiast and a mountain bike industry expert featuring laughter and passionate guests.
Mountain Cog
062 – Bike fits & bidets. Both will change your life. This episode is about bike fits. (Frank Kaiser)
In Episode 57, Wolfman convinced us to get a bike fit. So, we tracked down a local (and amazing) professional bike fitter, got a bike fit from him, and convinced him to come on the podcast.
In this episode we chat with Frank Kaiser (aka our favorite German). Frank is a professional bike fitter, a certified IRONMAN Coach, a business owner, a prior New Mexico Sheriff/Detective, and if that’s not enough a retired German Air Force officer.
As you can tell, Frank, who is now a U.S. Citizen living in Arizona, has a super interesting history and the episode starts out with him walking us through his background. The meat of the episode deep dives into the methods, benefits, and philosophies behind professional bike fits. We finish off learning about Frank’s business (Saguaro Endurance and Multisport Coaching)
The conversation is fun, informative, and super interesting. We cannot stress enough the value of getting a professional bike fit. No matter how long you’ve ridden or what kind of cycling you prefer. Get a fit. All those little pains and discomforts you experience during and after a bike ride… can be drastically reduced, with a professional fit.
Frank’s Email: Coach@saguaroendurancemultisport.com
Frank & Bianca’s Coaching Business: https://saguaroendurancemultisport.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/saguaro_endurance_multisport/
Ben’s Bikes Tucson: https://www.bensbikestucson.com/
Bike Radar Article Explaining Bike Fits: https://www.bikeradar.com/advice/sizing-and-fit/bike-fit-explained-what-is-a-bike-fit-and-should-you-get-one
Gebiomized Saddle Pressure Tool: https://www.gebiomized.us/saddle-pressure.html
Lederhosen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lederhosen
Episode #57: Wolfman Returns https://www.buzzsprout.com/2052531/13877713-057-wolfman-returns-an-exercise-physiologist-s-take-on-cardiovascular-fitness-and-bike-fit-andew-wolf
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Do you at?
Mike:least have a synonym for special. Yeah, I wish I knew how to say it in German.
Josh:How do you say special in.
Mike:German.
Josh:Spezial Spezial. Hey, my old bike is mad at me. Your old bike, old bike is mad at me.
Mike:Why Frank any ideas? Why is bike? Would he mad at him? You're his fitter.
Josh:Yeah, Frank the fitter, I could see you.
Mike:You can see why is it because he jumps curbs after getting?
Josh:it. It is because I bought a new bike and my old bike hasn't spoken, hasn't spoken to me in two weeks.
Mike:Well, spoke, spoken, spoke. I like it. That was good. Did you make the one up? No, it's a Google search.
Josh:I like it.
Mike:Google search, my Google search. We're looking for dad jokes in about German. We'll talk. It all came up, it all came up as German dad, german, german dad jokes Hard to say.
Josh:And I found a list of like a hundred different jokes, but they were like nuances of the German language for people who spoke both English and German, and I didn't say anything.
Mike:So you got the spoken joke yes, and today's special, special, yes, special because that's kind of special, spezial, special, depending on on where you put the special on, so it could be special or it could be special.
Josh:Does it depend on where you're at in the country?
Frank Kaiser:Is.
Josh:It depends on in what context you're going to so for guest, for a special guest, how would we say it? I'm special guest, I'm special guest. That sounds really close to English, you know right.
Mike:Because it's because both English and German are Germanic languages. English is Germanic.
Josh:Is it really?
Mike:I'm a linguist. I'm a linguist. I'm a.
Josh:English, German. There's more.
Mike:Yeah, really I did not know that. Look at that.
Josh:Crazy.
Mike:That is.
Josh:Wow, yeah, we learned something.
Mike:It's super easy for you to learn English right.
Frank Kaiser:The thing is that in Germany, when you attend school up from fifth grade, you have to take speak two languages, foreign languages. English is always a given. Everybody has to learn English, and then you can choose back in the days that was between French and Latin.
Josh:What did you?
Frank Kaiser:learn. I'm lazy, I got French.
Josh:Yeah, who speaks Latin? No one, it's an unspoken one, yeah, who speaks. It's so funny. Here in the States I'm an anomaly because I speak multiple languages but in Europe everybody does.
Mike:Yeah, it's very common. It's not normal, okay, so Unnormal. So we haven't even introduced Frank yet, but we're learning so much about him already. So how many languages do you speak and what do you speak?
Frank Kaiser:So right now, two German and English, because I'm lazy, I forgot the French, you forgot French.
Josh:I don't speak French.
Mike:Wow I don't speak French.
Frank Kaiser:So what would be? You speak French, do you?
Josh:speak French no.
Mike:All right. So we have an extraordinary guest, extraordinary guest.
Josh:So, we're going today.
Mike:Yes, frank Kaiser, can you introduce yourself, sir?
Frank Kaiser:In German or in English, you know whichever you prefer.
Mike:We do have some German listeners yes, we absolutely have German listeners, so we do. We probably should throw some German.
Josh:We're like the five people from Germany let's see in this podcast.
Frank Kaiser:Hello to all in Germany. Welcome to the Mountain Cake podcast here. So today we have Michael as a guest. I'm from Germany and I live here in the United States. I'm a certified bike fitter. I think there's no translation for that. Everybody calls bike. Same in Germany. German is very getting a lot of English terms by now. But I hope you learned something in this podcast. I have interest in listening to it and it would be fun if you could contact me after that.
Josh:Okay, that sounded like very fluent German, he could have just been saying like these guys are idiots. I don't know why I'm here. What did you sign me up to?
Mike:I'm in this little tiny room with all these guitars.
Josh:What is going on here?
Mike:That's a bad guy. He came to get a bike fit.
Josh:Now I'm at his house.
Mike:I have an Ironman competition this weekend.
Josh:I hope I make it out alive.
Mike:All right, frank. What was that in English?
Frank Kaiser:Well, welcome to the Mountain Cake podcast. I'm a bike fitter and here today we're going to talk a little bit about bike fitting. Hopefully, everybody can get something out of it and learn something. I would like, if you have any questions or something regards, just contact me afterwards. I guess that Josh is going to put something.
Josh:Yeah, I'll put it in the show notes.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, I can put the contact in the show notes for sure, or just come by and see me at Ben's Bikes.
Mike:At Ben's Bikes. Yeah, at Ben's Bikes.
Josh:Frank, would you be okay? So I'm super enthralled. I want to get into the bike fitting topic and probably spend the majority of time on that, but at the end, would you be okay if we talked about your training practice as well, your coaching practice as well? Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, no problem. Yeah, I thought it would be good to introduce to our listeners what you do there and maybe highlight that. I don't know if you're looking for new clients in that and every time Okay awesome, Of course.
Mike:Yeah, so just to kind of frame this then. So we've got Frank the fitter bike fitter, and he's over at Ben's Bikes.
Josh:Yeah, which is in the east side of Tucson.
Mike:Uh-huh, thank you.
Josh:And they're also in Requiem Washington.
Mike:Oh, that's right. Yeah, good memory on that. And then, additionally, you are a.
Josh:Do I have that name right? Do I have the name right? Is it Requiem?
Frank Kaiser:I have no idea.
Josh:Ben's Dan's got you work at the shop. There's another Ben's Bikes in Washington state.
Frank Kaiser:I know, I know that's in Washington state and that's in Skim I think.
Josh:About Mike's.
Mike:Yeah, I'll look it up. I can't do two things at once, but I can't help you.
Josh:You just Megan, you just confirmed all of her statements right there. Megan's his wife.
Mike:Okay, and then Las Matrona thought so, certified bike fitter, I should clarify, and certified Ironman coach. That's correct. Okay, is there any other personalities of Frank as well that?
Frank Kaiser:you have? Yes, there's a lot. Well, what's? Do you care to share any? No, maybe just a little bit of background.
Josh:Yeah, please, yeah, yeah, just a little background and just before we get into that, it's S-E-Q-U-I-M, s-e-q-u-i-m, something like that. It's not requiem. I think I'm in, oh right.
Frank Kaiser:So they replaced the.
Mike:R with an.
Josh:S, and that's where Ben's.
Mike:In Washington, washington, okay.
Josh:Thank you, Josh. Yeah, all right, so yeah background Over to Frank the fitter.
Frank Kaiser:Tell us your story, my story. That could be more than an hour, you know.
Josh:Yeah, give us the, give us the, give us the abridged version, right.
Frank Kaiser:Exactly. So I'm 56 years old, next month 57. So I'm an old guy, yeah, and, like I said, 21 years active in the German Air Force. It was a supply chain officer with the German Air Force and in 2002, I was placed in New Mexico, all in an Air Force base over there.
