Basic fit? Maybe. Expert bike fit or managing any injuries? Probably not. Most shops have no education or particular expertise in bike fitting. They may have attended a weekend course in bike fit. The bike fit schools are good for understanding the basic premise of fitting the human body to the bike: they can get your seat height set pretty close, make sure your cleats are on straight, make sure your knees fall over the pedal, etc. But they are not the in depth enough to make difficult or answer the fuzzy questions. Will they be able to test your trunk strength to determine how much differential (saddle to handlebar) you should have? Is having the knee over the pedal even necessary? Can they tell you when you may need your hips further behind or further forward relative to the bottom bracket to alleviate a muscle imbalance? Will they know when a drifting knee is remedied by a forefoot shim and when that won't correct it? Will they know how to adequately address chronic injuries or surgeries? What reasoning do they have for setting your reach on the bike? Is it just because it "looks good" or "looks about right"? Or do they have a specific rationale? So what is needed for an expert bike fit? As I've stated before, a significant background in biomechanics and human anatomy is a must; as is daily use of this knowledge; and finally they need to understand the mechanics of cycling and bicycles in general. Learning about bikes is pretty easy -- there are only so many variables and they are all easily measured. The human body is different. It is unreasonable to assume that your local bike shop owner or employee will be able to address all the questions listed above. There is just too much going on in the human body and a change one joint has a significant effect in another joint. In some university towns, you may find a shop where one of the employees is "pre-med" or is "going to go to PT school" and they put them in charge of fittings. (I am always reminded of Animal House -- "Don't worry about it...I'm pre-Law" "I thought you were pre-Med" "What's the difference?") One thing I can tell you for certain is that when you graduate from physical therapy school, you have a lot of knowledge. But only when you get in the clinical setting do you realize how much you still have to learn about how the body works. That's why I say it's unreasonable to think your local bike shop employee or college student is going to be able to perform an expert fit and address the complex issues that always arise So can someone without the background "learn by doing"? I think the answer to this is "yes", but there is a lot involved. There are certainly a handful of people out there who have successfully taken this route. All have gone to exhaustive means to learn all they can about the human body and how it works. And then they have practiced, practiced, practiced. Oftentimes, hundreds or thousands of bike fits before they considered themselves experts. Each bike fit they learn a little more, by trial and error, and they gain some specific bike fit knowledge. This is a slow and painstaking process, and few people invest the time to learn on their own, all that is necessary to make informed and well reasoned decisions. More often, most rely on the same few modifications they do on every bike fit -- the "cookie cutter" approach. Don't trust your comfort, safety, and a few thousand dollar bike investment in the hands of under-qualified individuals. Do your homework and find someone who will make sure you get the right bike and fit (and can prove it to you!). You should be able to walk out of a fitting session and KNOW that you were taken care of properly. If you don't know it then you need to keep looking for better help. -- The Bicycle Studio |
bikes are the simpler part of the equation. The Bicycle Studio started as purely a fit studio. Our founder, John Weirath, started performing medical bikes fits shortly after graduating from physical therapy school in 1997. Drawing on an extensive knowledge base in biomechanics and injury management and prevention, he was able to fix client's fit issues after they had to been to multiple shops for help, without success. In early 2007 we began to offer custom bicycle creation and we pride ourselves on working with only the most meticulous manufacturers |
| 2497 Power Rd, #4 Grand Junction, CO 81507 970-255-0055 |
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