Well, I just looked at, like, the 4000th bike fitting picture/thread on slowtwitch. The professional ones do look smooth and comfortable, but having been through 2 bike fittings, albeit @ lesser but still professional places, here’s what I don’t get. It seems to me like your bike and your position on the bike should be a fluid and evolving process. So suppose you get set up on the ultimate bike for the ultimate flat race and then you do a hilly ride. Shouldn’t your position change for the hills, i.e less steep, probably less aero? Or, hopefully as the season evolves your flexiblilty improves and you can go lower without loss in power. But you’ve paid xxxx bucks and flown xxxx miles to the bike guru and you’re afraid to screw up the “perfect” fit. I also believe, I could be wrong, that a great fit might initially be uncomfortable and less powerful, because your muscle haven’t yet adapted to a new position. Am I wrong? Does the perfect fit exist and maybe I just haven’t experienced it?
Pat
Now this is a good question. I’d like to see an answer to this one. All I would say is that comfort should be a minimum on whatever you have…
I think there are a couple of layers of answers here…
First, a good fit on a bike should allow you some room to adapt to different terrain and riding conditions. A good position will allow you to stretch out and flatten a bit when possible, and also choke up and sit back when the rollers hit. If a choked up position is not good enough for the hills you face, then you need another bike (assuming the first bike was a TT bike)…meaning you need a road bike. Look at what Tom D. took to Nice last year: a Cervelo R2.5 with shorty clip ons, rather than a full on TT bike. Horses for courses.
Second…adaptability to a good fit…I don’t know about getting “more” flexible as the season evolves…you should be working flexibility year round…now, you may get more flexible over the first few years of your pursuit of the sport, or with a dedicated effort to gain flexibility…but if you’ve been doing this a while, with a modicum of flexibility work in your training, then you are already probably as flexible as you need to be to get a solid TT position. You WILL have to do some adaptation to a new position…more or less depending on how much changed from your previous position…but a position that starts out uncomfortable is unlikely to get much more comfortable just because you ride it for a while…
Guys like Tom D. and the other experienced fitters have done enough work to have a finely tuned sense of what is right for a particular rider. I don’t think you are going to come out of his shop with at fit that needs much, if any, adjustment over time. It was the same with the folks who fit me over the years. That, of course, assumes that you give them a good canvas to work with in the first place. In UK Gear Muncher’s case, the canvas was flawed to begin with…as it was painfully obvious that the basepoint…the frame…was not the best choice for him. I’m quite certain that Tom would and did not sell this fitting as the “perfect fit” to Bryce…rather, I’m sure Tom gave Bryce a laundry list of things he can do to get a solid fit…starting with some good frame choices.
The best fitters are not married to a particular fit formula as a one-size fits-all-riders solution. They have many tools in their kit bag and enough experience to know which way to go with a particular rider. Me, not so much. I can look at a photo like Triracer’s (aka now GuruBoy) and instantly know that he’s uncomfortable…and I can probably muck around a bit with suggestions…and get him better…I think many here could do the same…but optimal? that’s another matter entirely. The good guys, even if they don’t recognize it, probably totally deconstruct an initial position (if thats where they start…some prefer not to start there for obvious reasons), and start from scratch in their minds. That process probably takes about .2 seconds in Tom D’s case (I hate to keep using him as an example, but he is the best known fitter on this forum, outside of Slowman himself).
FWIW, I grew up in Champaign and Mahomet, and would be curious to know where you got fit. It might be worth a couple hours drive north to a well-known Chicago store if you want a really good tri/TT fit.
If there where not an ultimate positon then how are people supposed to write books and hold clinics? Just Look at the threads about Serrota daring to make a tri bike. A couple of decades of study of the human body still want let them know jack shit about what triathletes need according to some on here…Dan I am looking at you.
Nope I can confirm that what Tom did with me was to get the best fit possible using a frame that did not have the best dimensions for my build. I’ve become quite a good example in the last 7 days of what can be done by a qulaity fitter but also the pitfalls that go with purchasing the wrong frame due to not having all the information needed (In the Kuota’s case I selected it based on top tube length, rear chainstays, and looks but forgot the head tube height). Next time around i’ll know better but I may be more of an isolated incident because of my unusual physique. It seems from my search so far that virtually all stock frames may be a problem. I’m hoping that maybe Tom can identify something off the peg at some point so this project can be completed correctly. I’ll keep you all posted.
Something I’ll echo here though with variety is that I do swtich bikes depending on the race course. When i do the europeans later this year I’ll be using an ultralight Giant carbon TCR with shorties because of the course profile.
Bryce.
I think a lot of what you say makes sense. However, I would argue that the optimal fit for someone who is planning on racing short course would be different than for long course. So assuming that the same bike is still appropriate shouldn’t you understand your own fit and be able to tweak it yourself. (I think some people race different distances in a season.) And if you can do that, can’t you set yourself up?
I got fitted first @ a pretty wellknown shop near San Diego. That was for my tri bike and to be honest was pretty disappointed. It was certainly nothing like what Tom does with angles etc. The other fitting was for my road bike by a former pro racer. It was some eyeballing, angle measuring and I think a good fitting. I would be very interested in your recommendation near Chicago. PM?
Pat
I like TriBriGuy’s answer very much.