Josh:So you were part of the German military but stationed in the United States.
Frank Kaiser:Exactly yes, and we had a flying training center. We were teaching our pilots how to go very low and drop bombs and stuff.
Josh:What type of planes?
Frank Kaiser:F-16s? No, we have tornadoes, Tornadoes, and that's actually only. We have the phantoms. You know the?
Josh:Air Force.
Frank Kaiser:We had them before and then we switched over to the tornado.
Josh:So you brought a British fighter to the United States to train, not me.
Frank Kaiser:The Swedish is a logistics guy, but the squadron did.
Josh:That's so weird. You think you guys would have went to like RAF Mildenhall or something in England to do that.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, and you're actually right, due to the climate and everything which is surrounding Germany, and then England would be very close, but the weather here allow us for young pilots, which are absolutely unexperienced, to go very low and train that before they actually get exposed to.
Josh:Okay, I got you. So it's like a stepping stone, exactly.
Frank Kaiser:And that's where they all learn actually flying in general, before they then get over and get European versions and get exposed to weather and climate and everything, so they learn it here.
Josh:So you're saying like, we're like the kindergarten, or we're like the kindergarten of like, of like fighter jets here in America, yeah exactly.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, but not anymore because that stopped. So they shut it down like two, three years ago. Everything's gone now. Wow, because we don't have that plane anymore. We still have it, but it's so old.
Josh:They're old.
Frank Kaiser:We don't need new pilots. The pilots they. We have enough and they're going to fly it until the plane gets Falls apart.
Josh:What do you guys find now? Do you know? Eurofighter, eurofighter, okay, boo.
Frank Kaiser:No offense, I'm from a US defense company so I got to be. I think we're just in the process of buying some F-35s.
Josh:There we go.
Frank Kaiser:That's what I'm talking about, yeah.
Mike:Nice, there you go. So 21 years in the active in the German military Right Spent some time over. And you said New Mexico.
Josh:Yeah, halliman Air Force Base. Halliman Air Force Base, okay, yeah.
Mike:All right, so then what happens after?
Frank Kaiser:that. So here's the thing I went back to Germany after my command here and we went back like in August, september, and my wife was all yeah, you know, we have new four seasons now and we have, oh yeah, not like every day is sunshine, it's warm and okay yeah. So we got back to Germany and when we landed there it was raining and we were in the northern part of Germany and it was raining and foggy and cloudy up until March.
Mike:Yeah so.
Frank Kaiser:Like, let's get back to the desert, Like three months home or five months home, whatever in between that. My wife said come up with something, let's do something, oh wow. We need to go back. You know, try to get stationed over here, but there was. Since I just came back, there was nothing.
Mike:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Nothing was available. So we put in the green card lottery and we got lucky and won one. I don't know if you guys know that there's a lottery, and I think it's still going on.
Mike:I did not know that, I know yeah.
Frank Kaiser:So when you have a certain education and you're not a felon, and all these little things you can apply and you come from a certain country. Not every country is allowed to put in for a green card. You can put yourself your name into that lottery Right and at that time when we were putting in, 10.4 million people put in and they're going to draw 50,000 at that time.
Josh:Wow, 50,000 green cards. Wow, that's crazy Out of that pot, 50,000 cards and not 50,000.
Frank Kaiser:People, because of your family, like us, I have three kids, we have three kids.
Josh:You come with your whole family.
Frank Kaiser:We're five people, so we we're getting five cards out if, like, I won the lottery. Yeah right and we got those five cards out and then it's a process of like about a year. It is very expensive, very expensive so, and everything you have to prove so it's, it's quite a process to get here illegal.
Josh:And yes.
Frank Kaiser:And after I thought that, hey, I'm just going to have a few years until I retire from the military and then we're going to live over in the United States. No, no, no. If you get into that green cut lottery, you have one year to actually move over to the US, to get situated here, get a job, because they're looking for something like this, you know you want to have that education and whatever from different countries so we can open our eyes and get diversity and diversity and, like the US military, their retirement age isn't 20 or their retirement time isn't 20 years.
Josh:It's actually significantly longer 35 years.
Frank Kaiser:Oh, wow, yeah, it's nuts yeah it's a long time. So I'm officially retired without retirement, because in Germany if you don't, if you're not in there for 35, you're not retired. And they're going to get all your money out and put it back into social security. So then when I'm eligible for social security, I get my social security out.
Josh:And that's like what next year?
Mike:That's good.
Josh:No, it's an eight years. We're getting close.
Mike:Yeah, well, and so what are the options?
Frank Kaiser:right, like I just explained, 10.4 million people and we got the chance. Yeah we said that's cool. Yeah, we got to do it. You know, fuck it, we just gonna. I'm going to quit and we're going to go over here. So we got after we won, we got one way tickets and where are we going?
Mike:one way tickets.
Frank Kaiser:We always like Phoenix, so we're just going to go over to Phoenix, Right, so you know one way tickets to Phoenix. Then I tried to put in applications with companies and whatnot. But everybody, everybody got packed to me and said you know what? We need to see your green card, because you don't get it before you land in the United States. You're going to land on an international airport and then you get some paperwork and then they're going to send that green card to an address or a lawyer you pick before and then you can pick it up and then you have it in your hand and can show it to maybe an employer Yep and you're eligible to work.
Mike:They wanted that in hand.
Frank Kaiser:They wanted to see that, because everybody can say, yes, I'm sure yeah. There was actually one company who said, yeah, we're going to give a try. So that was tri sports here in Tucson.
Mike:Oh yes.
Frank Kaiser:They. They're gone by now, unfortunately. Yes, but we landed on Sunday night here in the United States, got a rental car in Phoenix and drove over to Tucson eight o'clock in the morning. I said I tried sports and talk to Susan Mika at that time and, yeah, I got hired on the spot and Wow, were you a triathlete, triathlete at that point already.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah absolutely, and I think that was part of it. And well, it turned out we were looking for a house the next day and then the German Air Force called and said we know, we know you're in the country and we know your education, we know your certifications, we know your security clearance. Would you be willing to work for us? And these are the conditions and they were too good to pass. So we packed our stuff, I said, susan, I am sorry I can't work here. And we went back to Alamogon in New Mexico, where Holoman Air Force Base is close by, that's the city next to it, and Las Cruces is very close.
Mike:Yeah, beautiful area. Right, it is actually yes.
Frank Kaiser:And then I worked for them close to seven years as a contractor and okay.
Mike:And then as a, as a, as a contractor. Now, yes, okay, so you're not enlisted, I guess. No, no, no, no.
Frank Kaiser:Okay, but if you're a foreign government in the United States or wherever you would be, you have to hire a certain amount of local yeah people, just yeah, just so now you're local you count then, for you counted for, like the German military,
Mike:hired an ex German account against their quota for the Americans that they had to hire. That works out perfect.
Josh:Yeah, talk about like working the system. Yeah, double, triple, triple.
Frank Kaiser:I don't know how that works best.
Josh:Well, good job yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, and then after five years you can apply for citizenship if there would be nothing wrong if you didn't do anything wrong yeah, I for citizenship which I did, or we all did, of course and we became citizens, and then the German Air Force said they don't allow dual citizenship. There's a few exceptions.
Josh:So once you became a citizen, you couldn't work for them anymore.
Frank Kaiser:Not with the work I was doing, gotcha.
Josh:So this is no security clearance.
Frank Kaiser:We can't trust you anymore. Yeah, of course, but more or less like this and I was at the point that I wanted to get into the something doing into the US system as well.
Frank Kaiser:So yeah we split up, we had to split right and then. And then you're there, you're a military guy, right, seven years in the military is still military, even if you're somewhat a contractor, but it's still military. You deal with all that stuff, yeah, so what am I going to do? So I went and applied for police departments Military US military would not take me and border patrol I was too old, I was 48 at that time Okay, and so I applied with local police department, Sheriff's departments, and Las Cruces took me in Sheriff's department as well as police department. Decided to go with the Sheriff's department and went through the Academy in New Mexico, one of the oldest one.
Frank Kaiser:Oh yeah, we'll law enforcement Academy.
Mike:That is awesome, and I bet you like kicked all their butts too in all the because you were a athlete.
Frank Kaiser:Ironman. But learning especially then everything the language and everything in English was very, very tough thing. Like the legal terms and okay, most of the time I listened and I didn't understand a lot, so I wrote everything down, you know, and my fellow cadets helped me a lot.
Mike:And I at night I sat there and I translated everything to make sense out of it and learned it and then get back to next day and got it translated in German, understand it, and then back to English on the, on the you know tasks or whatever, because all these terms, these law terms, oh my God right. Oh yeah, it's really, it's really bad so yeah, that's, that's what I that's quite a journey.
