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Monday 9am - 6pm Tuesday 9am - 6pm Wednesday 9am - 6pm Thursday 9am - 6pm Friday 9am - 6pm

Soigneur London, Unit 0G10 Belgravia Workshops, London (2026)

21/04/2026

More frequently, I’m hearing clients using AI to help optimise their bike position before coming in for a bike fit with me. Feeding the issues they’re experiencing into a chat, and AI making a suggestion of change.

So far, AI hasn’t got anywhere close to an overall good quality setup, whether directed towards optimal comfort or performance.

Bike positioning is very personal, and there are no rules of thumb that are going to work with every rider. An individual’s biomechanics and goals are unique, and it takes a wealth of experience to understand this and how to apply a bike setup to them.

I’m grateful to have been running Soigneur for 8 years now! With a total of 12 years full time bike fitting, 19 years working in the bike industry and over 20 years of riding and racing experience under my belt. I’ve had the the pleasure of working with thousands of clients, from those looking for advice purchasing their very first bike, to some of the greatest athletes in the world, and everything in between as a bike fitter. All of which has helped immensely with my knowledge progression in the cycling world!

So thank you! 🙏 And I look forward to working with more clients to help them achieve their goals, and help progress existing cyclists in their cycling journey.

08/03/2026

The race season is just around the corner! Is your bike letting your body perform to your fullest potential?

Here is a nice example of a Ironman focused bike fit session - the major concern for the client has been saddle related troubles making the position in the extensions unsustainable for long periods of time.

After relieving this issue, with a new saddle and reposition, we made a lot of progress with aero posture, aided by an increase in front end stack height by 3cm, and angle of the tri-bars.

Why is the “praying mantis” position so popular for TT and triathlon? Is allows for the support of the upper body to fall entirely into the riders elbows, and prevent weight bracing through the hands. This releases tension from the riders shoulders allowing for easier manipulation of the riders head position to fall below the shoulders, creating smaller frontal area and a smoother flow of air over the top of the rider, as well as greater bike stability.

This is also a demonstration that I don’t believe every riders crank length needs changing - this bike being stocked with 170mm cranks, and suited riders functionality well!

19/02/2026

Part 3/3 - What’s my optimal crank length?

This is a pretty loaded question, but one that I get asked a lot! Is shorter always better? No, not necessarily, and too short a crank can have other consequences (and no, not “less leverage so you can’t produce as much power!”). But actually going too short can affect a riders ability to fully utilise their core and destabilise the bike.

Identifying a riders optimal crank length requires understanding the objectives of the rider, and biomechanical factors such as leg length, flexibility and functionality, as well as past and current injury constraints. This is all wholly individual.

In the case of this rider, the end objective was to find a sustainable aerobar position on a road bike setup for long distance triathlon. A far more aggressive position than a general road riding position, and bike geomerty constraints that don’t allow a more dedicated tri-setup.

If he was using the bike only for road riding, a 165mm crank length would keep him within his functional hip flexion range. However, dropping into this aerobar position, would again have pedal stroke fludiity issues on the longer crank. So the 160mm provides a nice balance of positional changes on the bike.

With the original 172.5mm crank, there would be no way this rider could pedal efficiently dropping into this position for any length of time.

Generally, I find a riders optimal crank length to be the longest that fits within their functional limits in the positions they’re most looking to perform in. Too long, it will feel cramped, reduce power and cause injury. Too short, it can make a rider feel floppy and reduce bike control. Just right…you’ll feel like a new rider.

And to the short crank haters who believe I’m jumping on a trend copying Pogi and co…they were all late to the party…very, very late 😉

18/02/2026

Part 2/3 - Overcompensating for long cranks. This is a fine example of what I regularly see with cranks too long in self setup - the saddle being set way too high to help feel like you’ve got space to come over the top of the pedal stroke.

A saddle too high, over extending your legs can cause any issues, in this case, disrupting the flow of the pedal stroke through the full rotation, snatching a the bottom of the pedal stroke, overstretching the full length of the posterior chain. Common symptoms this can cause:
• Pain anywhere from your feet to your neck and shoulders
• Sitting too far forwards on the saddle to relieve tension, increasing likelihood of saddle discomfort and instability
• A reduction in power/efficiency
• A lower than optimal cadence
• Core muscles disengaged
• Your upper body weight bracing against the handlebars
• Your weight distribution being tipped over the front of the bike
• Constant tension in shoulders, neck and arms, making it difficult to maintain vision ahead
• Pulling hands back away from the hoods to sit more upright
• Issues with bike handling, less confidence in corners and being able to take hands off the bars with control

It’s always a nice marker seeing big increases in natural cadence selection through a bike fit. I expect to see cadence to increase by 2-3rpm per 5mm crank length change - this is what happens to make up the lost angular distance in the length of the pedal stroke to equalise power output from the “lost leverage”, but power/efficiency is much more than the amount of torque you can put through the pedals. A longer pedal stroke = more energy needed to cover the full rotation of the pedal stroke.

But it this case, cadence has increased drastically from the baseline once we get the flow of the pedal stroke within the riders individual functional ranges, giving a nice sign of an increase in pedalling efficiency.

17/02/2026

You shouldn’t be fighting your pedal stroke around the axis! Unfortunately, this seems to be the case for around 95% of clients we see with stock bike set ups.

