You're right on target IMHO. One of the places I learned the most about bike fit (process) was at Taco Bell when I managed store 867 here in Dearbonr during college. PepsiCo had developed a process for everything: Making a taco, suggestive selling, closing the store. It was processed based. We developed a process her in our store for selling bicycles and for fitting them Whe we stay within the process everything seems to work fairly well. As soon as we go outside our process it all goes to hell. We recently sold a bike to a woman who lives in taiwan. She made a special trip to our store for the fitting and for the delivery. She also needed some race wheels. Her bike was here on time but as often happens her wheels were late. There is a provision in our sales process for things showing up late (we call the customer and reschedule) but not when we're trying to service a customer from Taiwan. We thought "What the heck, we'll go the extra mile and ship her the wheels in Taiwan at no charge". Well, you know the saying "no good deed goes unpunished..." You guessed it- one wheel shoed up, the other hasn't. Becasue of customs restrictions and other logistical problems the only way we could get the wheels there was USPS. There is no provision for tracking the missing wheel. Bottom line- we went out of process and it bit us. She justifiably dissatisfied and I'm not sure what to do- we didn't loose the darn wheel. In the future I do know what to do: Never go outside of process. It's here for a reason. To protect the consumer. FIST is an example of a process. I look forward to incorporating it into our existing techniques.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

this is something that is very simple to do, but I do not see very many fitters using it. When I do a bike fitting, we take a lot of digital pictures of the rider on the Computrainer and then transfer those pictures to the simple Windows Paint program. From there you can draw lines to measure angles on the body etc. Very helpful. If you'd like to see an example, e-mail me off line.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

Your position when just sitting on or even pedaling a trainer is often different than when under the stress of racing. Static or posed photos can be helpful, no question, but nothing beats good pics taken in competition.

that is very true. Another is that just using lines on the picture and making recommedations on that does not really take into consideration a persons age, flexibility etc, the person doing the fitting needs to ask all of these type of questions and look at these issues before making recommendations on fit.

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Mike Plumb, TriPower MultiSports
Professional Running, Cycling and Multisport Coaching, F.I.S.T. Certified
http://www.tripower.org

I won't give the ending away and leave that to Dan, but I have to tell you that I think stack and reach will revolutionize the way bikes are defined. We've been using it for a few years (under a different name), but we have never taken full advantage of it, it was just there for customers with very specific needs (comparing their current bike with a Cervelo). But using it withthe initial bike fit opens up a host of new options. The bikes may not necessarily change, but they will be measured differently, and I think the result will be more people will end up on the right size. And that should be very exciting for most people, just not for Ebay.

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Gerard Vroomen
3T.bike
OPEN cycle

I'll third or fourth this motion that "stack and reach" makes sense. Its extremely intuitive, if one thinks logically about bike fit. Leave it to Dan to put a name to something we've all been scratching about with. The old systems just don't work well with things like tri geometry and sloping top tubes, unless of course the fitter REALLY knows what he/she is doing, in which case they are probably using some variation on the "stack and reach" approach anyway.