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#545 World-Class Precision: Inside Pro-Level Bike Fitting with Ivan O’Gorman
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In this episode, we take you inside the world of elite bike fitting with Ivan O’Gorman, a world-renowned fitter based in Niwot, Colorado who works with top professional triathletes and cyclists. We break down why a professional fit is one of the highest ROI investments you can make—impacting comfort, power, aerodynamics, and injury prevention. Ivan shares his approach to assessing athletes, the technology behind modern fitting, and real-world examples of how small positional changes drive big performance gains. Whether you’re new to the sport or chasing your next PR, this episode will help you understand what it takes to ride like the pros.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Episode 554
00:00:20
Rich
Welcome to episode 554 of the Grit to Greatness Endurance Podcast. I'm your host, Rich Soares, and I am here on a mission with Ivan O'Gorman to help endurance athletes train smarter, race stronger, and build the grit it takes to achieve greatness.
Importance of Professional Bike Fit
00:00:36
Rich
Seriously, folks, in this episode, we're going to diving into the impact of the professional bike fit and why it's one of the most important investments that you can make as an endurance athlete, from eliminating nagging discomfort,
00:00:49
Rich
to unlocking sustainable power and preventing injured injury, a proper bike that will influence every pedal stroke. So here, we're here with Ivan Ogormo. We're in your studio, buddy. This is hairway a beautiful place. Here we are, where it happens. Yeah, no, it's wonderful to have you, Rich.
00:01:04
Rich
You're welcome and welcome to the audience. a Pleasure to have you
Ivan O'Gorman's Business Journey
00:01:07
Rich
in here. Yeah, this is something we're very passionate about when we've built this business up over the last 15 or so years and we get to be a very small but hopefully important part of all of our athletes' journeys.
00:01:20
Rich
So I can't wait to dive into some of the questions you might have and and help the audience maybe get a little nugget or two of of information, hopefully.
Ivan's Personal Achievements
00:01:30
Rich
Well, you know, and that's where like to start. i like for the audience to get to know you. And we we sometimes play this game. Maybe you'll play with me here. Two truths and a lie. Sure. You're good with that? All right. So how about three statements about yourself, two of which are true. One is a lie. I'll try to guess what the lie is.
00:01:48
Rich
Okay. I'm from Ireland. I have qualified for Kona 10 years in a row. And have...
00:01:57
Rich
have fastest Ironman triathlon time on the books. Okay. Well, you know, fastest Ironman triathlon time in the books, right? That's a question. Irish. i read oh Oh, okay. All right.
00:02:13
Rich
Let's go with that as the lie. You're correct. There's a lot faster than me out there. But qualify for conant the Ironman World Championship two times in a row. That's true. Absolutely. Yeah. And like, Look, you know, it's down to consistency, right? And I suppose walking in those shoes and then being able to help athletes who are on similar journeys is is kind of part of the fun of it, right? And I think working with athletes from when I was new to this sport and this industry of of bike fit, to be able to help those athletes learn the craft and be actually walking the walk myself. So if i you know,
00:02:51
Rich
outran Lionel in a marathon because he had a bad day, but you were working with him, you know, a couple of weeks after or before. I think that was a unique position to be in, you know? So definitely it's kind of like practice what you preach.
00:03:04
Rich
And yeah, I'm Irish and my wife and I took a leap of faith to come here and work with the Bike Fitting technology company for six months with two bikes and two bags. And that was 16 years ago. So we've certainly made a life of it and we're in a community here in Boulder where we are amongst our clients and we see them on the road, on the trails, at the schools and so on. So I feel very you know lucky to be involved in something that I'm passionate about and apparently I have some ability and capability in. But the travel and stuff was amazing. It was a really cool chapter and I'm grateful for all the lessons. that you had taught me, an athlete, that vary from time management to planning, to understanding recovery, to understanding the cascade of events when things are going wrong and right. So yeah, that's your two truths and a lie.
00:04:06
Rich
No? Okay. That's fine. We'll come back to that. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I'll be i'll just cut that out. All right. so One of the things that I wanted to do you know, part of my vision with talking to you was you know, one, I wanted to, I needed a bite fit myself personally.
00:04:24
Rich
I wanted to be able help our audience, like I said, the intro, understand kind of the importance of doing a bite fit and what,
Bike Fit Process Explained
00:04:33
Rich
how it can benefit you. and maybe we can just talk about that. Like, what are some of the problems you're trying to solve with, know,
00:04:40
Rich
and you you with an athlete that comes into your shop here. Yeah, it's interesting, I suppose. you know When you work with an athlete for the first time, essentially there are a couple of key components to a bike fit.