Frank Kaiser:It is yes.
Mike:Really cool. Oh, there is.
Josh:I don't know where he's going from here.
Frank Kaiser:No, no, I just of course you work on the streets as a cop then to that's what you do in the beginning. And then I'm telling you German language, your linguist, and you approach people in the car and you talk to them in my weird accent and they're like who the hell are you in Las Cruces? You're not, If you come with a Spanish accent they're okay, but with the German accent they're like what the?
Josh:hell is going on here and the German language is very harsh, so English, I think, sometimes sounds very harsh and they sit there and they're shaking.
Frank Kaiser:Hey, I'm not a bad guy, you know, I'm really a good guy and trust me, I'm going to work for you and with you.
Josh:So let's get this figured out. There's no need to be afraid.
Frank Kaiser:And then there's these people you know, they see that I'm struggling, obviously, and they just speak in Spanish and, knowing that, and then you know how they pick up, you see them. You know they pick up on certain stuff.
Mike:Oh yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And I could make my way around the Spanish traffic stop. Just the basic, I would know. But then I just answered them in German. When they only spoke Spanish, I answered in German and said you see, this is how I feel when you just speak.
Mike:Oh yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And here we go. We were both on the same level and you spoke English.
Mike:I have done that. I have actually got Bainie with Arabic. I have done that.
Josh:Yeah, we'll always speak Spanish, I'm like. I know you speaking to suck, come on.
Frank Kaiser:Well, yeah, be in the long run. Like I said, went to the Academy and was in the committee instructor and did all the fun shit.
Mike:Instructor.
Frank Kaiser:Evoque instructor bicycle instructor. You've worn a lot of hats? Oh yes, I did, and then became a detective. Oh well, worked as a detective for a few years and at one point I thought I'm good, you know it's it's in your only 56.
Mike:Yes, wow, yeah, packed a lot in. Yeah, did your kids. What are your kids think about coming over to the United States?
Frank Kaiser:So two hats. I would say they liked it here always because of course, everything was so cool and different and not like it is in Germany, not not so strict and whatnot. But once we talked about moving over and they had to they were used to it. We were military family, they were used to moving. Yeah, they used to moving and give up their friendships and whatever. I wouldn't say give up, but just changing.
Mike:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:But when we came over they missed a few things and it was different for them then going into an American school and on the German one, because we had a German school in Alamogordo. Our youngest one, he went to the American kindergarten and first school somehow. So he was used to it and for him it was less. But the older kids they were eight and 10. They missed their friends, they missed stuff.
Mike:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:So in the beginning they still had exactly yes, buttersweet, but by now they all read on it.
Mike:And by now they're acclimated.
Frank Kaiser:Interesting, I mean if we continue this here real quick. So our middle son, he's in the US Air Force. Oh cool and he actually just three months ago was stationed over in Germany now for a few years.
Mike:No way. How funny it flips. Every Air Force person I talked to from the United States military Air Force I say where is your favorite station after the? You know a career or whatever? You know? What they always say is Germany Really. Yes, every one of them they said just beautiful over there. I don't know where it's, you know, I don't know Germany, but anyways, beautiful country.
Frank Kaiser:And they actually now welcome this because he's native in both language. So, like I said, he was eight when we came over, so he speaks. They don't have an accent like I do.
Mike:Okay, my wife do.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, and so he's over there speaking both languages natively and that helps a lot in you know, he's a relationship.
Josh:You are a relationship between everything that works.
Frank Kaiser:That works perfectly for him.
Josh:And yeah, I have. I have just a quick, quick great story from Germany. Okay, so I used to go to the Foreign Language Training Center in Garmisch, Germany, Garmisch put cushion yeah. And and a couple things. First of all, what a goat rope that was. It's like the most awesome.
Frank Kaiser:I never heard that expression.
Josh:I used to. Lacey used to fly out. We were living in England at the time and Lacey used to fly out and we would rent like a cabin and she would say in the cabin. I would go to language school and then it just it alipsed. Just so beautiful there it's amazing.
Josh:But no shit, people still wear laterhosen, or at least did it all the time. So this is like think if you're American, think like Angus Young and the ACBC, like this is like the only way I could explain it. But like no shit. Like I'm on the, I'm on the bus and there's people wearing laterhosen, like going to work, like normal, like like it's not like a festival or anything.
Mike:Yeah, it's not October fast it's like a Tuesday. Well, it's Tuesday and later on.
Frank Kaiser:Tuesday. This is crazy, it's part of the culture.
Mike:It's totally in southern Germany. It's southern Germany.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, yeah, southern, not in the northern part, not at all. No way, really. Yeah, no, no, no. I mean that.
Josh:So I've been in three World Trade Center or World Trade Organization riots, just coincidentally. Okay, in my life, one in DC, one in England and one in Munich. So we're in Munich and we're at the Hoffprähaus, which you know I'll tourist go to Hoffprähaus, I'm at the Hoffprähaus.
Josh:I see, you know, think giant pretzels big boobs, big gears right, and so we were in there for a while drinking the beers. We come out. And we come out, just coincidentally, in the middle of the riot and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this group of and I don't know if it was police or military some type of German security forces come out. Now, I'm a big guy, I'm six foot three. There was like 100 of them and they were all like way bigger than me and I was like what the hell is going on and just like quickly disperse the crowd and got the ride under control.
Josh:But that's, that's my memory of Germany.
Mike:Later Hosen and Garmes.
Josh:It's, it's these crazy security forces in Munich during the World Trade Organization riots. Wow.
Mike:Alright. So I got to ask do you guys both wear own and wear later Hosen?
Frank Kaiser:then I'm just trying to picture this. Definitely not Okay. No, never had never have, because I was hoping to get a picture of you in later.
Mike:No for this, yeah for the perfect.
Josh:If we get you some later Hosen, will you wear it, of course, okay.
Mike:Frank the fitter, you know what's happened. Bikes yes with later Hosen. Go see the guy over there in a later Hosen.
Josh:If you pay an extra hundred dollars, he'll wear the later what do you mean by an extra hundred dollars?
Frank Kaiser:Do I get paid for that?
Josh:Oh, that's awesome. Okay, so we got to get the bike fits.
Mike:Yeah, alright, so you okay law enforcement. I don't know if there were some other stories to go.
Josh:I think. I think you're probably good, that's okay, okay.
Mike:So while you are in the career of military and law enforcement, you are somehow training as well as a professional triathlete or Iron man at this point, or kind of where are you in your what is it?
Frank Kaiser:Training, yeah, so I was never a professional triathlete. I never had, I would say, the time to train as extensively to be a professional triathlete, three kids, military moving every three years.
Josh:You just don't 72 different jobs.
Mike:You just can't do it, but it's an interest and you enjoy it.
Frank Kaiser:Oh yes, I love it. I've been doing it for over 20 years and it's just my passion and I hope that I continue doing it. My youngest grandson they're just visiting us right now.
Josh:You have grandkids? Yeah, wow, yes, seven and 11.
Frank Kaiser:Okay, and the youngest one just said you know, grandpa, you promised we'd be going to do an Iron man together, so oh, wow. I'm 18. So so be you got 11 more years.
Josh:You can do it at 68.
Frank Kaiser:I have to, you know you have to.
Mike:I'm gonna do that, so so, in theory, you could have three generations.
Frank Kaiser:That's actually my daughter and I were talking exactly about this. So my daughter and I we said, if I do it with Colin, then and you're going to do it we have three generations at the start.
Josh:I wonder if that's been done before.
Frank Kaiser:I have no idea.
Mike:But find out. That'd be cool, that's pretty especial.
Josh:I it's funny.
Mike:Well, okay, so at some point then you also become a certified coach. Yes, for Iron man. And then we get into bike fitting. Okay, so yeah.
Frank Kaiser:I mean I started, I wouldn't say about coaching. I was coaching people for over almost 30 years now. So when I was in charge of a logistics section in the German Air Force in the 90s, every time I got a new lieutenant coming over which I had to educate on how this is like a brand new commissioned officer.
Josh:Yes, right.
Frank Kaiser:He just comes from the university, yep, and he comes into my office, introduces themselves, and the first thing they always got was a registration form for the Berlin Marathon. And they looked at it and they said I'm not a runner, oh, not yet, oh not yet, so you will become one. So every time I went for a run every day in my lunch break and everybody knew that and I had to do this, I was, at that stage, just marathon runner and every Just a marathon runner.
Frank Kaiser:New Luten, the whatever they had to come with me, sometimes one or two or maybe three. So every time we were running we were out of the office and we can talk, you know.
