Germain Burton at Bespoke Cycling

A  few weeks ago, Bespoke had a visit from Junior Olympic Development Squad rider Germain Burton. Germain is the son of former international 6 day rider Maurice Burton who raced alongside Ian Hallam, the uncle of our lead fitter Ben Hallam. Germain famously won the 2010 BEC CC Hill Climb at the age of 15; beating riders like former national road champion Kristian House, multiple national champion Dean Downing and two time national hill climb champion Dan Fleeman. He has continued to progress and last year won multiple junior races on the continent.

Germain Burton's Initial Knee Trace

Germain came to see Ben due to a recurring pain on the outside of his knee that had been nagging on for a month. From the initial Retül scan, Ben could see that there was a rotational movement happening during the pedal stroke with the knee coming closer to the top tube on the down stroke.

Germain Burton's Final Knee Trace

On closer examination of Germain’s set up, it was noted that both cleats were set very heel in and the Sidi shoes had very little support. Germain has excellent flexibly and an incredible amount of control (when asked, he single leg squatted straight to the floor and back up). Therefore, there was no apparent need to have that amount of rotation at the foot. The cleats were straightened up and a set of Sidas custom footbeds inserted to help control the mechanics of the foot. As you can see above, this helped the knee to track in a straighter line with fewer loads on the outside of the knee.

3 weeks on and we’re happy to report that Germain is not feeling the pain on outside of his knee and was able to recover enough to attend the 6 day GB training camp last week. Germain has already been back to talk through refining his core stability training and Bespoke is looking forward to helping him towards his target at the Junior World Road Championships in Florence this September.