Yesterday evening I went to the Upper West Side in pouring rain to get a professional fit on my road bike with Mike sherry at Performance Labs HC. The studio was small with bike stuff scattered about all over the place. Cervelo soloist carbon city. Basically a racer bike geeks paradise. We started by chatting about what I was trying to accomplish, and then proceeded to do a ton of skeletal measurements from my feet to my head.
After all of the measurements he started checking the bike with a laser and adjusting as needed. I guess my serious obsession with fit had actually been pretty accurate since for the most part not much was changed. The saddle was raised some and the fore-aft was changed slightly. The nose of the saddle was also pointed slightly down. He warned me the saddle would not be comfortable for how he wanted to set my bike up for riding. Ugh! The SLR was nearly brand new! He showed some of the saddles he had on various bikes in the studio and they all had flares in the rear with a curve in the middle and a slightly raised nose. San Marco concor lights, wtb rocket V, etc.
Next came the cleat adjustment. My cleats were already set all the way to the rear on the shoes and he said they needed to go way back still. So out come my aluminum plates made by Speedplay recently received from Excel Sports. These allow an additional 14mm of rearward adjustment along with 5mm of forward. He set the cleats back more than 1cm from where they were before. He also had me take out the Varus wedge from the left shoe that I had placed in last Friday on advice from a local bike shop when purchasing the Specialized bg insoles.
After the cleats were finished I hopped on the bike. He immediately changed my riding position by having me rotate my hips more forward allowing my legs to pedal in a much more natural motion. I felt significantly more comfortable in the rear but more weight was now up front. This will take some getting used to! I'm not sure I'm sold on the extra weight up front, but will give it a try for a while. Aerobars would probably significantly help and are something I'm looking in to.
The saddle, as he predicted, put a lot of pressure in the perinneal area and was very uncomfortable. A shame...
The worst news I got from the fitting was something I've long suspected. No mass produced frames will ever fit me perfectly due to my long legs. My current frame is about as best as I'll ever get from a stock frame, and it's realy not that bad according to Mr Sherry. I just need a taller top tube, ideally, with the rest of the specs exactly the same.
So it's a custom frame or slightly uncomfortable stock frame?!?:(
Ah, the constant quest for silly bike parts...I hope one day I will not have to give this a thought and just ride!!!!
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