If you haven’t checked out Velonews’ training podcast Fast Talk you really should. I particularly enjoyed the discussion about the perils of not getting a proper bike fit in Episode 77: Avoiding mistakes even pros make. (Discussion starts at 57 minutes in.) Go listen!
I have copied a few of my favourite quotes below…
The biggest fit mistake is that even pros – not just young riders, not just masters – they want their bike to look a certain way. They want their bike to look like either their hero’s bike or they want it to look a certain way, the way it leans up against the wall at the coffee shop.
And the truth of the matter is it needs to look like them.
The bike fit is a mobile thing – it’s an ever moving target. A bike fit is… a picture of you that day. … It’s something that should be done on a relatively regular basis.
A fitting is critical. It makes such a huge, huge difference for anybody that’s riding.
All pain cannot be resolved with bike fitting – there are pathologies, right? … You’ve got to have the right expectations of a bike fitter and you have to give them all the information. And sometimes that does require some technologies other than what can be found in a bike shop. …
There are performance fits, there are comfort fits and there are medical fits and you need to choose from the menu appropriately.