Mike:And then I got you know relationship, yeah, yeah, it's a bonding explain everything, how everything works, nobody's around, nobody's, no telephone is ringing and nothing.
Frank Kaiser:So we use all these lunch breaks always to get them more knowledge, yeah, in a different way. And then, of course, at the end, usually about a year, we all finished up and went together to Berlin and did the Berlin marathon.
Josh:Oh and really yes, that's, that's cool, it's probably a big cell. Yeah, it's probably a big, like you know, self Successor, whatever for those guys right exactly going from not being a runner to like doing a marathon. That's a big transition.
Frank Kaiser:Right, it's incredible. Nobody ever expected that when they came over to become a marathon runner.
Josh:Do a marathon at all and back to the life changing. Yeah, it is. Did the word get start to get out? And people are like, no, I don't want to work. I. Actually don't know, I really don't know but it was, it was fun, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And then so I started I wouldn't say coaching, but I coach these guys on how to run and we made plans. I made plans and they had to follow them. If I was not there, if I was on a military mission somewhere or was on an exercise or they had to see you're naturally doing this coaching and you're like, oh, I'm coaching.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, exactly, and later on in triathlon it became the same and I always did it for free for Lots and lots of people really plans and I developed some plans where I said you know, you know how it works, you have a certain plan and you just adapt it to whatever needs that athletes had. And at one point my wife was always kicking my butt and say you know what you're doing. All this for free. That's not right. You sit here every evening and check if they did it and then you write something new in there. You change it up. You need to, you know, you need to make that more less, like a little bit of a profession. Uh-huh, that's where I'm in now you know, so I'm certified and got school and learned how to coach properly.
Josh:How many, how many things did you change when you learned how to coach? Nothing, nothing, no, just got the sort of, so you were doing it already.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, I do it different. I would say so. Everybody who's been coached maybe, and some people came over from different coaches and I have just a new athlete I just got a few weeks ago and he said that is so different and I never had that and I never had a complete day of Recovery, but it's. It's doing so much good for me, not just physically but mentally as well. And you know so. I structure my training different and still in my German thinking oftentimes, because there's differences in how you Coach in Europe and how we coach in the United States. I mean, it's getting closer now but there's still differences and for me it's successful.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah and and, and I do it on a daily basis. I work at at Bend spikes three days a week to you know, help. And with roadies and triathletes, because these guys are all mountain bikers. Yeah all grumpy mountain bike.
Josh:They're not all like and then they have. They have some high school, they have a high school girl, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, that's about she's a mountain biker too, she is. So there you go right, and and then I have my own bike fitting business inside of that bike. So the two of us, we have some sort of arrangement, and so the partnership, yes, and I tell you what.
Josh:I'm super glad that I heard this story because I was Really considering thinking I was so enthralled, enthused, like captivated, by the bike fitting process. Yeah it's like data-driven, it's like right up my alley.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, you love that stuff strategy.
Josh:I was thinking about asking you if you would teach me how to do it. Maybe take me on as an apprentice. But now I know that if I do that I'm gonna have to run a marathon.
Mike:Okay, so on Monday you.
Josh:So to give some context.
Josh:So we had, so how we, how we ended up talking to Frank here, we had Wolfman on yes and we published that episode like two or three episodes ago and and Wolf is a Andrew Wolf he's a exercise physiologist and we this was the second episode that we've done with Andrew and he just like I think I'm just kind of in love with like the content that we covered with Andrew. He kind of teaches you what's going on with your body in ways that I'd never thought Like dispelled a whole bunch of like bad perspective or per like bad ideas that I had and and he's given me some Suggestions on what I can do to increase my VO to max and increase my endurance. And in a relatively short amount of time, like weeks, I've instituted what he recommended and I've seen a huge improvement to how I am on the bike. Nice sounds like that awesome. But in the in that podcast we wanted to ask him about the interface of bike body, like like how do you see your body interface with your bike and what's important?
Josh:and we've been experimenting with different crank links, so like I run a 165 on all my bikes now, mostly for for pedal strikes on a mountain bike, but on my, on my gravel bike, I've got 175s and got 170s on the on the pellets. Anyways, we were just asking a bunch of questions. He's like dude, you have to get a bike, that you have to get a bike.
Mike:Yeah, you stress that.
Josh:Talked to my sister and we had Brady on he rides for EF on till now and they were like you've got to go see Frank. And so I just sent Frank, like randomly sent him an email and said, hey, would you be willing to come talk to us? He said yeah. And after he said yeah, I said cool, I want to come get a fit before the podcast so that I can have some context during the podcast. But I'm gonna pay you full price. Like don't try to give me a deal or anything like that.
Mike:Yeah.
Josh:I didn't want it to be like I was trying to scam you so. So anyways, that's why we're here. So so I have the context from the fit. Yeah, it was awesome I had. I never would have set my bike up the way that Frank.
Mike:So what do you? So?
Josh:we changed, oh we how you used to have it set up, compared to after the data and statistics, and It'll probably sound minor, but it was major, like how it feels on the bike, like when I tell you where, when he tells what he does, yeah, it's gonna sound my minor, but it changed the entire way the bike feels really, and I am super optimistic, anyway. So so maybe tell us about how you got into bike fitting.
Frank Kaiser:As a triathlete, you you so 20 years ago about about my first try bike, which at that time was some a road bike with clip on aro bars.
Josh:So it was not really a triathlete, didn't have different geometry either, just a regular road bike with it was out there already, but it was so specific at that time.
Frank Kaiser:Bikes were not easy to get by and it was easier to get a road bike with just and it's close on the handles exactly, but I never felt really comfortable in an Ironman. You know, the distance on the bike is 110 miles, 112 miles, 112 miles, so depending on how good you are you spend.
Josh:That's including a 10 mile swim. No, no, 2.4 miles, 2.4 mile swim Marathon afterwards.
Frank Kaiser:The marathon is the cool down. You know, you do the 112 miles on the bike and then you do the Well, is my mind right?
Mike:That's yes, it absolutely nuts, and for 20 years We've been doing these. Yes, and you enjoy them. Yes, okay, all right, go on. That's a special kind of pain.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, and let me tell you right now, to get into an Ironman you have to pay a registration fee. So for a full Ironman you're paying about thousand bucks.
Josh:A thousand dollars, yes, a thousand dollars, I guess it makes sense because we've tried to run events before and I know how expensive it is to set an event up. But I yeah, no idea, it was a thought, I mean three distinctly coordination thinking through logistics and the water and the in the roads and holy shit okay.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, well, but I started it was 280 and right now, I think for the last one here, which I'm gonna do on Sunday, it was a 870, 890 because I registered registered as early as possible to get the prize.
Josh:Cause you tell me earlier, Germans are really frugal. So this is a Phoenix and you're participating in the Ironman. This weekend back to back to bike fits. Yeah, thank you for bringing us back from I know my bad.
Frank Kaiser:So how do that? Yes, so I was never really comfortable because you spend about for me at least around five hours on the bike five to six hours on the bike for that 112 miles, and I was never comfortable. I had back problems and whatnot. So I started experimenting with different settles, started with different seat stays, started you know, experimenting on your own, experimenting.
Josh:When you say different seat state, you mean different seat posts. Seat posts, yeah, I was like how are you swapping out your seats days?
Frank Kaiser:I got you Freaking German. Yeah, you're talking about bike fitting. You don't even know what's on the bike. Here we go, perfect Okay, but I'm okay with that, you know.
Josh:No, it's all good, man, it's all good. He told me he's like I don't know if we want to do this. My English isn't good. I'm like trust me, bro, I love it, you'll be fine, it's awesome.
Frank Kaiser:So, yeah, different, yeah, so worked around this and always was interested in them. And then once I got comfortable and I had people I did it with and they were complaining about all the problems they had on the bike, including my wife, and she always says I'm not comfortable not doing at that time try bike, but road bike.
Frank Kaiser:I thought you know, let's get into this, get into the science and whatnot. And at that time the, the tri bike, was invented by Dan Amfield. He's the owner, or was the owner, of slow twitch and that was always the he's. He's the guru for everything. He came up with that idea how to actually classify a bicycle, and he came up with a, let's say, a cross laser. Is it by now? At that time it was not a laser, but get to the bottom bracket and we actually can, with every bike, determine a stack and reach. He came up with all that theory around it and implemented it.
Mike:Geo, yeah, you could talk to geometry with this guy for days.
Frank Kaiser:Oh, I know, yeah, okay, yeah, you're probably sure he came up with it and then over the years I did it by myself, had already like coaching athletes in Germany as well and helping people people out, get fitted on the bike and get comfortable, and here in the same problems over and over again, you say, of course, if you have XYZ, you can do this on your bike and you're getting good. But when I came over here, like I said, I moved about a year ago Before we came over here. I went then actually to Fiddler school, which was in LA, and it was done by Dan Amfield.
