Dubliner Paraic McGlynn with classics king Fabian Cancellara, taking him through the data that ensures he gets maximum force into his bike.
In Calpe, southern Spain, the WorldTour Trek Factory Racing team, including classics king Fabian Cancellara, is just completing a two-week training camp.
And at the heart of the action has been Dubliner Paraic McGlynn, one of the world leaders in top end bike fitting and cycling biomechanics.
Armed with software and hardware he has developed himself, the Irish entrepreneur has been advising the team on refining their riders’ positions.
And he has taken on a significant role for the Trek company which now has a global reach.
The goal is simple; to help the team’s riders get the best from themselves by leaving nothing to chance.
McGlynn also teaches Trek’s retailers worldwide how to offer the same service to every cyclist who walks into their stores.
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“It’s about winning their trust,” McGlynn said of working with the riders.
McGlynn, right, has always used the latest technology to ensure a rider's position is as good as it possibly can be.
“If you’re walking into a camp with them with a plumb bob and few basic bits and pieces to assess and change their positions, then that trust is not going to come.
“But we’re going in there with all the best tools; the camera systems to capture what they’re doing on the bike, and specially designed high tech pressure pads for inside their shoes and on their saddles.
“You’re generating precise data and using the software and your knowledge to make sure they are getting every bit of force they generate into the bike to make it go faster.
“When you change Fabian Cancellara’s position, as we have done.
"You can’t say ‘well I think this might be right’. You have to have the evidence to show them and you have to get it right; no guess work, it has to be perfect.
“These are intelligent people, they know so much about themselves as athletes and the equipment they’re using.
"So you get high grade information about all of them by testing them properly.
McGlynn, far left, in 2013 on the bike fit team that worked with the now retired Jens Voigt.
“And then you suggest changes backed up with facts you can show them. And then hopefully they see what your knowledge is based on, and in time you win that trust.”
McGlynn has been working with the team “meeting all of them two or three times a year” and developing his Cyclologic business at the same time.
An explosive rider in his day, McGlynn made a name for himself in the 1990s winning mainly criterium races in Ireland.
As the decade drew to a close, he had turned to coaching; preparing his charges physically but always taking a strong interest in technological advances and using custom bike fits to gain an extra edge.
In 2000, then working for Intel in west Dublin, he moved to the US with wife Claudia and has lived there ever since.
Now aged 43 years, he is a father of two and has developed an American twang.
Settling in Scottsdale, Arizona, he worked for major bike retailer Bicycle Ranch in developing a high end suite of services, including bike fit aimed at cyclists of all abilities.
At last month's training camp in Spain; McGlynn says you have to convince professional riders with plenty of evidence before they will trust you and perhaps allow you change something as crucial as their bike position.
In that role he made his first moves into product development, helping design a custom cycling insole that many of the best US riders used.
From there he would move to New York to work for bike builders Serotta as its director of applied cycling science.
Before that company closed in recessionary times, McGlynn was recruited by Arizona firm FASTER, which developed the world’s first purpose-built wind tunnel for cyclists.
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In that role he was instrumental in design; from the technology used in the sophisticated wind tunnel to how they shaped their stores.
And in 2012 the desire to branch out on his own won the day. He ploughed all of his efforts into Cyclologic and hasn’t looked back.
“At that time I was speaking to probably five of the 10 biggest bike companies in the world,” he said.
“It looked like we’d work with maybe all of them.
McGlynn focuses a lot on the feet; that crucial part of the anatomy where the power a rider generates goes into the bike.
"But I had retailed Trek’s products in Bicycle Ranch and they were the first to say to me ‘Okay, we want to work with you, we want a lot of your time’.”
That relationship has grown strongly since then and while his work with the global brand is not the sum total of his business, it takes up much of his time.
Based in Arizona with its own premises, Cyclologic now has six staff and is expanding fast.
It has designed and is supplying the motion capture technology used by Trek retailers worldwide for bike fitting, having been translated into 17 languages to date.
McGlynn’s company is also delivering all of Trek’s education in North America; with the company’s retailers coming to him for tuition in using the technology he has developed so stores can provide expert bike fits.
Now 250 retailers are being trained annually by him to offer the Trek Precision Fit service.
“When we’re doing it with the pro team it sends out a powerful message; that we’re giving retailers the tools to deliver the same service to customers in their bike stores.
Getting the Trek Factory Racing riders set up with custom footbeds supplied by GebioMized a German sponsor of Trek Factory Racing
"And obviously we’re teaching them how to use those tools.
“Even with the pro team; you pick up on things they could be doing better.
"Are they pushing down fully with their foot, are they doing anything at any stage of the pedal stroke that’s hampering them?
“Are there any strength imbalances or deficiencies that need to be addressed? Should they be more flexible?”
Currently diversifying into triathlon, Cyclologic is working with USA Triathlon to offer its most promising athletes the same kind of assessment service afford to Trek Factory Racing’s riders.
McGlynn’s company has also assisted in the development of a range of products to enhance a rider’s position including custom insoles, saddles, handlebars and so on.
These are geared to help riders with specific issues such as old injuries.
A new “level 2” bike fit is being developed for Trek incorporating some of the cutting edge bike fitting elements – such as the footbeds and saddle pressure analysis systems – into the service offered to every customer in Trek’s stores.
McGlynn has developed a great relationship with Trek the global bike company and with the pro team; nice work if you can get it.
“We’ve also got what we call ‘concierge retail’, which is essentially a retail store with an emphasis on bike fitting services.
"It’s not just for the outliers; people who are very short or very tall; with longer or shorter limbs than unusual.
"We also attract professional athletes from multiple disciplines and recreational cyclists and triathletes too.
“So we take a fit-first approach. We don’t tell them they need a particular sized bike.
"We set them up on a fully adjustable system and dial in the exact dimensions all over the bike and come up with the bike and set-up that suits them perfectly.
“We’re have also setup our own private development and research lab in a separate location and hired a full time technical director so we’re not standing still, the only constant is change when dealing with technology.”
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