After reading several posts about fit being more important than the price of a bike I decided to call a LBS and head over for a fit. I live in Manhattan but my parents are up in Westchester so I headed over to Bicycle World in Mt. Kisco. Eric, the owner, took one look at my seat position and asked me how much my quads burned during a ride - he laughed at my response. Needlesstosay my seat was way too low and my position was far too recreational for the type of riding I’ve been doing - I bought my bike 3 years ago and had never had a proper fit. After Eric switched my seat angle to 74.5 degrees, slapped on a pair of shorty bars and fixed my shifter I was able to average 5 mph faster than my normal ride on 9W. My climbing was greatly improved as I averaged over 10 mph on some of the steep hills coming back into the city from Nyack and on flats I was able to maintain speeds above 22 mph. This is my long winded way of saying thanks to all the slowtwitchers who convinced me that fit is so much more important than anything else - now I feel condient that by December I’ll have a much better idea of what I need in a new bike than I would have had I not dumped a couple hundred bucks into my old Allez.
Also, I can’t recommend Bicycle World enough if you’re in the Westchester area. The only other time I’ve received this level of service from any store is when I go to my custom tailor for a new suit. One of Eric’s first questions was how a “power athlete got into triathlons,” when I told him that I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes on April 2nd and I wanted to provide a positive example for people with chronic illnesses he shared in my enthusiasm and asked me all sorts of questions about my insulin pump. Really just an A+ operation and I’ll without question be heading back there for my new bike come December (looking at the Guru Trilite and Felt B2 right now).
Thanks again slowtwtichers!