Frank Kaiser:Oh, wow, and he was the founder and actually of Quintana Rue At that time the company who had the first aero bikes, triathlon specific bikes and he has a school going on and he does it once a year, maybe twice a year, where you can attend and then you get to learn all the basics from ground off and do school for a whole week and with riding, with everything, and it was very, very good training, very intense training.
Mike:Right.
Frank Kaiser:And after that you you're in a small community of bike fitters and then you just stay in contact and help each other out and of course, you're interested in that thing and work on it. Yeah, and then there's the company GBO Meist which I work with, which is a German company. They came out with a saddle pressure measurement system and I got lucky enough to get my hands on one of these systems because, as we talked about earlier, yeah you discover today, while looking for them, that they extensively expensive.
Josh:Super expensive, like I was. So because I love data, I was so enthralled I'm like, oh man, that's like a $500 tool. I'm going to look and see how much that is. No, I was off by like an order of magnitude or more Well
Frank Kaiser:it's, it's pretty crazy, pretty crazy how expensive it was and there's like six, I think, six fitters, six, seven fitters for five, six, seven fitters, you and the Southwest who actually have that tool. There's a history to that tool. It actually came out of saddle pressure measurement for horses when people were sitting on horses. It's cool and they got measured how much weight is wear on the saddle and then they got handmade saddles out of that so that they would actually fit their body better and they would write more comfortable and fascinating.
Josh:They've also developed for your feet.
Frank Kaiser:Yes, they did the same for the feet and now they have it for bars and arrow bars, where you measure pressure and get you know. We want to eliminate that pressure.
Mike:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:When I put somebody on that saddle tool it has a certain amount of sensors in that saddle tool. You sit down there and then on the TV. I have a computer connected and on the TV you can actually see how pressure is distributed on the saddle.
Josh:So we would. You loved it hey it was amazing. So we would like we would tweak a bunch of different things and he'll tell us, like what he did or whatever, and then I could see, OK, that pressure is gone. That pressure is gone. This guy better, this guy better. No, this is your favorite in your right hand side. Now you're a little bit to the side.
Mike:When he was making adjustments during the.
Josh:I would get, I would, I would just pedal. And he's like listen, look forward. And I'm trying to look at the computer because, like you know, it's data yeah right, it's like yeah, I'm like no no, I got to look forward.
Josh:So I look forward and I'm pedaling and he's like, and he's like, ok, ok, ok. And then he's get your ass off and get off the bike. He goes back and makes more adjustments. We get back on the bike, we look at what's happening and it and it relieves the pressure points that cause your if you're a man, you're junk to go numb.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, yeah, right.
Josh:Or get saddle sores, or to just feel uncomfortable during a long ride. It was.
Mike:It was pretty amazing. So can you set the stage? So you go into Ben's bikes with my bike, with your bike?
Josh:I set up and in the gear that I ride Now. I made a mistake. I didn't wear my camis which you didn't give me shit about, but you should have. Yeah, I actually had them with me in the bag. I should have one put them in.
Frank Kaiser:OK, yeah that was down so go in the like the way that you ride, I guess, yeah, yeah, what's your?
Josh:ride the way that you ride. The first thing you did was took my. Well, let me shut up.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, there's, of course there's a certain and here's the thing about bike fitting. Yes, there's school you can attend and I work with the GBM ice and went through their stuff. I work with Dan Amfield, went through his stuff, but I think there's. Every fitter has his own philosophy somehow. You know, there's principles you abide by, there's angles you don't want to cross and you can lay on and at the same times, by now there's so many apps which pretend we can fit you on the bike. You're just going to film yourself.
Frank Kaiser:We overlay some angles and we can tell you you need to lower your saddle and what, and they do a good, good job in general, for a basic fit, I would say. But there's so many things. As a fitter, and as an experienced fitter, you can actually see how the foot is in the cleat and how you're sitting on your saddle. Are you really centered on the saddle? That's what you can't see from the side. As a computer, in an app with a camera and I have these, these computer programs, I have high speed cameras I can put this on all the the bells and whistles, of course, but you, you actually there's things you can't see with this computer.
Frank Kaiser:The computer can't see you see through experience and you see because you're actually there and it all looks fancy and nice. But I can tell you I think a really good fitter, he fits by experience and he doesn't need a computer. It's going to help. Yeah, it's, it's going to. It's a tool you can use. But if you get to the nitty gritty there's no need for a computer.
Josh:I got to tell you like I've helped a lot of people get set up on their bike and I think Frank even said when I came in there he's like who set this up? And I'm like I did. He said you did okay, I'm like all right, thanks man. But in the changes that we made were minor from like a perspective, but they were major in how they feel and I never would have said I would never would have said it. I think the biggest thing that for me was we dropped my saddle height. Quite a bit, quite a bit, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Most mistake people do is the saddle is way too high and like get back to a protocol. There's a certain protocol involved and if you have somebody who is wearing clipless, right, we start with the cleats. And most people buy cleats and they're by clipless pedals and they just slap the cleats on. If you're somewhat better, you put them to a neutral position, you just slap them on, but you look that it's so neutral. And then they just going to worm like this. And there can be so much wrong with just wearing that cleat.
Josh:Yeah, I mean he's, he's significant. I mean he moved my cleats significantly different location than it were.
Mike:So how many? I have so many questions. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, and you can put the cleat. You know we have four and F, like with the saddle you have an F you have left and right. So the Q factor we actually determine there on the bike. So we can, depending on how your hips and your legs are situated, whenever the cleats are mounted correctly and we put a laser on, we can see that you're no two people are the same, exactly.
Josh:And no two legs are the same. And then, there's no.
Frank Kaiser:Two legs are the same.
Josh:Some like weird stuff, like he so. So I bought an extra large bike. Came with 44 centimeter bars, hey bars, yeah yeah, he sent me your bars and and so I'm a, I'm a big dude, so I'm like, yeah, bars, and he measures me.
Josh:He's like, he's like he's like no man, we got to go with like extra small bars for you. I'm like what the hell are you talking about? And he comes out and there's Ben no offense, ben but bubbles. But Ben's like I don't know how tall Ben is, but he's not tall, he's under six foot for sure. And and Frank's like you and Ben read the same bars and I'm like how is that even possible? I never would have bought the same bars that Ben never would have guessed Right.
Frank Kaiser:I started to�, I got 20re props and man Hanck fell in love with my special. But at the end of my life I know you guys and that's how the industry sometimes is that cause they're? Boobs no, no, no, no.
Mike:It's the second time you've said that today on this podcast. I don't know why this. I'm sorry. I just had to state that.
Frank Kaiser:I'm just. I mean it's a valid question.
Josh:I'm trying to think what would cause them to want to put their art. They have something we don't.
Mike:Right, okay, no, it's good Because their bike came actually stacked with these bars.
Frank Kaiser:Okay, and oftentimes, oftentimes, the bike is a hand me down from the husband.
Mike:Oh, yeah, and the husband can talk about this.
Frank Kaiser:We have what the heck, what the heck Get your bike, a good bike you know? So then she's actually enjoying it and going out with you and training with you.
Mike:It's well said yeah, yeah, yeah, very sure.
Frank Kaiser:And, and, and this is a has a big impact for shoulders, neck all you have there.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, yeah, because if you're too wide, then the skeletal support somehow is missing and therefore you know they'll never get comfortable on their bike. The long run. Same thing is with most people are way too upright, yeah. So they say, oh, I have numbness in my hands and there's too much pressure, so I'm going to put my bars up. Yeah, Can be right. In general it is not so. Usually you have to get them lower because you have to get them balance the physiology of the body and the geometry of the bike and there's a certain balance point which you can find and it's mostly lower the bars. And then I know it's contrary to you.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah it is Right, but every time I do this and we can level people out, they say, oh, I'm lower, but I don't feel it in my hands anymore.
Mike:Less pressure.
Frank Kaiser:It's amazing. Yeah, and that's just because they're balanced, now on their saddle and then in conjunction with their bars.
Josh:So I get in there and he has me down in the bars and he's like take your hands off the bars. So I take my hands off the bars and I stay in the position. He's like huh, you actually have core strength. I wasn't expecting the fat guy to have core strength Of course.
Josh:But it was funny. I was telling him. I was like I've got a set of 52s which I think are the widest flare bars you can buy right now, because I'm like I wear, I ride 800s on my mountain bike. I got to get my and he's like dude, don't put those on your bike, jesus. That's the wrong direction.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, on a gravel bike, on a gravel bike On a gravel bike. Yeah, for you, for me, there could be somebody who can use it.
