tel.: 970.201.2903
So technically you won't be getting a bike fit before you buy; it really is called a bike sizing. So why is this necessary? First, it is best to go into any major purchase armed with as much knowledge as you can. If you go into a shop and ask them to do a sizing they have to spend some time with you, and in this time, the burden is on them to convince you that they are capable. Now, I'm not saying that you will be able to tell 100% of the time if they are capable or not, but at least that extra time spent with you (and even for a sizing, it should be extra time -- if they just look you up and down or tell you to throw a leg over a bike immediately and they say,"Yep, you look like a 55," you should walk out of there post haste) will give you an idea on how thorough and willing they are to work with you to get the bike that you need. What should a bike sizing entail? Well, I can tell you what I do: At it's most brief, I usually spend about 30 minutes with the client. We discuss their riding habits (road, mountain, tri, etc; how many days a week? thru the winter? commute as well? etc) any injuries on or off the bike, and what they liked or didn't like about bikes they've owned in the past. Then I'll spend a few minutes looking at their flexibility and general strength. After that, I set them up either on their current bike and we do a short fitting to see where this bike falls short, or I set them up on the size cycle and "mock up" a frame geometry that is close and work from there until we have a fairly narrow range for a few of the more important measurements of the bike (namely the effective top tube length, the head tube length, and the frame stack and reach). At this point the client is free to pay me for my time and take those measurements anywhere they choose to look for the proper sized bike (I'll even teach them how to do their own tape measuring on the bikes they look at so they can be in control of which bikes the shop shows them. Or the client can allow me to build a custom bike for them or guide them toward one of the stock offerings I have that would fit them, and the "sizing" is done free of charge. Once the bike is purchased I will do a final fitting where we address some of the more fine tuning issues that are beyond the scope of the sizing process (cleat shimming, exacting the seat tilt and micro-adjustments of the fore-aft positioning, etc.) When this process is followed, the result is a perfect fitting bike every time. It does take more time with the customer, but a happy customer (and when someone can finally ride their bike for 3 hours without significant discomfort, they tend to be very happy) trumps every other aspect of the business model. |