Fitting criteria
 

Hello All,

My wife and I just got our first road bikes from two different LBS. Both shops said a professional fitting is included. Her shop said they had a person who was certified to do a "professional fitting" and had all the equipment (cameras, the computer software, tools, etc.) When she went, the guy put the bike on the trainer and had her pedal for about a minute, then he measured her knee angle and made a saddle height adjustment. Once he was satisfied with the knee angle, he basically said that's it. Never used the cameras, computer or anything else. Is that what qualifies as a professional fit from the LBS? Seems like there should be more to it, like the reach to the bars.

When I get mine fitted at a different shop, what measurements or criteria should they address besides height? Is it unreasonable to expect more from them? Just wondering if it's even worth my time if that's all they do.

As a former shop owner this is a tough situation. Most shops will offer a "free fit" if you buy the bike from them, but it's the "free alignment when you buy tires" kind of thing. It probably won't be comprehensive, unless you're buying a bike that has the kind of gross margin needed to cover a 2-4 hour long fit session. If they did that for every bike on the floor it wouldn't be good for them.

On the other hand knee angle is only one aspect of fit. Reach, as you pointed out, is important as well. My expectation of a reasonable shop is that they do a very rough reach type check. If you need to get a different stem it might be a take-off from another bike or you may need to pay a reduced amount for a stem.

An experienced fitter will get 90-95% of the fit just by eyeballing the rider on the bike, at least that's what I found. There are minor things that are hard to eyeball, like cleat position on clipless pedals, but saddle height and bar reach should be pretty instinctive for an experienced fitter.

Finally keep in mind that fit is relative to rider fitness. As you ride more and more you'll develop those muscles that allow you to hold what is usually considered to be a more aggressive position. Remember that pros, for all the "racing" that they have to do, ride their bikes more than most of us, in the 20k miles a year range. If they weren't comfortable they wouldn't use their position. As radical or extreme as their positions might seem they're acclimated to them and in fact I bet that if you made some arbitrary changes to their position to make them "more comfortable" (lower saddle, reduced reach, increased height) they'd be both upset as well as less comfortable.

This means that your "fit" right now may not be applicable in a few months. A good example of this is a friend and teammate of mine. He got the full blown professional fit at a shop. He was, at the time, a relatively new rider/racer. After a couple years he asked me for feedback on his position. I recommended radically changing his position, which he did a bit hesitantly. After the fit he won three midweek races (he'd never won them before) and he placed 3rd in a season long target race. Since his fitness didn't change between one Tuesday and another it was really down to the fit. It enabled him to put more power to the pedals, be more aero, and yet still be very comfortable if not more so.

Your wife got pretty much the basic fit all bike shops offer. It was very misleading for the sales guy to tell you that they were going to do the "professional fit" with the cameras, pc, etc. when that was really not the case whatsoever. If anything I would bring it up to the shop owner.

Finally got around to my fitting today. What a difference between the two shops! Spent nearly two hours there answering a bunch of questions about intended use/goals, any problems, taking body measurements, checking flexibility, aligning the shoes, and adjusting the touch points on the bike. In the end, it was a far better experience than what my wife had. I'm confident my bike came from the right shop and it's going to be a much better ride now.

Thanks to both of you for responding. carpediemracing, it was helpful to hear about the process from a former shop owner on what could reasonably be expected. I don't know what the profit margin is on a $1,900 bike, but that may have made the difference. My wife's bike was roughly half the price. Even so, I left my shop feeling like it was excellent service while my wife got cheated. Now that I have something to compare it to, I probably will bring up the salesman's "pitch" as gus6464 suggested. After all, it's the third bike I've bought from that particular shop.

In my opinion, a proper fit should check saddle height & fore aft, knee extension and left/right angle, cleat position & angle, arm and back angles for reach. To a large extent, cleat adjustment is one of the most critical because its difficult to set properly at home.

Nothing in that list requires anything beyond maybe some basic tools. If you expect a sophisticated video/computer fit, that's a different ball-park.

In addition, you don't necessarily want to do a full fit immediately. The best fit will be after a few hours of riding to provide some preliminary feedback.

I've gone through everything with a "fit." I purchased a cyclocross bike and the fitting consists of changing the stem. At the other end, I've had one of the best fittings from anywhere in the country. If you don't buy a bike from them, the fit is $350 and takes 3-4 hours.

The quality of the fit depends more on the skill and judgement of the the person doing it than the equipment used. My wife bought a high end bike and got fit by the store owner using eyeball, tape measure and finally by watching her ride around the parking lot. She later got a $300 Retul fit with 3D motion capture and all the bells and whistles. All the metrics fell right in line with the norms and they didn't change a thing.