Josh:Yeah, yeah, it's like you Like, yeah, shaq, yeah, yes, shaquille O'Neal.
Mike:Okay, so how many points of adjustment between like what I heard from you is, experience matters along with the input from your technology, so kind of a blending of I don't know art and science kind of thing that you're putting together there, or your experience?
Josh:I think it's all science, but Okay, so more of our science, yeah.
Mike:More science, okay. I don't think so, based on your experience. So how many points of like adjustments are there when you do a fitting?
Frank Kaiser:A lot, really A lot. We didn't do everything with mine, right you?
Mike:said, you can go much deeper than what we do, and just minor adjustments, like Wolfman said, because you're think about how much you're riding mile for mile for mile. So those minor adjustments make a, you know have you to keep huge impact.
Frank Kaiser:Yes, okay, they do actually I've got.
Mike:So do we want to talk more about your fitting? I've got so many questions. No, no, no, no, please, please, go Okay.
Josh:I just did it, so I had some context and understood what it was and I could. I could say, yeah, this is worth the conversation.
Mike:No, no, that's awesome. So kind of related to what you did with Josh here. So he brought his, his gravel bike in. So how do you like, how do you tailor the fitting process to meet the individual needs and preferences of each of each cyclist?
Frank Kaiser:Oh, and back to protocol. So usually before the fitting I started a conversation with the person I fit and you know we're doing everything in sync, we're working already on. I get their shoes and I start with the. So I talked to the person while I start the fitting process what are your goals? Okay, what do you want to achieve? And then there's the recreational rider. Then there's one absolutely I want to be comfortable. And there's one maybe I want to, you know, want to get on the podium. I want to get as fast, as aerodynamic as it can be and I'm willing to endure, I wouldn't say pain, but discomfort over the time of two, three hours, whatever that race or whatever he's planning on doing might be, and I'm willing to to tolerate discomfort, but I want to be as fast as possible. So that's a complete different process in fitting to a person who wants to be comfortable, because we're going to be more, much more aggressive.
Frank Kaiser:We're going to go into way more detail than we would do with the recreational rider. That takes a longer time, usually around three hours.
Frank Kaiser:That includes the computer, a lot of lasers and then a lot of up and down, up and down, and I have there's different fits. We have what we call a prescriptive fit. That person doesn't have a bike at all. He comes into the shop and says I want to have a road bike and I want to do XYZ with the road bike. So I have a fitting machine which looks like a bicycle but has no wheels or whatever it is.
Josh:So this is to help you choose the right bike, the right frame, exactly Before we go to purchase one.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, we're going to put this person on that bike and I can adjust everything in forms of how the body fits to that machine, can adjust it easily. I can connect the cordless drill and can make very, very fast changes and seat height and reach and stack and whatever it might be. Then there's a unit coupled to the bike and this creates resistance, so then the person can start riding that trainer bike in different resistance. Let's say watts, right, I get 80 watts, 100 watts, 200 watts, 300 watts, whatever is necessary. I can adjust the crank length.
Josh:We were talking about this Very important.
Frank Kaiser:I can simulate every crank length and you can actually see if somebody becomes most of the time. Shorter cranks, the cadence is higher. Better, more aerobic work out for the person. And you can see that the output actually increases.
Frank Kaiser:We have a computer screen and on the screen you can see all this in life time. So we can make that really quick change and the person starts doing maybe 200 watts again and we look at the cadence at 200, or we do a certain cadence and what's the output in power and that's how you fit very enthusiastic people who want to get on the podium or people who don't have a bike at all. After that, after I get them really fitted to where I need them to be, I get the numbers off, then I look into some databases, I'm in certain databases and can access certain databases, and then I can say you should buy X, y, z bike.
Mike:Or the prescription yeah, here's your exactly.
Frank Kaiser:All the person says I want to have a Cannondale, I want to have a whatever, a giant, or I want to have a pivot or whatever it might be. I look up in their databases and I say you should buy that bike in a certain size, with a certain stem, degree of stem, all these things which came with the bike. They can order the bike fitted to them. They get the bike come into the store and we're just going to do the micro adjustments to get them fitted there. That would be a prescriptive fit.
Mike:Prescriptive.
Frank Kaiser:I like it. And then we have the retrofit. So person comes in, has a bike like man like you exactly, and then we just get them on a trainer, stationary trainer, and we can then, and that that's the difference we so just to be clear, we're talking about my bike, my actual bike.
Josh:Just mounted into it it was a.
Frank Kaiser:I think you have a it's a Wahoo trainer, wahoo trainer, so it's my exact bike, just mounted to his trainer.
Frank Kaiser:Yes, and then I fit this person to the best ability on that bike. That might not be the best fit for the person, but he already has a bike. Oftentimes I discovered if I put somebody on the fit bike at the best numbers out and try to put them over to his bike, it's not going to work. He has the wrong frame. There's a lot of people coming in and say, oh, I have so much pain on this bike and you can already see that's something wrong. Said that's, that frame is way too big to small for you. Yeah, but was such a good deal I couldn't pass on it?
Mike:Oh, I bet that happens.
Frank Kaiser:It's really a good deal. You got that bike, but I'm sorry and that's wrong. And every time before I do a bike fit, I take a look at the person and get them on the trainer. It's on a podium, I can swivel this around when I need to put lasers on or put the high speed camera on. So the person sits on that bike and I tell them hey, I can't fit you on the bike. I can maybe make you a little bit more comfortable to reduce pain here or stress there, discomfort there, but you will never be comfortable riding that bike longer distances. And then for me it would be unethical to do a fit.
Frank Kaiser:And this person gets out the door and says, tells everybody, I could have saved that money. Yeah, Heck, you know so that's that's, and I don't want to do that. I just advise them and I would not do it.
Mike:That's cool and, and you know, save your money. Say it towards towards a new bike. Yeah, sell it. Come and see me again. Exactly, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And these are the two different fits we actually do in this door.
Mike:Okay, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:That's, that's fascinating.
Josh:But you do different levels of the retro fit as well, like for dry riders, like how does that work?
Frank Kaiser:It all depends where they want to go. You know, if we were talking about your sister and Brady right, yeah, one of the kids and he's getting very successful.
Josh:Yep.
Frank Kaiser:He's a kid. He's still growing, so we need to redo this every now and then. It's good point.
Mike:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And he's getting on the bike and with him we're really trying to get him as aerodynamic as possible or as powerful as possible If he's using the route road bike to be able to actually work with that team and raise the time sees racing, get on the podium, make him successful to be get hired by team or whatever it is yeah. This takes way longer and includes much more than a regular fit, because we have to work in much more details and put more thought into power output and whatnot. It's just not just recreational riding.
Josh:So what are the? What are the? Do you mind if I throw in?
Frank Kaiser:a question. No, no, no yeah.
Mike:No, no, that's great.
Josh:So what are the most common mistakes you see with folks fits when they come in for a retrofit? We already talked about seat height being too high for the cyclist. We also said if you get a non-cyclist it's too low. So it depends on yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah.
Josh:So what are the other common mistakes you see?
Frank Kaiser:Definitely the most common one is the seat height way too high and this causes a lot of problems, and especially males, they feel better when they see this higher. I think I don't know why, and every time I drop them down they say that feels so weird and I somehow don't like it and I said give it a try. They come in later and they actually say yeah, it's working, I'm comfortable, there's no pain, no numbness anymore and I'm fine, I like it, I'm going to leave it. It was just getting used to it.
Josh:Yeah.
Frank Kaiser:And second thing is, if you have clipless pedals, setting up the pedals the wrong way, the pedals, the cleats.
Josh:Sorry, cleats, the wrong way.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, which connect to the pedals.
Josh:You know it was interesting when I, when he dropped my seat and I went out and rode, it felt weird. And one of the things one of the things that Ben told me he's like listen, just trust it, Just go with what Frank did. Go do three, four rides. Trust it, before you like say I'm not going to do this because I've been riding for 20 years, I've developed an open mind.
Josh:Yeah, have an open mind, Trust it. So I'm definitely going to do that. I went out and rode and I and I was like this feels kind of weird. Also feels kind of good. I think I can get used to this. So then I came home and looked at a bunch of YouTube videos of like professionals riding to see like you know to see like, like their leg extension, to try to gauge, like where they were compared to you compared to like how you set my bike up.
Mike:I'm like God damn, frank was right.
Frank Kaiser:Frank was right, and here's the thing you know and that's whatever. Whatever bike fitters tell you, you come in and we get it right, you get a bike fit and you're out the door Doesn't work in my experience and in my opinion there's, there's, you do a dynamic fit. That's what we call what we're doing fitting because people are riding a bike.