00:04:51
Rich
You've been through it, which is a paying, highly valued customer here at IUG. And again, it's it's it's so important that you start the relationship off right. And what what you're doing is you're starting with that, like what's the rider's journey?
00:05:05
Rich
Where are they planning on going? And how do you help them get there? So not too dissimilar to coaching. I think the main components are like you're auditing firstly what's going on. How did they arrive at that position? What do you see? And then you're looking for opportunities and those opportunities can then be trialled in a controlled fashion. And the final part then is that you're looking for them to validate that on the road in training, under load, in events, and you've got to sign on as a bike fitter for the outcome.
00:05:34
Rich
And once you sign on for the outcome, what you're then doing is you're ensuring that those riders are guided through that process. so that's the broad strokes. So if if you're, if you end up going for a bike fit and it's like 90 minutes in and you don't hear from them again, that's probably not what we'd call a bike fit. And it also doesn't mean like that our sessions need to, riders pay every time and all this. It's like they're paying for a body of work that's both like knowledge and practice. And then you have to like go through that with them. And if you're efficient on that execution and you know what to do with the first time and when to draw a line in the sand and come back to it and then go again.
00:06:11
Rich
It works out great for both us as service providers and also riders don't feel like there's any hole in the plan. So that's the broad stroke stuff. You asked about like maybe common fixes and complaints and so on. I think it wouldn't be sport unless there was some level of discomfort you're trying to solve for. some level of power output that you need to be aware of. You're managing that combination of athlete efficiency over a certain period of time.
00:06:38
Rich
So again, you can kind of probably gauge the way I describe it and really treat it like an event or what are you what are you you know helping an athlete with. Because a studio is a very good controlled environment to gather data and it can be repeatable and it can be a really good lens. But biomechanical data does not explicitly say like that you're most efficient in that position or that's the position to generate power. So be honest and open with your clients to say, like through this lens, we can understand this. We don't know that. You can help us with that through you know your training and and giving us that type of feedback. And it really is collaborative. And look, if you do I feel if I do the job right, the rider learns a bit, has a higher understanding, can implement that and in practice both in training bricks, racing, gravel, and then can circle back and say, here's what I found out, here's what I noticed. And then it's that combination of information and a bit of data that can again, get us closer to the best possible outcome.
00:07:39
Rich
So hopefully that'll give you an idea as to what I think a thorough bike fit approach should be. It's kind of a journey. It's not a transaction. It's really kind of a journey and you might not even know exactly where you're going to end up you might have a theory on where going end up and you might make some different choices as you learn more about the athlete flexibility what's comfortable really perceptively comfortable yeah 100 because like there is a science and there's an art and there's an absorption or and then it's an adaption and riders have to kind of you know learn and give good quality feedback and it's it's it's that you know so Yeah, I don't want to make it sound like it's too busy and it's fussy, you know, but it just, it has to be thorough and signing on for that is is is the best way to get to the the best outcomes, you know, and you're right in cognitive transaction and I would encourage your viewers that are going for Bytefits to treat it like that and to understand like who they're going to, what their reputation, like why is that guy, you know, this price and that girl that price and so on. Understand what you're getting and understand like, you know, what happens when it doesn't go right? Do I have access to follow ups or can I do this and do that? And just just ask some questions and have them explain maybe the protocol and what it would look like. And think then you straight away thin out 80% of, you know, some of the options available that might work. So that might be a little bit of advice for your listeners.
00:09:04
Rich
Well, I want to talk about a little bit about some of the tools that you have available to you that you use
Technology in Bike Fitting
00:09:09
Rich
for a bike fit. Also talk about some of the, uh, athletes that you, you had come through here.
00:09:16
Rich
What are some I mean, I know we did retool fit. Is a retool fit going to be the same anywhere you go it going to be? They would love it if it was, but of course it's not. I guess it's in the hands of like, you know, who's who's who's using this and the kind of basic knowledge behind it. It's a very, a very high quality measuring device and it's, you know, poor data in, poor data out. So the markers are important. How the process, the protocol that goes around it you know, I can't just give it to somebody who walks in off the street like they want to know to do it. There's no intelligence in it that's going to kind of tell the person what to do. So i would say, look, let's zoom back up for a second. What helps in good outcomes are repeatable data, same as like a power meter, okay? and Somebody can get into the weeds about, you know, this power meter brand is, you know, less than, you know, 1% variability and another one might be, you know, three and this power meter reads
00:10:15
Rich
240 and this one reads 250. It's more about the consistency of it and not so much like the differences of those so that you can rely on that. So similarly, like you want, i think in in fits and it doesn't mean that you could go for a bike fit in your local market with somebody that doesn't have a lot of technology or any technology and you couldn't get to an outcome. You absolutely can get to a great outcome with somebody who's very experienced and they use some kind of basic and tools and a good philosophy so you can get there.
