To qoute you " $300 is a pretty stupid amount of money to pay to have someone tell you what is comfortable sitting on a bike. "

Well if you believe choosing a bike by being comfortable sitting on it........................Then have at your purchase of a few thousand. Please post here later on how that works out for ya

I would go with Joe and Plan A, no doubt the most economical, unless you just buy a good used bike that also fits you. I tend to agree that the bike fit biz may be a bit of a scam, but we are treading in thin ice here since our sponsor is the the "father of modern bike fitting", so to speak. We could be banned for questioning part of the theology of ST:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Well they had bike fits before they had $300 guru fits, right? You sit on a sample bike, measure the width of your shoulders, measure the height of your inseam... that gets you kinda sorta close, and then you tweak until you like it.

A bike fit changes as you get used to a bike anyway, so even if you got a perfect fit for $300, is it really the right fit in 6 months?

You're complaining that the store is giving you a 300 dollar bike fit for free? Ok then....

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Its not free. If the bike is $1000 more than the cost I could get the bike at another store (or even the SAME store if I didn't get the fit), it is a $1000 bike fit.

I completely agree. Unless you have physical issues that require specific attention which you cannot work out in any other way, then it sounds completely ridiculous to me.

Then pay for the fit and negotiate the price of the bike separately. They are 2 different services/ transactions.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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There is always the "pull the top tube up 2" and if it touches your crotch, you are good" fit. I think it is worse to spend a lot of money on a bike that doesn't fit. $300 sounds like a bit of exaggeration, except maybe for a full hands on setup.

Well, if most frames can be made to fit most people, the pull up to 2" trick would work. If frames are fairly different (which seems more accurate), it seems a pretty basic set of tape measure measurements could tell you "Dude, you are all torso, a Felt B series is total crap for you". $300 machine is not needed.

(and I am not making up the $300, thats LBS rate)

Maybe it's expensive, but where is the "scam" part?

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The people from fitkit have a quick fit, measure crotch, measure torso and arms, use a slide chart and it gets you in the neighborhood. Then you refine once you have the actual bike. It sort of addresses what you are talking about.

Not sure how adaptable that system is for the current crop of tri bikes.

I don't think you understand how to type

I would pay the $300 and then shop around. Fit is not a scam so long as you're working with a good fitter on a good system AND you take full advantage of it. Last year I got on a Trek fit bike and experimented with crank lengths. That alone was worth $300 to me as crank length isn't exactly easy to play with at home. Seeing my fit on video helped me see that my right knee was flaring out at the top of my pedal stroke to compensate for cranks that were too long for my body position.

The problem: how do you know you have a "good fitter?" For 300 bucks, I want a really good fitter.

Plan C) Do plan A. Then realized the bike you bought because it matched your kit and athlete X rode it to a fast bike split in Ironman Outer Mongolia is the wrong size or geometry for you. Get mad at the bike shop for selling it to you. Sell it on ST for 50% retail. Spend $1500 with your PT for injury relating to the wrong bike. Go online and buy because they have fit coordinates, but find it doesn't match your style and is not a good match for your terrain and racing. Head to a real, true professional shop and spend the $300, but have that shop find you all the bikes that will work, whether they carry them or not. Buy the right bike at the fair market value, get fit properly, then wish you'd this in the first place 6 months and $15,000 ago.

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Brian Grasky
Grasky Endurance: World Championship Triathlon Coaching; Professional Training Camps
RETUL fitter, Biomechanist, USAT Level 3 Coach, USAC Level 2 Coach

yeah, i think that's a relic of the days of horizontal top tubes.
among myriad other issues.

turns out there are triathlons in Mongolia, though not ironman distance and, judging by the pic, not exactly the land of the Super Bikes.
http://astc.triathlon.org/...article/mongolia2014

Still, I'd stick with the trail racing there. This one looks pretty cool: http://www.actionasiaevents.com/...-ultra/overview.html

Here are the two ways to get a bike:

Plan A) I am Joe and I want bike X. Call 7 bike stores, see who will give the best price. I did this with my road bike, and found an awesome store and got an awesome fit, while paying 20% under retail.