Josh:They're moving. You're changing your location.
Frank Kaiser:But there's no lateral movement. So if you take your bike out out of the stand during, the fit, there's no lateral movement.
Frank Kaiser:Exactly, you get it outside. There's a different movement. Now there comes the lateral. You know you have to balance and the bars you always have to correct and whatnot. So you're moving differently. You're not in that stationary position and that's a different level to it which we can't replicate on a trainer. So I myself, for six months after the bike fit, if nothing happens not a new bike, not a new hip or a new knee or whatever it might be I'm going to refit people free of charge. I'm going to do these adjustment because I myself think I don't think I can get it right the first time having a stationary. Still the dynamic fit and they get out. No, I don't think so. If I was lucky, perfect, that was great. But most of the time people come back. Can we adjust it? I have a little bit on the outside of my shoe.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah we adjust that cleat wheel quick or things like this, because that develops during longer rides. Yes, you're on the trainer for maybe an hour or whatever, but that doesn't compare to a two hour ride outside or what longer and under different circumstances. And that's why, hey, come back in, I'm going to help you and I'm not going to charge you If somebody does a bike fit and then every time people come in he charges them. That's, that's not how I do business and I think that's wrong.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah because you, you did, you did your job and fitted them. But maybe it's like I said, there's a certain element comes from outside riding.
Josh:We need to do more input data. You have better your output.
Mike:Yeah, I like that dynamic word you used dynamic dynamic fit. Yeah, I would imagine you know old harbors, old habits are hard to break, right? I mean, you've been riding for a long time long time and then, when you make these little adjustments, and got my seat signal.
Josh:I'm like whoa, this is weird.
Mike:So do you find that most people have an open mind or they kind of like oh Frank, I don't know if I can deal with this. You know what's the reaction when people, when you do this, Is it usually, Frank, this is the best thing ever. I wish I would have learned this, you know, 10 years ago on those follow up.
Frank Kaiser:I cannot wait to hear the answer to this question 80% have an open mind, and I think that's why they actually finally chose to go to a fitter. Yeah, oh, like you said, you can you can watch YouTube and you can try to learn it all you said so far there's really good YouTube videos out there and everything Perfect.
Frank Kaiser:Really good bike fitters. So much experience. This is one thing I'm missing in my background, which where I would love I had to have a background like a physical therapist or something. You pick up on certain things and I try to educate myself, and in fitters school you get educated on certain things names, physiology and stuff like this but still having the background of somebody's working with these, in my opinion, are the best bike fitters out there. They have a physical therapy background.
Mike:Learned that from you know, education years and years of years and then go into bike fitting.
Frank Kaiser:That's the perfect combination, which I personally missing, but I try to do my best and catch up on this.
Mike:Sure, yeah. So do they come back to you and then have you like? Can you share with us like a success story that maybe they came in as a very challenging fit? How did we get this right? And you know they came back and they're like Frank, my last, you know, whatever. 50 miles have been just outstanding.
Frank Kaiser:I have this all the time. I could show you text messages where people text me and say, oh, finally, pain free. I have a few people who did the fit. They want to do the two or the two. So now they started riding like about six, seven months ago, going into longer distances, had severe discomfort and finally we're willing to spend that money because that's always something which is the easiest. We know. Everything gets more expensive these days. Life is getting tougher for everybody and a bike for this for most people, nothing you really need. You're just going to ride your bike and everybody most of the time said yeah, I think it hurts. That's what bike writing is all about.
Josh:But no, that's what I thought. That's what I thought for like 20 years.
Frank Kaiser:You should be almost pain free, absolutely, and I do, and I get these text messages. I did a 80 mile yesterday and and finally it was perfect. But it's always a combination, because during my by fits I try to find out about that person being a coach I'm interested in why are you doing this, how long are you doing this? How are you actually doing it?
Frank Kaiser:And then a lot of people in these longer bike rides let's say to the Tucson, they neglect the nutrition part. They don't actually do the right nutrition and they suffer and it's going to hurt them, mostly mentally then, because they bong at the end of the race and the whole experience bike riding and everything together is then not as good as it could be. So during my bike fit and you got that too I try to explain every step I do. I tell the customer this is what I'm doing and this is why I'm doing this, so they understand what is actually happening and what could be the outcome. So later on you were thinking, you were saying that how do they have an open mind, they get out and they're educated? And they say I know it feels weird, but he explained it to me and I understand it now and I will give it a try and we'll give it a chance.
Josh:So, frank and you can tell me whether you're willing to talk about this or not. But Andrew, when we had him on the podcast, quoted a price for a retro fit and then my sister confirmed it and so I went in to see Frank thinking that the price was at one point and then, when we got to do the payment, he's like all right, it's this. And I was like, wait a minute, that's way cheaper than what Andrew said. Do you want to talk about your pricing at all?
Frank Kaiser:Oh sure, no problem at all. It all depends and we were talking about this now what type of bike fit are we doing, how much time we're investing and what equipment are we actually using? If I do, a basic bike fit for somebody who has a road bike, who doesn't want to race, doesn't want to be on the podium, just wants to enjoy his bike.
Josh:That's one that's $199. So he had quoted us $350.
Mike:So I went in thinking I'm paying $350 today and he said it's the best investment you're going to make if you spend any time on the bike.
Frank Kaiser:I'm more than happy to take the. He told me that he's like I'll take the $350 if you want. I was like, no, I'll give you the $199.
Josh:So $200 and for the fitting sounds like a great value, Especially if you're spending two grand on a bike or more right Like you, might as well make sure that bike fits you and that you're comfortable on it, and sometimes it doesn't have to be a full bike fit.
Frank Kaiser:So a lot of people come in and ask me I want to have a new saddle.
Josh:Why.
Frank Kaiser:Because look at this one, it's so hard, there is no cushion and I'm always hurting. Why do you think you need a new saddle? Yeah, because I'm hurting. I need a super soft saddle, a white one? No, so 95% of the time, the saddle is not set up correctly. There's a certain way how to set up a saddle, how your sit bones should actually be aligned on the saddle and a certain position on the saddles. That's where your sit bones should be, and if you follow all the rules and get it set it up right, it doesn't matter how soft or how hard the saddle is.
Mike:It's probably going to fit you and you will be almost pain free, so the fit is more important than the saddle itself in a lot of times.
Frank Kaiser:Yes, but still it has to be the right saddle. Sure, you know, we measure the sit bones and what?
Mike:all in that we get.
Frank Kaiser:But I just do saddle fits. So people say exactly that and they just want to have a new saddle because everything on the bike they okay, and they're recreational riders, they're very upright and whatnot, and they say I love my bike, I have no neck, shoulder, no hand pain, no, whatever it might be, it's just the saddle. So I get my saddle tool out and we just do a saddle fit and get the right saddle or get the saddle they have adjusted. 50% of the time they don't need to buy a new saddle and they get out the door, come back a few days weeks later because they buy something in the store or whatever, and they come in and say what's the best thing ever, I'm pain free, I can write my charge for a saddle fit $59.
Josh:$59. Wow, and then? And then, what about a prescriptive bike fit?
Frank Kaiser:199, 199, same same work Seriously like like I got.
Josh:I got to recommend to our listeners like I mean, if you're in the and if you're in the local Tucson area, please come see Frank DeFitter yeah, ben's bikes. And if you're not in, is there a good way for folks to find fit like bike fitters in their local area? Is there, is there a? Is there a bike fitter database? Or just go to your local bike shop and say who's the best bike fitter here.
Frank Kaiser:No, I mean, there's like GBO mice to have me on their side and slow twitch. I'm on their side If you.
Josh:these are the forums people look at and get advice, but let's say you're like in Mississippi.
Frank Kaiser:I would say Google it, you know.
Josh:Google it or just come to Tucson.
Mike:It's beautiful and yeah, bike destination visit Frank. Yeah, yeah, for sure how we do do it on time.
Josh:So so what I would like to do is just I want to hear a little bit about your coaching business right now, and then we'll probably wrap up. Okay, How's that sound?
Frank Kaiser:That went by fast, yeah, yeah.
Josh:So it does when you're having fun, but if you got more questions, no, no, no, no to segue into into that. That's what I was, yeah into.
Mike:that is something you mentioned during the bike fit about nutrition and that, and there's a nice little quote here about your on the Ironman certification coaching where it says here I'll just read this quote If I can find it the swim, bike run is the part everyone sees and talks about, but it is the often neglected recovery stage that athletes do not take serious enough. The stretching and loosening the muscles, daily nutritional requirements, which is talked about to keep your body fueled for the training sessions ahead, and all important legs up resting moments are all part of the plan to work together. So you can just hear like your coaching kind of coming out in all of that. Wolfman talked about the recovery stage as well, significantly. So can you talk us, talk to us a little bit about kind of your other business of coaching, ironman?