00:10:41
Rich
So I'm not saying like that. the higher the tech, the better the outcome. But I do think like to take out some subjective elements and to be bit more accountable to objective data, that's where technology has its role.
00:10:54
Rich
And then you can, so that's like looking at rider movement patterns and Retool was the first in the game. it was actually the company I came to work with all those years ago. So, you know, I'm one of those, I guess what you'd call early adopters and and they and the athletes you were asking about would have absolutely had an enormous impact in my craft on And what I learned on that journey, I had studied biomechanics, but other than that, to work with great coaches, great athletes, great academics that had kind of different ways to view how to, again, arrive at these outcomes was all part of of the privilege that I had in learning my craft. So motion capture is great.
00:11:35
Rich
There's always lots of new technology coming in the market because there's a willing appetite, right? to buy it, to sign up for it, to this and that. I spent a ton of money myself on on different products from pressure mapping to, you know, VO2 to, and you know, we've got different devices here that we've tried over the years and maybe all in certain, sort in all devices in certain circumstances, some of which are fairly narrow, have a place. and So I would say technology has its place and it's just knowing when to use it. is is probably helpful. and
00:12:10
Rich
So that will kind of give you a broad view on that. I think, again, there's there's some common, like there's widely accepted principles around good positioning right so you want riders in a levy position that have you know good hip extension good hip hinge can generate power uh are underpinned with comfort that's feet seat front end and you know that is suitable for the demands of competition right what does that mean well if somebody is like riding to lose some weight and clear their head that's what we're trying to aim for if somebody's trying to like set a you know national time trial record or something that's what they're aiming for you know and so on there's all these examples so just understanding like what it is is the objective and the position and the suitability for where the writer is and what they need to do so of your audience i'm sure are super up on performance and if you do great power but you poor cda that's not going to cut the mustard right so we're lucky that we make it i suppose a point that no matter what the writers intended goal is, then just make it our goal and then it becomes interesting.
00:13:17
Rich
So it's not like we get more excited because, you know, Taylor and Ip is coming in. Or we get less excited if somebody comes in and they're in a pair of Havianas that never clipped in. You can have great fun and you can actually, as you know, be a larger part of the journey for the person who's a lot more novice or getting back into it or you know has has put time into other parts of their lives and have neglected themselves and now they want this.
00:13:41
Rich
that can That can be oftentimes a lot more fun than trying to find those tiny little percentages or trying to help riders make an Olympic team they're They're both incredible missions, right? But they're extremely different. So but actually, you're still kind of going through similar protocols and you know you're auditing, you're looking for opportunities and then you're trying to execute.
00:14:05
Rich
So it's the same thing. It's just the lower hanging fruit of a new rider or a younger rider is maybe a little bit a little bit easier. in ways, but they're both extremely fulfilling.
Working with Diverse Athletes
00:14:16
Rich
athletes that have influenced us, oh my gosh, the list is crazy. Yeah, who's favourite athlete? Who's hard to work with? Who's funny? Like, they're terrible they're all like children, right? You don't pick your favourites. But I mean, like, there are characters out there, Loft and Martin in the gravel scene, in the adventure scene. A guy who's, you know, a big thinker and does it for for his personal reasons and him riding in the Giro or you know a Grand Tour, it's kind of fine, but is it everything he wants to do? No, it wasn't. you know it So that's kind of cool that he could dip in and out of a standard of performance like that. And then you know I'm sure if a lot of your listeners are triathletes,
00:14:59
Rich
Oh yeah, a lot of them. So clearly you'll know the Rinnies, you'll know the Dave Scotts, you'll know Crowe, you'll know Lionel, you'll know Sam Laam, you'll know Cam Wurf. It's like we can, you know, and I'm forgetting all the others. Oh sure, yeah, yeah. That's the problem with starting to name names. Who are leaving out, right? So, you know, all those athletes. But they all like help you to see it kind of through their lens and you have to be obviously a good communicator because they all roll differently and you have to kind of like establish trust and you have to demonstrate like that you know what the hell you're talking
00:15:37
Rich
pulled sugar that you can say look this is what i know and this is what I don't and I can help you on that but I'm not sure if it's going to end the way you want it or you know so the athletes teach you a lot and like in sport we do look to the top level athletes they get a lot of the oxygen and we try to mimic a lot in what they do which is totally inappropriate for a lot of our customers so I would say they have an influence but I try not to let it have an overbearing influence because I think look just running even a small business like this
00:16:09
Rich
You can grab, you know, some attention by working with pros, but that can also like be off-putting to a lot of writers who are trying to get into it. And they kind of think like, oh, IOG is just for like the fast kids. Like, I don't think I'll go there. So I think we try to be very like, you know, open about like anybody's mission is our mission. And they are, as you said, contracting us. It's a transaction to help them.
