“Express Fits” at Slowtwitch Road Shows

March 20, 2017

No flowers. No Dinner. Just the deed. That's an Express Fit in my parlance. It requires fairly significant tooling and that's why Slowtwitch Road Shows only take place at independent bike retailers who're equipped with a conforming fit studio.

An Express Fit takes about a half-hour. During both Slowtwitch Road Shows at Trishop in Plano, Texas (Saturday past) and Moment Bicycle (Sunday) I used a GURU fit bike and I had a helper to speed things up. It was a bit like playing speed chess, which isn't one's best chess but a lot of it depends on whether you're a good chess player.

Below are a few examples. Let's start with a fellow who owns a Quintana Roo PR6. His bike fit him well. I thought his saddle was a bit low and in his case he might've been riding a slight bit too forward which I don't see often but I do from time to time. In about 45 minutes we had him positioned (below) with a nice set of fit coordinates that mostly required the saddle to be given in a different place in space. Then he and I went out in the parking lot and he rode the bike, he felt good, it looked good, done.

What I always find a challenge are riders with very long legs relative to his or her height. Go measure your bike's saddle height, from the bottom bracket to the top of the saddle, midway between tip and tail. This fellow's saddle height measured 83cm. That's not unusual, if the rider is 6'3" or 6'4". This rider is 5'10 1/2". You'll see some rocking in his hips here, but this video wasn't the finished product. His long legs mean long arms too and in this video he has a whopping 20cm of armrest elevation drop. I raised the armrests 2cm and that got rid of the rocking in his hips and I think he'll be a lot more comfortable. Then we prescribed the bikes that would ideally fit his position.

This was my favorite fit of the weekend because a year ago this man weighed 300 pounds. This is a much "racier" position than he rode in on because I felt his current morphology demanded more of a performance position. He's got a Cervelo P3 which will accommodate this position nicely. I'll keep track of his progress and I hope he won't find this position too much of a challenge.

This man below has a big Ironman coming up in a few months and needed a new tri bike. Here is the position we ended up with, and this perfectly fit a Felt IA in a size 56cm. Part of a fitter's job is translating fit coordinates (Pad X and Y for example) into a "complete bike solution" (what size bike and what front end config exactly matches the position). He walked out of the shop with his new IA, which was purchased, built, put on a trainer, with its new owner hopping aboard to make sure the actual bike felt just like the position on the fit bike.

I think I fit about a dozen, maybe 15 people over the weekend. I don't charge for Express Fits (and you get what you pay for!) I'll be doing these in San Francisco this Saturday, Rocklin, California on Sunday, then the following week in Washington DC, and then starting back up again in May with a pair of Road Shows just north of NYC (Stamford, CT) and just south (Jersey Shore).