After multiple people recommended the place, I made an appointment to
get my bike fit to me with Sports Garage in Boulder. I'd never
considered it for bike stuff before because the name sounded so generic,
like Gart's or something -- what a mistake! If I'd come to Sports
Garage first, I might have ended up with ... well, whatever. Can't
change the past. It just "feels" like a real bike shop and not just a
place to sell stuff (that happens to be bikes).
So, anyway, this was a full-up three hour fitting. They have an
espresso machine for optional before and after noshing, and poweraid and
water for during. I opted to avoid the caffeine hit till after the
workout. We went through a ton of lifestyle, activities, and injury
questions, then took bunches of measurements. They have this nifty
stationary bike that adjusts, so he made it like my bike, then had me
pedal.
So this was interesting. I'm not sure whether we spent more time
adjusting the bike or adjusting me. We worked on proper pedalling
technique and on keeping my back properly aligned rather than hunching
my shoulders. In between working on this, Tim would tweak a setting
here, measure an angle there. It was basically a video game -- a big
tv screen where I could monitor my RPMs, wattage, and some score that
apparently indicated my pedalling efficiency. There was a lot of sweat
involved.
The upshot: a new seatpost with the fastner centered rather than
rearward, as well as the saddle being positioned farther up, and an 80mm
stem rather than the 120 or so I had before. Funny; he made my cockpit
shorter, which seems like the opposite of what I wanted. But when I'm
not hunching my shoulders, it feels really comfortable. And for those
of you bontrager anti-fans out there, this is two fewer bonti pieces on
my bike.
Anyway, can't wait to try it out and see what I think.
My only problem is the espresso ... I'm not used to caffeine anymore,
and now I can't get to sleep! Actually, my brain's kind of asleep, so
my fingers are typing this of their own accord -- hope this doesn't end
up *too* disjointed.
--
monique