Who are the best bike fitters in Chicago area?
For Tri:
The Bike Shop Glen Ellyn. Rich is very good and Chris is FIST certified
Get A Grip in Chicago. Adam is Serrotta Certified and Kevin is FIST certified
For Road: The above and Higher Gear, Pony Shop and Turin are all qualified to help you.
a lot of people i know use Adam and Kevin at Get a Grip and have been really happy. the Chicago Tri Club recommends them too.
I’ve had great success with Bill at MissionBay Multisport.
-Colin
Props to Bill at Mission Bay.
Another vote for Rich Ducar. He is worth the drive.
I agree w/Eddy. Rich Ducar or Adam Kaplan are top notch.
Adam at Get a Grip is the man. He set me up really well and has been fine with making a couple tweaks after the fact for no charge. Plus, you get a discount through the Chicago Tri Club. That’s money really well spent.
Mission Bay! When I was in San Diego, the great tri shops recommended them as well. Bill has helped me out immensely through the years, and really cuts through the crap to get it done. Once an aftermarket crank broke while training in San Diego, and he went to the manufacturer who wouldn’t do squat. So, in his usual manner he got in touch with Craig at Nytro and had him put on what I needed, at his expense, and I never missed a day riding! Needless to say, it was not the same manufacturer. I just had him redo my bike, and it’s the only place I’ll go. Also, Inside Tri just named them in the top 15 shops in the country. I’m a customer for years and years, and they just keep getting better!
I’ve been to Mission Bay (Randolph st.) and Get a Grip. Both do a good job, but it’s comparing apples to oranges in my opinion. Get a grip you have to make an appointment or at least you did when I did it last year at this time. Mission bay you don’t, so the amount of time they spend w/ you might be limited based on how many other people are in the shop needing attention. That being said I’m sure both will stand by any fit they do, so if you go to one or the other and needed adjusting later it shouldn’t be a problem.
FWIW Adam has spent a lot of money recently (or I’ve heard he has) to get his fit setup more technical, so he can measure power output and dial in your fit based on what the computrainer tells you. To get that service will cost about 175 bucks (I think it is now). At mission bay you get a good fit using FIST techniques it will cost you 40 bucks, or at least that’s what it used to cost last I looked.
It depends on what you’re looking for in a fit and want to pay. Like I said both do a great job, one for a little less money w/ less technical approach. One with a very technical approach for nearly 5x as much.
Beware if you go to Get a Grip because Adam will try to convince you that you need a custom fit bike.
Someone that I’ve been very pleased with as well as others I’ve referred, is Brett (tricoach2003@yahoo.com). He has a set up on the computrainer just like Adam but after being fit by Adam last year and Brett this year (since I got a new bike) Brett is incredibly more knowledgeable about how the body works and what affects changes in positions have in relation to power output vs aerodynamics.
Just my $0.02.
In my case he didn’t try to convince me that I needed to buy a custom fit bike, and did say that I got the right bike for my size. But I went in there w/ a P2K and I don’t know that any custom fit bike they sell is really in the TT category. But I don’t know that much about Serrotta, Waterford etc.
Good qualities about a lot of places, and it’s good that we have a choice of places to go to keep the good ones honest and move the bad ones out.