Bike Fit Etiquette

[Kathi]

You brought them ice cream?!?!? Well crap, I've been out-done. Gotta raise the stakes a bit then....hummm...what is better than ice cream....

All the way from Lakewood in a cooler. I was wrong, it's sold in pints not quarts. It was Graeter's ice cream available at King Sooper (Kroger) but don't know if it's carried in the Boulder store. Sometimes you get huge chips of chocolate. I took them mocha chocolate chip.

Like I said, they're worth gallons!

[MartianDestiny]

All the way from Lakewood in a cooler. I was wrong, it's sold in pints not quarts. It was Graeter's ice cream available at King Sooper (Kroger) but don't know if it's carried in the Boulder store. Sometimes you get huge chips of chocolate. I took them mocha chocolate chip.

Like I said, they're worth gallons!

Swimming pools is more like it. Well now I definitely have to bake. I've been feeling guilty about not feeding them recently and now you've made me feel really guilty

[Kathi]

:d

[owlgirl]

I took them some Stella, and got some big smiles. They do their fits after closing and they were already drinking when I got there!

Anyhow, for anyone who wants to geek out on fitting stuff, my fitter said I was the first person who'd ever come back (?!?!?). I thought that was really crazy-but people around here call him the bike whisperer, and I know he's fixed some big problems for people. My problem was a little more subtle starting out, and I don't think there were any big glaring fit errors for him to fix the first time. The first time he didn't do any measuring but this time he did, and my R femur is longer (this is the leg that my knee always gets messed up on) so we moved my cleat back some so that leg isn't getting forced into an awkward position. I still feel like my seat is quite high but it was probably way too low before so it'll take some getting used to. Also my knee is angry so I'm not going to ride until it feels a little better but I don't want to make it worse. I have specialized BG shoes, with two shims in them and my knees still collapse so we added a third (4.5˚ correction total!!! geez) so we'll see how it all works out. I am supposed to call him if it's not working. He said the next step is to run my looks with red cleats instead of gray, and after that speedplays.

thanks again everyone! If I have to go again i'll be taking some baked goods. OH! and if you live near a Ben and Jerry's, today is free ice cream day!!!!

[Miranda]

The goodies are nice light humor to read here, but uh your hard earned $$$ you paid for a service is more than enough for a professional.

Sorry, tainted seething b*tch about lbs near me, been scr*wed over a lot. And AFTER I took goodies and kissed azz... for what? My money paid for a service and biz keeps your doors open... so you should be kissing my azz in America the country of capitalism. *sigh* much mo better now... rant over.

After 5 hours round trip, I have my guy now that sold me my current bike. Worth it.

OK... here's my puzzle... uh, how did your leg become uneven from one bike to the next bike? Too many one legged drills on that side, or what? Part joke, part... is that the only reason why things are off... do they really know?

Do you remotely know where your old fit guy went to? Can you call him at the other shop for advice?

Hopefully the guy you paid will work out your fit. I need a handelbar tweek now w/swap out crash parts, and once you go from "my bike is perfect, disappears underneath me" to "omg, this pain sux"... there is no going back.

I'm sorry you hurt. Hope the knee is better soon.

[MartianDestiny]

SHEESH! I don't think anyone implied you should have to "bribe" them with treats or that they should be anything but professional regardless. There was also no indication this guy wasn't professional; in fact Owl's update shows the exact opposite.

If you ever happened to set foot in the shop Kathi and I are speaking of, you'd understand. We aren't "bribing" them at all. We're buying our bestest riding buddies beer and treats because we love them and know they're awesome. Service hasn't changed a bit and I wouldn't expect it to (it really couldn't get better anyway). Honestly, I'd give Chris the shirt off my back if he needed it and certainly NOT because I thought it'd turn into a good deal for me later.

I've been screwed over too, wised up some/learned more, and it's been attempted numerous times since by other shops. Honestly, I thank my lucky stars for it now (I sure didn't then!). Since I'm a short female I tend to know exactly how a shop is going to treat me the second I walk in the door now and I've turned around and marched right back out of plenty of them. That just makes me appreciate the good and great shops I find more though in the end.

[owlgirl]

Ha Ha Ha miranda, I know totally how you feel, don't worry. I got my (new) bike at one LBS, and got fit 5 times before I gave up on them. My right foot is bigger than my left foot (like more than a half size), so on my old bike, my cleats were offset because of this (or that's what i thought). I tried to tell that to the first shop's LBS guys, but they didn't listen. They actually noticed something was off, i can't remember what it was, i think it was that my leg angle was different or maybe it was the knee over the foot plumb line thing, that it was different for each leg. They were like HMMM! WEIRD! so that's when I knew I had to outsource my fit. At the next LBS i've been referring to for this thread discussion, I told this guy about my feet and he didn't offset the cleats. so this second time he did, and now i'm not sure if my old, favorite fit guy noticed the femur discrepency and just didn't tell me? because those cleats were offset, like i said earlier. so it's probably been that way all along. I don't think anything has changed, except i am tighter in my right hip part than the left.

If you ever happened to set foot in the shop Kathi and I are speaking of, you'd understand. We aren't "bribing" them at all. We're buying our bestest riding buddies beer and treats because we love them and know they're awesome. Service hasn't changed a bit and I wouldn't expect it to (it really couldn't get better anyway). Honestly, I'd give Chris the shirt off my back if he needed it and certainly NOT because I thought it'd turn into a good deal for me later.

I've been screwed over too, wised up some/learned more, and it's been attempted numerous times since by other shops. Honestly, I thank my lucky stars for it now (I sure didn't then!). Since I'm a short female I tend to know exactly how a shop is going to treat me the second I walk in the door now and I've turned around and marched right back out of plenty of them. That just makes me appreciate the good and great shops I find more though in the end.

I know what you mean about this too...I love the guys at the first bike shop and they are excellent mechanics, just not the best at fitting. I do take them cookies and beer, and it's fun to hang out and toss one back with them. They have given me so much stuff too because they are nice, so I just feel like giving stuff back and this happens to be in the form of brownies, beer and cookies. And about the short female thing, well, I know about that too, sometimes I feel like you have to demonstrate your knowledge of cycling before you get any respect!!!! but from then on it's fine!