Bike Fitting:

Before writing this I did all of my bike fits at Belmont Wheelworks. Things have changed. I am still one of the fitters at Wheelworks, but the shop puts more emphasis on bike sales and less emphasis on bike fitting. My fitting area in the basement of the shop will be used for more bikes, the fitting area is being pushed to the far corner of the basement.  

Bike fitting requires a bike shop. There is always the need for saddles and stems and handlebars and shoes and pedals, and the list goes on and on.  The bike industry seems to be going away from standards at an alarming rate. Just putting a bike on a trainer has become a challenge. Bikes now have proprietary stems and seatposts, they run brake lines inside the bars and stem.  This is all backwards to me. The bike industry is selling equipment for elite athletes, but the advantages offered to the top athletes makes it impossible for new riders to be fit or learn pedal stroke.

Simply put, I don't fit new (expensive) bikes in my studio. Fitting on bikes with proprietary parts for aerodynamic advantages is like putting a kid who just got their driver's license in a formula 1 car.  It's expensive and ends badly.   I use a regular (dumb) trainer that holds the bike from either a quick release skewer or a thru axle adapter. If your bike can't work with that it's too fancy for me to fit.

There are a lot of reasons to not do fittings in my own studio, there's only one good reason why I should - I want to do the best job possible.  That means throwing out the regular fitting routine and looking at what the individual really needs. This starts with critical thinking - is the trainer really the best indication of what happens on the bike?  The answer is clearly no, so bike fitting needs to be a multistep process.