DON’T BRING THESE TO A BIKE FIT

I sat down with Dan at UK Bike Fit to discuss his most hated things as a professional bike fitter..

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Five most hated things in life. I guess we’re doing bike stuff, right? So, my first most hated thing in bike fitting world is definitely proprietary components or bikes that have to have proprietary components. So, things like seat posts, stems, bars that you can only use with that one specific bike. It just limits the amount of choice that the customer has. So if you want to change something either whether it’s to do with bike fit or whether it’s just something you want to upgrade on your bike, you only have the choice of the stems or the seat posts or the bars that the brand of bike provides rather than just having a free choice and choose whatever you want to put on your own bike. You know, they’ll say, “Oh yeah, it’s because this fits perfectly with this.” But actually, it’s probably just want to make some more money. So secondly, which probably links to that is direct to consumer brands. The direct to consumer model of buying a bike, I think, is really outdated now in the sense that you’re going to get what you’re given. So, you get no choice, no customization. You are told what crank length is going to come on your whatever size frame. You’re told what stem length, what bar width, you’re told what saddle you’re going to get with it. The future of buying bikes is definitely a world in which you buy a frame set and then you choose every single component that you want on that bike. So that when you receive that bike for the first time, it’s got everything that you want on it rather than having to be dictated to by the brand that that is just what it comes with and that’s the price. And if you want to change something, you have to buy it afterwards and swap it out and spend all that time and extra money doing that. The more brands that get on board with selling frame sets and selling frame sets with different wheels and different components that you can put on the bike, the better. So, what we were seeing loads was people like buying bikes direct to consumer or at least through a shop, but it was coming with everything that came with and no customization. So, we did set up our own workshop that now we sort of specialize in bespoke and custom builds. So, we can access a load of different frames, a load of different brands and build up a bike for a customer, whether they’ve had a bike fit or not. we can build up a bike that has the exact spec of what they want on the bike. So, it’s perfectly designed to them rather than just what’s in the in the catalog if catalog still existed. The third one is and only only bike fitters and mechanics and maybe some riders out there will know about this, but smelly bikes when you remove the bar tape and it’s normally like indoor bikes where they’ve been on the turbo all winter. You don’t change the bar tape, you don’t wash your bike, and it just all that sweat that drips onto your bars just seeps in and goes really crusty. And as soon as you remove the bar tape, you get this stench of like 6-month-old sweat. And normally the bars are starting to corrode cuz all of the sweat has started to actually corrode the metal. And it is the grimmst smell in the world. Worse than dead bodies. Can that stay in? Use a towel. Use a towel when you’re riding indoors. and clean your bike. Just because it’s indoors does not mean that your bike does not need to be cleaned. Dirty bikes should just be number four as well. Just dirt dirty bikes in general. Number four, cleat and specifically worn cleats. Worn cleat can be the culprit of so many problems, comfort and performance. And it’s such an easy problem to solve. Just replace your cleat. Uh I think most of the time people just don’t check. like you just don’t look under your shoe and you only realize that they’re worn until you can’t clip in or out and by then you should probably clean replace them about 3 years ago. It’s not an expensive thing. It causes massive problems if they are worn. So, and it’s such an easy problem to solve. So, just change your cleats regularly and your life will be better. Fifth most hated thing, elitism in cycling. I think everyone can get on board with that. I I think that it’s better than it used to be. Like I think a lot of the the traditional cyclists who have been around the game a long time, like there was that stage where it was really common just to be like, you know, you’ve got to wear this, you’ve got to wear that. The the what’s it called? Voluminati. Illuminati. Illuminati rules. Illuminati rules. All of that sort of stuff. I know that was written as a bit of a joke, but actually it was a bit of a joke on what used to be thought of as the the thing to follow. But there’s still a lot of that about you’ve got to wear this kit, it’s got to be this color, you’ve got if you’re wearing that color shoes, you’ve got to wear these color socks. And if you got this bike brand, you’ve got to wear have that brand of wheel and whatever. Who cares? Just ride your bike. Have fun. Thanks for watching this video. Bye.