00:16:34
Rich
And then every rider is as important as the next, but the pros are not fun. We just were in here with a tandem two months ago, right? Absolutely. Doing tandem for a para athlete and we you know want talk about other causes and people that we help with. And they challenge me too, because you're trying to figure stuff out for tandem athletes. Adoptive athletes and trying to, you know, do that, like we have not done that before. So then we have to like whole new thing, like how do we approach that? So that's a huge stimulus, obviously for us and, you know, for my own craft, it's a real good challenge. And maybe one other thing that that people wouldn't, would have underestimated is having technology. will also improve like your eye. You know you talked about like you'd kind of have a plan for a rider. I think all of us think about how we like ourselves or want ourselves to be on that start line. I'm going to be fit. going be this. going to be healthy. I'm going be whatever. I think we do the same thing with any project.
00:17:34
Rich
You want to build a house. You want to do this. you know like You start thinking about what that would look like. We're the same when it comes to our athletes. like What do they need to do? Where they need to be? How will they get there? And you kind of work your way back from that. So I think we put ourselves in the shoes of our athletes straight away and it makes it very easy then, or it certainly makes it easier to kind of start planning on how how we can take that on on their behalf. when We talked about that in this bike that you know what you you were trying to envision what I'm going to be doing on the bike so that you could have a vision for how we want to make.
00:18:04
Rich
the adjustments. So anyway, that was wonderful. Yeah, and I think the technology keeps you honest to that. So I guess maybe that's where I was going with there, that the the technology can can kind of help sharpen your eye. And some days you'll come in and you'll look at the rider and you look at the data and you'll talk to the rider. and Something mightn't be clicking, right? And then that's even when I would might need to take a step back.
00:18:25
Rich
And I might trust the data in that regard, or I might listen to the rider, or the rider might actually take little bit more of a lead on it. And then those are the times where the rider would be like, look, I don't really trust myself and feel, so I'm kind of going to leave it mostly to you. And I can give you broad stroke stuff like it's different. Or the writer might say, like, I notice it's like a satellite that's higher, but wouldn't say that's worse, but I couldn't tell you it's better. And that's fine. That's a totally fine answer. We ask open questions. We don't like try to lead the witness and say, do you feel better? Yeah, yeah, right, right. All that kind of BS, right? So, so. Number one or number two? Yeah, it's always a good thing like that. But yeah, look, writers have,
00:19:03
Rich
taught us a lot over the years. Technology has taught us a lot over the years and we're we're still open to learning. You're a big part of the community here in Niwot and Boulder and Colorado. I mean, you're you know you're kind of, you're you're you're a well-known entity around the community here. And part of that is obviously your services and you know the the folks that you work with, but some it's just the community.
00:19:28
Rich
It's a deeper connection
Community Engagement with Best Buddies
00:19:29
Rich
to the community. One of the things that I got to learn about through you was best buddies. And I know that there's an event coming up. Uh, we had a great, thank you for being such a great host at the event that we had, at nine a lot, just a few weeks ago, actually, would you let our audience, you know, help them understand what best buddies is. Cause I think that this is actually one of those things. It's, I think this is what makes triathletes and endurance athletes special is that I think we see that we are so blessed to have all of the, all of the gifts that we have just to be able to do this, that I feel like it's almost our duty to, to help others, whether it's para athletes or whatever. Maybe we just talked about this group. Yeah, for sure. Like we live in a small community here in Boulder County and yes, broadly speaking, Colorado is amazing. Um, amazing.
