Originally Posted by
urbanknight
Most airplanes (and almost all new ones) are purchased without a test flight.
To be fair, I can see why a newcomer to the sport would want to test ride a bike. Even an expert such as Roadwarrior can't tell how flexible a person is, and some recreational road riders like to ride upright and in the wind while others like to fold themselves in half for aerodynamics.
Interesting... I am not going to do the final setup. I am doing a frame fit and my recommendations to the customer will be based on the type of riding they want to do and their budget and finally their body dimensions. I explained this before...the thing that we can do that most others cannot is actually show them how we arrive at the size.
When we fit them, the bike's dial in settings (stem angle, seat position, shifter location, SRAM shifter adjustments, etc) we do, indeed check rider flexibility and factor that into the final setup. On a roadbike everyone comes in for that final tweaking and we have multiple sessions that the rider can choose, one of which is free to a new bike purchaser.