Well, Simple...DH and I just got our bikes fitted last weekend. Wow!

I *knew* mine was way off. everything hurt all the time. DH's was too!

btw, in our town, there is no-one knowledgeable enough to fit a road bike. We hit 2 larger centers over a mini-vacation, and chose to go to the shop we could get to on a weekday instead of a weekend. We happened to know 2 road riders in that town, and asked where they would go. They both said the same guy at the same shop. We were not disappointed.

Here's some of the stuff we learned by getting someone who knows what they're doing to do it:
saddle height. we were both surprised that our saddles were way too high. the guy could tell because we were pointing our toes like pretty little ballerinas (and if you'd asked us, we'd both say we didn't do that!!).

saddle placement fore/aft. he did use a plumb bob to ensure the top of my tibia bone (the outside bone of the bottom of my leg where it meets my knee) was directly above the axle of my pedal. for DH he placed his knee 1cm behind the axle. He moved both of our saddles back.

Once that fit was done we moved to upper body. I can't remember precisely, and he was just eyeballing it, but the angle of arm to torso at the shoulder should be 90 degrees. and the angle at the hips should be 45 degrees....but that was different for women. he described how our lower center of gravity means we need to bend at the waist instead of at the hip flexors (I used to force myself to bend at the hips as I'd learned that's best in Yoga and stretching....one thing doesn't always translate....). I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact angle.

I needed to buy a new stem. mine was far too long!! Once he shortened the cockpit enough, all the pressure was off my hands, and it feels comfortable to ride in the hoods!!

I've only done one ride so far, but it was a good hour and it felt better than any 10 minute ride I'd had previously. Seriously, I felt like I'd had a workout, but not one body part felt sore!!

DH not only noticed the lack of soreness, but he is waay faster!! After 3 weeks of virtually no exercise and the corresponding loss of fitness, he did a standard route for him, hoping to come close to matching his previous best time of 58+ minutes. He did it in just over 55!! Now, that's results!!

The moral of my story is: get your bike fitted. Go with a friend who knows bikes really well, if you're worried about getting suckered into buying stuff you don't need. The thing is, you may need stuff and you may not want to wait for it! If you have to go out of town to get it fitted...do. The shop we went to is a 3 1/2 hour drive away! Ask your friends and fellow riders if they know anybody. You want to find someone who knows what they are doing!!

It's TOTALLY worth it!! Go for the perfect fit!!

Namaste,
~T~