Frank Kaiser:Sure and back to recovery. You get stronger by recovering right Recovery is actually making you and people skip that a lot, don't they?
Mike:the recovery phase yes.
Frank Kaiser:They think they have to train every day and what I'm seeing is a big problem these days is like platforms, like Strava, because nobody wants to do a slow ride on Strava or a slow run. They see me and they say oh, how is your time today? Oh my God, you know, look at this guy, he's so slow yeah.
Josh:It's like every, every picture on Instagram is like the best picture you've ever taken. Yes, it's so true.
Frank Kaiser:So they think every training is a race and every time I go out for a 10 K. Do you actually were? I mean, I don't buy my shoes for 10 K, but you go wait, what was the phrase that you just said?
Josh:you don't bite your shoes, bind, bind Okay.
Mike:That's. Oh, you don't buy it like tires, you don't tie your shoes.
Frank Kaiser:There's no need to put running shoes on if you do less than 10 K. Who does less than 10 K?
Josh:I'm not going to work with you.
Frank Kaiser:That was a special for Ben, and he knows why. Oh no, but recovery every, every, every training is a race, and actually there should be way more slow training included than the fast one 80%, 80%.
Josh:that's a training, that's what he told me, and what I've been doing is like zone to heart rate, yeah, like 45 minutes or greater. The base rides two hours, the base miles or what is the base?
Mike:miles Eight percent.
Josh:I've been doing at least two of those a week where I never did them and my my heart rate has come down.
Frank Kaiser:Yes, significantly.
Josh:Oh, in two weeks or three weeks. It's crazy how fast it is changed that quickly. Yeah, you're in trouble next time we ride.
Mike:I, I. Well, with your new adjustment you said you're descending faster, so I am yeah. And then plus your cardio yeah, all right, yeah.
Frank Kaiser:Continue and they were training for a while and they did train themselves. And now I put them back and said we're going to have that basic foundation, that aerobic basic foundation. That's the most important thing we have to build right in the beginning, and it's going to take weeks. It's not going to take days or whatever. It's going to take weeks and months. Yep, it's going to be boring and it's going to be slow, but after we have a certain aerobic base and your muscles are you know, a tune to it, yes, then we go into faster things, but they're going to be short, short and fast and that's how we, that's how we train, and there's going to be an extensive recovery after those shorter, faster things. And on the weekend maybe, depending on how the athlete says his work week scheduled, we do the slower, longer things still, but slow and long gets you fast, okay, slow and long gets you fast.
Josh:My wife always tells me In different contexts wait, we've gone through a whole podcast and not talked about S and M.
Mike:What is? What is this? I don't know. I guess it's.
Josh:German. Like like yeah, so why do you think, it's German?
Mike:No, I don't know if he understood.
Josh:You know like yeah, how would you explain?
Mike:it. You're a yes, sadomasochism, so for some reason, every episode running joke a running joke that I like pain and pain in the bedroom, in the bed whips and chains. So every, every episode, josh has to throw a joke in there, along with a dad joke.
Josh:I do have a DM from someone asking if Mike is really seriously.
Mike:All right, that was funny. Speaking of S and M, okay, my next question is this, because it's actually fits with that so you talk about um, you, you were inspired, okay, to run like the iron man triathlons, okay, and you surround yourself with, like, my friends.
Frank Kaiser:I was not. Inspired.
Mike:No, it inspired. You.
Frank Kaiser:I never heard about iron man. I was just running marathons and I was out with a few sergeants of mine training for the baton memorial death march in uh Alamogordo.
Josh:Mexico.
Frank Kaiser:It's there in the scruces, and a white sense missile range. That's where the baton. So we were training and I, I, I look at one of my sergeants and he had a tattoo on his shoulder and I said what's that red thing you have there on your shoulder? And he said um, that's something you will never achieve, oh, wow.
Josh:Oh, oh challenge Challenge issued. Yeah, right, right there, right there.
Frank Kaiser:I said, whatever it is, I'm going to do it. And he said, okay, I'm going to pay. At that time it was cheap to get into an iron man. I'm going to pay the registration and let's see how you do.
Mike:And that's how it became he paid for you, and then and then game on. Yeah, Did you finish?
Frank Kaiser:I would have to not finished it. Whatever, then I would have to get the money back.
Josh:Yes, you finish it.
Frank Kaiser:Oh yeah, yeah, of course, yeah, wow.
Josh:Were you swimming at that time?
Frank Kaiser:Um, I was a swimmer in high school. Okay Well, high school I swim competitively for the state, yeah.
Mike:Okay, so here's where the S and M part comes in. Okay, so, all right, it says I will work with you so you can enjoy this all consuming triathlon. So to me, when I hear iron man, you know however many miles it was you walk through it all Um, and then they will enjoy it.
Frank Kaiser:Embrace the suck, you know right, embrace all the pain that comes with it. It can be painful and it is, of course, you know, iron man. You have 17 hours to finish the race, the iron man, whatever. Usually and things change now a little bit, but usually start was at seven o'clock in the morning and at midnight, that's it. Finish closes. So, um, you have 17 hours to finish that race to be official called an iron man, okay, whatever, right and um, so yeah, that's a long day you know, after four or five, six hours, your body's going to say screw you, you know screw you.
Frank Kaiser:That's it, and then it's just mental, and that's that's for me, the interesting part. Every time overcoming this, actually still going forward still, and during the paint, because it's painful, and that's that's, for me, the interesting part.
Mike:So today is Wednesday, right? Yeah, today still in a Saturday. You're coming up iron man Phoenix Sunday.
Frank Kaiser:I'm sorry.
Mike:Sunday and your daughter's flying in.
Frank Kaiser:She's already here.
Mike:Okay To do the iron man with you.
Frank Kaiser:Is he not listening? Because you told him that you met her, you know, but two times.
Mike:Okay, my bad, and then okay, so how like going into this? So you seem calm, relaxed, like oh yeah, what, what, how many of these have you done? And like how do you feel going into these?
Frank Kaiser:I did 10 full ones and I don't know how many half ones.
Josh:I lost count. Yeah, yeah, yeah, honestly lost count.
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, I think I did four half this year and this is going to be a full one and I'm going to have four, half, just this year, yeah, and then the full one, yes. I mean I've been in two weeks, but it's a half one. I'm going to do this in Indian Wells and Pouch, oh my God.
Josh:So, uh, Frank, what's the name of your training company? So the company's called Suvaro Endurance Multisport Coaching. Suvaro Endurance, multisport Coaching and for our non-.
Frank Kaiser:Endurance and Multisport Coaching.
Josh:Suvaro Endurance and Multisport. Coaching and for our non-native Tucson people, seguaro, yeah, so he's got it? Yes, yeah, yeah, seguaro Endurance yeah.
Frank Kaiser:So yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot, it's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess I'll say that.
Josh:Yeah, you guys don't have any words like that in German. Oh yes, a lot, just a few.
Frank Kaiser:But it's hard for me to pronounce it.
Josh:Okay, so we'll put all the information in the show notes. Is there a website or something I can put it? Yes, we actually have a website. Can you tell?
Frank Kaiser:us what it is. Yeah, it's Suvaro, so Suvaro, endurance, multisport, okay Cool.
Josh:Suvaro Endurance Multisport. Yes, and it's been super like excited about the bike fit, I'm excited to like dial this in and I'm going to. I told you're going to get my wife and I'm going to bring more of my bikes in, so this has been an eye-opening experience for me. Super great getting to know you a little bit. Thank you so much. Do you have any final thoughts for our listeners?
Frank Kaiser:Yeah, you know, don't wait too long. If you struggle on your bike, if you have discomfort, just come in and let me take a look and maybe I can tell you immediately get a different bike. I know that's the hard truth and people don't like me for that. Sometimes it needs to be said. And if you struggle, if you have discomfort and you just want to enjoy it, come in and we're going to find the right fit for you and we're just going to get you comfortable on your bike and you're going to enjoy biking Right on man.
Josh:Well, hey, really appreciate it, you good.
Mike:Yeah, no, that's yeah. Well said, frank, just to enjoy the bike experience, right Exactly.
Frank Kaiser:And it can be enjoyable. It definitely can be. You should not suffer.
Josh:Yeah, very cool All right man, I think you're my favorite German Thank you so much Thanks a lot, buddy.
Frank Kaiser:I'll see you in the next one.
Mike:Bye.