00:20:20
Rich
And all the athletes that we get to work with have a big influence on us, right? And I think, you know, to think about, like, where we are from a fortunate standpoint is that overlap of we can get to do sports that kind of give us, you know, a great outlet. We get to meet people who are also driven and actively introduce friction into their lives to get more out of every day, right? And then you talk about best buddies, which is very important to me. This is an organization that help children and adults as they go through their lives who are dealing with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And, you know, we get to put on events to help, you know, grow awareness around that, to raise money. It anchors into friendship walks and cycling and triathlon and hiking. And it can be around the block for nice person. Like, doesn't matter once it involves the community and the spirit of people helping others. So in that regard, it's so easy always to think about the disabilities and you don't see the abilities, particularly with someone who might have autism or downs or something, and they're incredible on the keyboard, or they're the funniest person you've met or whatever. So it really has given me like a bit of a kick in the ass over the years to understand like how many abilities these people have the same when it comes para athletes, and they're not obviously the same. But what I mean is like, you know, what's hidden behind that, first kind of impression you get and it makes you kind of like not you know lean into your first impressions as much as you might want out of being casual right so best buddies in an incredible organization we love and vinkton aspen here which is not too shabby a location to go to and we're going to write independence pass we're introduce more friction and we're going to overcome it for them right and look
00:22:11
Rich
you know, for me to be able to help with my abilities, if I have some, I'm wrangling people together and I'm bringing in committed athletes that I have that love getting involved in these events that know what it's like to train for something that know what it's like to overcome setbacks, even though there just might be small setbacks. They know them because an athlete lens is a very important lens. They know that there's only six inches in the difference between a pat on the back and a kick in the ass. And they're very willing to understand. I see that person struggling because they've had their own windows in setbacks, disappointments, not making a race start, having a poor performance. And whilst they're all tiny things in the big scheme of of of life, they do remind you and treat you, remind you and and show you like that. Yeah, people have to overcome things and progress takes place outside the comfort zone and and all those things. So I think for me, look, it's been a natural fit to have an overlap of my drive, my passion, our athletes, our clients helping best bodies. It's it's been great and it's been very kind of, we'll say, uplifting and it kind of, the more we do, the more we want to do. And it can feel exhausting at times, but I'm not grateful.
00:23:27
Rich
like you are for our clients, for our health, for my family, for what we can do and be a small part of that. So I tip my hat to Best Buddies and all the people that work there and all the families that support, you know, children and adults who are overcoming disabilities and we're there for them. So check it out, Best Buddies and their cycling challenges. And we have a lot of cool people. Leanda Cave, who's one in Kona. and won many world titles and Cam Wharf and Alberta Contador and Bradley Wiggins and Cath and many, many more that do lean into helping us on that mission. So I feel it's real purpose, right? And I do have purpose, but that's real purpose. And I like trying to step up my game to help best bodies.
00:24:17
Rich
Well, it's just, you know, it's such a life-changing thing for those kids, right? And to really matter and to have a connection. and There's many deserving, you know, causes out there and everybody gets tapped to help here, there and the other. But, you know, really like, I would say it's been like later in my life, right, when I really started to help in this area. And we can we have all valid reasons. i use I say the word reasons as opposed to excuses. But we have valid reasons, like with raising young kids and getting businesses going and this and that. And look, if there's a time in your life when you can find a few minutes to help or, you know, donate a few bucks or whatever, the surprising thing is how much you get back from it. And I'm i'm grateful that that that's what it's shown me. And I find the harder I work for Best Buddies or for our clients, the more we get back. and the more the overlap is there. So I've got the energy and I've got the drive. So I'll keep doing it as long as I can.
00:25:19
Rich
Keep going, buddy. That's awesome. good Thanks for doing this with me. Thanks for the yeah fit. Hang around here for just a second, because I want to close this out with an app read. And then we will will wrap up, folks. Hey, listen, I hope you really enjoyed this interview with Ivan. and in I OG bike fitting consulting studio. This is amazing. but You know, I really should sort of point the camera here around the studio and including oh what what is pretty weird a pretty good, pretty good espresso. Awesome.
00:25:54
Rich
awesome Hey, folks, thanks for joining us today.
Sponsor Highlight: Vespa Power Endurance
00:25:57
Rich
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00:26:16
Rich
Check it out. We've got a link here in the show notes. The discount code is G2G, Vespa15. The link here will get you 15% off of anything in your cart, anytime. Thanks for spending time with us today on the Grit to Greatness Endurance Podcast.
00:26:30
Rich
If you enjoyed this episode, please follow us and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and YouTube. It helps us reach more athletes just like you. Stay gritty, train smart, and keep chasing greatness.
00:26:41
Rich
We will see you next week.