Plan B) I am Bob, and go into a bike store. I can get a custom fit on a Guru machine. The fit cost $300 OR free with purchase of bike. So I go on machine, find out I can fit on bikes X, Y, or Z. How can I negotiate with the store? I want $100 off retail? Nope, we already have you suckered in with the fit cost. So then I pay $300, and go back to plan A, except $300 poorer.

Of course a good bike fit is important. But I hate how it is kind of scamishly incorporated into the bike purchase program. $300 is a pretty stupid amount of money to pay to have someone tell you what is comfortable sitting on a bike.

Crazy? Suck it up and spend the extra $500-$1000 to buy a bike at full retail? Pay the $300 for a fit and then shop around?


"Scam?"...... It's not a scam,.... It's a choice. YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM...(sorry to disappoint you). You articulated this very point. If you don't like the "combo deal" (fit included with the bike purchase), then shell out the 3 Benjamins for the fit, then knock yourself out shopping around online. Just don't complain when you don't get the same customer service, and often the included tune-ups and relationship you get when you buy "the scam deal" from your LBS. No one "suckered" you....and nothing precludes you from "negotiating" the price after the fit. Be a big boy, stop being a victim and make a choice...... Just don't expect to "have your cake and eat it too"...or, maybe you didn't learn that lesson in kindergarten...

I don't see an issue with using either option that you've presented. If you don't want to pay extra for the fit, then use Plan A and negotiate a lower price with the fit excluded.

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Nanoo Nanoo

I would argue that the vast majority of people don't NEED a comprehensive bike fit. if you've been riding for any significant amount of time and have done some homework it is relatively easy to walk into a bike store and be able to pick out what bike size you need from a geometry chart. lots of people who maybe ride once or twice a month- well they don't need a bike fit either. a bike fit for such a person would be a waste of money, because in most cases they simply don't put in the hours necessary to gain any useful functional adaptations to a bike fit. - i.e., if you ride once a month, and complain that you feel uncomfortable on the bike, I would wager majority of the time it's simply your bike fitness that is the major factor in your discomfort rather than any positional problems.

However, if you are SERIOUS about bike racing/triathlon/TT, have invested significant time/effort into bike training, and want to squeeze every possible drop out of performance and injury avoidance, then yes a bike fit WITH A GOOD FITTER is worth it's weight in gold. even then, you don't have to get fit with every bike you buy- once you know your stack/fit numbers, any preferences/abnormalities you have, buying your own equipment becomes easy. maybe visit your fitter for a tune up once every 3-5 years after that ( barring any serious injuries/biomechanical changes) and it's more than sufficient. If I were spending serious money on a new bike I would pay a trip to my fitter though.

if you amortise the cost of a $300 bike fit over say, 3 years, thats 100 dollars a year. assuming you ride say 100 times a year, then thats a dollar every time you go out and ride pain free and feeling good and powerful on the bike. Worth it? well thats up to you.

I suppose you can say it's gimmicky if a shop pushes a bike fit with every bike sale, but then it's your duty as a consumer to be well informed of your own needs as well. if you do your homework, no bike salesman is going to be able to con you into that. I wouldn't go into a bike shop that tried such hard sell tactics. It's a problem of the shop rather than the fit philosophy

First bike, probably pay near retail and get the fit. Getting that $100 discount may not be worth it. After your first bike and some time you'll know what you'll need.

Personally I would never pay for a bike fit if purchasing a bike from a shop. It should be included, now if I didn't purchase a bike then the shop would be justified in charging for their service at an agreed upon price beforehand.

jaretj

So don't get one.

Shop around and find a bike you like at a price you like and buy it.

Just because YOU don't understand something doesn't mean it's not right for other people.