March 29th, 2010
Posted in
Shop |
It’s amazing how many people we get in the shop who have never altered their position on the bike – in a perfect world that would be because the bike was sold set up and ready sized – in a perfect world!
Of course in the world that we live in there are so many things that alter and effect the optimum positioning on the bike and yet still we find that quite often the bikes are never altered from the time that they leave the shop. The worst cases are often those who have their ‘bike fit’ dimensions written down or consigned to memory and have been applied countless times over the years to many different bikes.
What’s wrong with that? Well nothing really, it certainly looks impressive. I was always in awe of those cyclists that could produce a myriad of millimetre perfect dimensions from memory and then with a tape and plumbline proceed to make every bike that they ride a carbon copy of the last one. The problem is time, things change over time, we change, we get less flexible (generally) limbs and bodies shorten and what we need and ask from our bikes alters.
Sometimes injuries affect our bike position and therefore our capability to work efficiently.
One thing that we have noticed is that comfort on the bike often brings performance gains that are not instantly obvious, like being able to ride longer as opposed to just being lower and more aero and quicker on shorter rides. but too stiff to be able to go out the next day. Well here’s a secret -
‘ Injuries allowing, It does not have to hurt’
Fitting a bike to the rider for comfort, as opposed to being ‘performance fitted’ following an impressive bout of measuring / computing / jargonistic shpiell that some of the bike/fit/measure/performance/lemond/nuclear.com systems is not a cop out.
In short what might work for MrArmstrong or Mr Boonen might not be best for Mr/Miss/Ms or Mrs everyday cyclist, because they aren’t Lance or Tom. In fact it’s a fair bet that you wont be able to cycle properly using their setups. How do we know? – We used to use one of these systems that had very techy measuring kit the use of which was suitably painful to justify the price of the fit, and you know what? Little if any feedback. Customers would nod appreciatively afterwards and cycle off £50 lighter but after that – nothing.
Now we fit dynamically using the Andy Pruitt system as the starting point. We started using this system two years ago and kept it fairly low key. To be honest I did not feel confident enough, even after taking the training course, to start charging what should be £120 for the full fit. So we abbreviated it ’slightly’ and started inflicting our new found knowledge on friends and family and non paying customers and then slowly started putting through the odd few paid- for fits, each time honing our skills and building our own confidence.
Through the tail end of last year bike fits became more and more frequent (we still were not shouting about it), and then suddenly this year we find that not only are we doing bike fits every week but we are booking bike fits in almost every day, all of these have been through customer referrals. Somebody, told somebody that they had a bike fit – and it made a difference. The good thing about this system as well is that you will understand what we are doing and why we are doing it.
Our Bike fits are booked in one a day and currently only on weekday mornings starting at 9.15am. They take between an hour, and an hour and a half and you will need to bring your bike, shoes, shorts and pedals. They cost £60 and it is possible that we may have to fit or suggest a change in components at additional costs.
If you have had a bike fit – let us know what it was like – if you want more info ask here or call us.
