I personally don’t think professional fits are important for amateur riders like me. Seat is right. I hate clipless and clips, stack height can go up or down. Reach feels fine. If you’re a pro and you can shave off 10 seconds on your 200 mile race by getting a fit, then it’s probably worth it.
The kind of “free fit” you get when you buy a bike is no better than what you can do on your own. Adjust the saddle, maybe replace the stem.
[deleted] on
What kind of distances are you riding?
irnmntn on
Hey for what it’s worth man please do the fit if it’s from a good fitter. After waiting until later in my cycling career to get one I will now never ride a bike that wasn’t fitted. You do it once and get the stack and reach measurements and bam you can do yourself going forward. You will enjoy cycling so much more with a good fit I promise you.
[deleted] on
[deleted]
[deleted] on
$200 sounds low for a *good* bike fit. A bad bike fit is a complete waste of money and time, even if it’s free.
I’ve paid more than that for one (it was okay) and gotten a couple with bike purchases (definitely not happy with them).
I think the reason that the paid fit was just okay was that I was dealing with an injury that kind of snuck up on me…I hadn’t realized how bad it was then. At the time, it felt great. But, a lot of it was just wrong after I got better because he did things to the fit to compensate for temporary problems with my body.
One of the benefits of a good bike fit is that they’ll have a jig that makes it easy to try/compare changes and drawers/closets full of at least contact points that make it easy to try out gear without having to purchase it because you might like it.
Frankly….I’d *gladly* pay $200+ for a couple hours with a closet full of saddles, stems, and bars, some cameras/screens, and a bike fitting jig even without the expert advice.
The downside of bike fits is that it’s largely dependent on how good the person is at doing it…and I’m not aware of a really good way to tell the experts from the charlatans other than to try one and see what happens. There are a lot of videos on YT about them….and there are some so-called bike fitters that do things that I know absolutely would not work for me. I hesitate to say they’re completely incompetent just because I know bodies can be very different and they just might not be talking about all the things that lead to their decisions.
A couple simple litmus tests….
Most of the saddle-measuring pad things are a waste of time. You generally sit on them like a chair, and you don’t sit on the bike like a chair. They don’t actually measure the part of your pelvis that matters. If they measure/map pressure when you’re on a jig in riding position…that’s probably worthwhile.
“Knee over pedal spindle”/KOPS and a lot of other widely-repeated phrases are based on absolutely nothing. They’re not rules, and anyone who treats them as rules is wrong. Case in point, look at the same pro rider on their normal bike and their TT bike. Those relationships aren’t the same even for the same person.
Cleats directly under the ball of your foot are inefficient and painful. If a fitter does that, I’d immediately get my money back and leave.
It is absolutely possible to figure it out yourself. It’ll just take longer, especially if you happen to listen to good sounding bad advice. And you might just not think of things to try that would make a difference. And you’ll probably wind up constantly flipping gear just to see what difference it makes…or with a box of spare parts that you hate but that aren’t worth selling.
rotscale_ on
I spent $400 on my fit in NYC
couiecoupe on
Listen nobody can tell you how to spend your money. Bike fitters aren’t exactly a “repeat customer” business nor is it the most exciting or sought after career. With that being said, you might as well do a bit of research on your options with fitters because unless you are between the age of days old to 25 years you’re probably not growing any more physically so might as well buy once cry once and spend the dollars on it if it’s something that you believe will benefit you for the long haul
8 Comments
[deleted]
I personally don’t think professional fits are important for amateur riders like me. Seat is right. I hate clipless and clips, stack height can go up or down. Reach feels fine. If you’re a pro and you can shave off 10 seconds on your 200 mile race by getting a fit, then it’s probably worth it.
The kind of “free fit” you get when you buy a bike is no better than what you can do on your own. Adjust the saddle, maybe replace the stem.
What kind of distances are you riding?
Hey for what it’s worth man please do the fit if it’s from a good fitter. After waiting until later in my cycling career to get one I will now never ride a bike that wasn’t fitted. You do it once and get the stack and reach measurements and bam you can do yourself going forward. You will enjoy cycling so much more with a good fit I promise you.
[deleted]
$200 sounds low for a *good* bike fit. A bad bike fit is a complete waste of money and time, even if it’s free.
I’ve paid more than that for one (it was okay) and gotten a couple with bike purchases (definitely not happy with them).
I think the reason that the paid fit was just okay was that I was dealing with an injury that kind of snuck up on me…I hadn’t realized how bad it was then. At the time, it felt great. But, a lot of it was just wrong after I got better because he did things to the fit to compensate for temporary problems with my body.
One of the benefits of a good bike fit is that they’ll have a jig that makes it easy to try/compare changes and drawers/closets full of at least contact points that make it easy to try out gear without having to purchase it because you might like it.
Frankly….I’d *gladly* pay $200+ for a couple hours with a closet full of saddles, stems, and bars, some cameras/screens, and a bike fitting jig even without the expert advice.
The downside of bike fits is that it’s largely dependent on how good the person is at doing it…and I’m not aware of a really good way to tell the experts from the charlatans other than to try one and see what happens. There are a lot of videos on YT about them….and there are some so-called bike fitters that do things that I know absolutely would not work for me. I hesitate to say they’re completely incompetent just because I know bodies can be very different and they just might not be talking about all the things that lead to their decisions.
A couple simple litmus tests….
Most of the saddle-measuring pad things are a waste of time. You generally sit on them like a chair, and you don’t sit on the bike like a chair. They don’t actually measure the part of your pelvis that matters. If they measure/map pressure when you’re on a jig in riding position…that’s probably worthwhile.
“Knee over pedal spindle”/KOPS and a lot of other widely-repeated phrases are based on absolutely nothing. They’re not rules, and anyone who treats them as rules is wrong. Case in point, look at the same pro rider on their normal bike and their TT bike. Those relationships aren’t the same even for the same person.
Cleats directly under the ball of your foot are inefficient and painful. If a fitter does that, I’d immediately get my money back and leave.
It is absolutely possible to figure it out yourself. It’ll just take longer, especially if you happen to listen to good sounding bad advice. And you might just not think of things to try that would make a difference. And you’ll probably wind up constantly flipping gear just to see what difference it makes…or with a box of spare parts that you hate but that aren’t worth selling.
I spent $400 on my fit in NYC
Listen nobody can tell you how to spend your money. Bike fitters aren’t exactly a “repeat customer” business nor is it the most exciting or sought after career. With that being said, you might as well do a bit of research on your options with fitters because unless you are between the age of days old to 25 years you’re probably not growing any more physically so might as well buy once cry once and spend the dollars on it if it’s something that you believe will benefit you for the long haul