Here are some of the common symptoms of your crank length being too long:

• Lower back pain
• Anterior knee pain
• a sensation that you’re kneeing yourself in the stomach at the top of the stroke
• Bouncing on the saddle, in particular at higher cadences
• Constant sliding forwards onto the nose of the saddle and needing to regularly shuffle yourself backwards
• Feeling of being unstable/rocking in your upper body
•Rolling on the saddle
• Sit bone pain
• Groin numbness
• Actively pushing your pelvis upright for space
• Positioning your hands back on the bars to try and sit more upright
• Excessive weight in your hands, trying to brace your upper body weight against the bars
• Stiffness in your neck and shoulders
• Grinding big gears at a low cadence
• Getting of of the saddle regularly when climbing

This video is a great demonstration of crank length impact on saddle positioning and body stability between a 172.5mm stock crank length and 160mm trial length, keeping the reach to the bottom of the pedal stroke the same. These clips were taken in the middle of the fit session, showing neither the very start or end position.

soigneurlondon soigneur

06/01/2026

Are your hands in the right place?

I regularly see riders with complaints of hands going numb, and this is usually caused by holding your handlebars incorrectly, propping themselves onto the back of the bars through their palms, directly onto the ulnar artery and nerve, which supply your soft tissue of the 4th and 5th as well and half of the 3rd finger with feeling and blood flow to the soft tissue of the 3rd, 4th and 5th finger as well as half of your first finger. Prolonged compression onto these points will cause hand numbness.

As well as this, holding the bars here reduces bike control, making it more difficult to reach your brakes and gear shifters (needing to move your hand to initiate control) and reduces your grip on the bar.

Your neural hand position where you spend the majority of the time should be with your hands wrapped around the hoods, spreading pressure distribution evenly through the hand, reducing an acute pressure point on the hypothenar (sorry, big word) region of the hand palm.

Most riders first thoughts is “I need a shorter stem to reach my brakes”, but here I demonstrate why this is the last component I would be looking to change to improve reach to the hoods.

In this case, saddle position is the primary cause of the overstretch to the hoods. The saddle too high and too far back, overstretching the riders posterior chain, and pulling him up and back. Changing this allowed the rider to stretch his back into a neutral posture for him, relax his shoulders and arms, and enabled him to reach his levers more naturally, without changing the length of the front end of his bike, with only a few minor adjustments to handlebar and hood position to help improve hand contact further.

29/10/2025

Who said big birds can’t fly?

Towering at over 6’6”, The first rider I’ve ever had max out my inseam measurement tool, and a saddle height close to 90cm, his size very much puts him at a disadvantage on fast club rides with no one to fully hide behind! So it was intriguing to find out just how much smaller we could get him on the bike!

But firstly, nothing comes before functionality, and so we focus on the fundamentals of the position before playing aero. Knee tracking was a highlight of the set up, and sometimes riders knees just want to push outwards - this is typically learnt through off bike assessments of what id expect to see on this bike, and in Ollie’s case I believed him knees should be tracking straighter, and this change drastically with a change to cleat position, foot stance and an increase in saddle height.

We made a 2cm increase in reach to open out his back to his neutral posture…then got playing with aero. Having already changed from 44cm to 40cm bars, we explored taking it further to the 32cm .bike Aer handlebar. And even to my slight surprise, he took to the position immediately! We designed this bar in collaboration with our clients - and this example is truly a testament to how well the support mechanisms work to hold and relax a rider into the tightest of positions.

17/01/2024

We made it for ourselves, but we’ve learnt it will be a useful tool for bike fitters, mechanics and possibly even some riders who are living on the edge of the law to keep in their toolbox or race bag.

The first commercially available Shifter-Handlebar Interface Tool, specially designed to check shifters fit with the new UCI 10° angle regulations - now available on our store.

31/10/2023

I’m raffling off these custom Airas Zero sunglasses to help raise a little extra for . Now live - Link in bio. 🙏

Winner will be selected by a randomiser and announced on 6th November.

05/08/2023

What do you think of our new bike?
We’re looking for test pilots for our new aero road bike. We’re offering a one time price point for our framesets or complete bike builds exclusively to subscribers of the newsletter. Link in bio

09/05/2022

Some nice aero tuning work with Chris leading up to a 70.3 race and then full Ironman in the next couple of months.
Biomechanically, his position was pretty sound, other than finding greater support from his saddle and balancing out a small leg length difference to smooth out his pedal stroke, so we could really use the session to focus on performance aspects of his setup.
The biggest change to aero is being guided into a good head position, helped by so changes to the bike set up; shifting the body position further forwards towards the front of the bike to relieve some posterior chain tensions, as well as the addition of high rise wing armrests to lock the arms in place, also allowing us to achieve a narrower pad width.
Once here, Chris is able to drop his head level to his shoulders without losing field of vision ahead, but using his eyes to look ahead, rather than kinking his neck up, which helps to alleviate pressure on the neck and shoulders.

Soigneur London

21/04/2026

08/03/2026

19/02/2026

18/02/2026

17/02/2026

06/01/2026

29/10/2025

17/01/2024

31/10/2023

05/08/2023

09/05/2022

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Monday	9am - 6pm
Tuesday	9am - 6pm
Wednesday	9am - 6pm
Thursday	9am - 6pm
Friday	9am - 6pm