1. Create a blog
2. Wait for you to shop / service offering bikefitting service
3. Spit for the first time in your life
4. Upload a photo on Facebook, tag it, write that it was the best purchase in your life and that you can not imagine life without a fitting.
5. Do not forget to add information that the guest who made you bikefitting is the best specialist in Poland and does it best. Recommend this guy to everyone.

It's such a classic online scheme. The scheme, which makes on the one hand bikefitting probably becomes the most recommended service, on the other - raises some doubts. If there is a thing or a service that everyone praises, it means one of two things: it's great or it has great marketing. How is it for bikefitting? I will try to answer this question in the most skeptical way I can. Entry fees are already enough.

I recently added an entry to Facebook, one that encourages you to share your experience of bikefitting in private messages. The cycling world is closed, everyone knows everyone, and if they do not know him, his friend knows him. A bit stupid to write badly about others. During the first hour, I received 16 messages from people who are delighted or on the contrary, but they can not write about it. One simple scheme emerges from this, which will make the chance of merging the hill of money smaller.

Okay, we're going with them!

Word bikefitting comes from English and is a combination of words bike, i.e. bike and fitting, or the style of being athletic. We combine these words and we already know that this is the most important issue on the Internet, that is: how to lose weight by riding a bicycle. Also yes, the embarrassing wit of this blog is already behind us. In bikefitting, of course, someone would look at us from the side, say a lot of difficult words and tell us to change half of the bike or he carved it on an onion (it's a technique like: - sir, the catalyst broke down - good, can you cut it?). The entry was to start from the fact that it relies almost always on the correction of the height of the saddle and raising the steering wheel, but it turned out that mine went down and the whole idea of ​​...

Where on bikefitting?

I know, but I will not say ;-) I will not take on this responsibility.

The only person who collects 100% positive opinions is Mr. Jarek from the Krakow Veloart (and does not know that I mention him here). It is supposedly so good that even the bikefitteers admit it. Chickens ...

I did at Absolute Bikes in Pruszków. Is it best there? I do not know. In total, whatever I write about him, you will not believe it, because I'm riding in their shirt. If it was bad, I would not mention them. A year earlier, Panda was with them, all problems disappeared as he took away. Then she came back with a new bike, since then, he has become her favorite (although it can also be a color fault). So in a nutshell: I do not know if it's the best, but it's definitely good.

Bikefitting is actually divided into two types: one recommended and one that is not recommended. The latter, as the name suggests, may be good and may not be good. I am not sure if paying PLN 500 for something that may turn out to be bad makes sense. How to choose?

Very simply. One of the most important schemas emerges from all received messages. We choose Bikefitter from the point of view of his knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the human body. A man who is interested in these topics, and at best, has the right papers to support his knowledge, will be almost always better than the one from the weekend course of seating people. Do not get me wrong, it does not have to be that the man who sets everything "under the calculator" in accordance with the guidelines of the course will be bad. There will be and probably 75% of cases will set well. But how do you know in which group you will be? It is a pity to risk.

Bikefitting is not that the angle of the knee should be 141 to 144 degrees for most road cyclists, and so you have to set it. You can do something like this yourself, as a starting position, at home, under the supervision of a friend (about this in a moment). Bikefitter has to check if you belong to the group of "most road cyclists" and set bike under you, not under the table.

Good fitter he will talk to you for half an hour, he will hear about your problems, he will touch you in various places, he would sit on things, put strange things on you and check how strenuous and soft you are. Because people differ from each other. Good fitter knows that most rules work well for most people. It's like when you go to the doctor and everyone knows you probably have the flu ... just what if it was not flu, and the doctor was a laborer and instinctively prescribed basic medicines?

I will not go into details where I've been touched, which way I have been bent and what the interview was about. However, if someone does not ask you about what is bothering you on your bike, what style of driving you prefer, your priorities and whether you are happy, I would rather scribble it from the list of professionals. It also means that it is worth considering if we know the answer to the question: how we drive and what bothers us. If we come with a bicycle that we have not traveled on yet, it may be difficult.

Is it worth using for bikefitting?

It's worth it for one, not for another ;-)

PLN 500 is a lot, especially spent on pervading things. Even if you earn a lot, you still have to admit that it's a lot. That's how much you earn with your second child monthly (unless it's already old). On the other hand, it is less than half the price of a high-end bridge, a quarter of a high-end steering wheel, a fraction of the wheels. Considering how much the studio equipment costs, maintaining the place, the price per physiotherapist's work hour and the fact that such a fitting lasts for 3 hours, lightly ... no, that's still a lot.

However, I am almost certain that even a minimal change of position for a better one results in more serious profits than changing any component to a slightly lighter or stiffer one. Only in bikefitting, its cost is the slightest worry for our budget.

The goal is to get the best out of your bike. In the worst case, this may mean that there will be a bridge, a steering wheel, a saddle, and with a little bad luck shoes or the whole bike. If we are stubborn when planting and not buying new parts, you will have to sculpt. This, of course, hurts because if you have bought a bike recently and it turns out that you have got a bit over sized, your almost unused steering wheel is worth half the price. You think: cool - if you can sell for half the price, you can also buy the same for half the price. Only it turns out that just as you are looking for, there is never. Worse - even as it is, you start to wonder whether buying a used steering wheel from an anonymous guest from the internet is a good idea. I know what I am saying (btw, I will replace the top compact 42cm by 40cm ;-))

To make it even harder, after the whole procedure you will probably get new test accessories to check if it is actually better. Giving this a little hurts. The plus is that if you do this at the Speca in Body Geometry or Trek in Precision Fit, you will be offered so many times to purchase their equipment that the natural defense mechanism will be activated. Although it makes sense, of course, until we force it on. I believe that companies sell products different, but each of them knows what they are doing and its solutions probably make sense.

My truth is moj. Yours is yours. Whose is he more?

And here a new issue arises. Initially I wanted to be a troll and go to two different bikefittinges one by one in different places. Probably someone would hate me for that. The only question is what if it turns out that the positions are different? Is there such a thing as the only-right position on the bike? How long would I have to ride in each of them to find out which is better and what would be the weather outside the window? I gave up the subject.

Especially that if you listen to the words of those responsible for choosing a position, you will discover a nice curiosity. When fitting, ask what they think about < >. The answer in 90% of cases is this: I had a client after them, I had to correct it.

At the previous bikefitting, the 44cm steering wheel was chosen for me. This was explained by the fact that the lungs will be open, the bike will be better guided, it will be more stable and in general I am large, so this is the only right way out. Now I received a recommendation of 40cm ... that is, as much as Panda has. How to live? Do I have to compress my everyday job before the computer at work?

In fact, in the whole operation, you do not pay for putting the cyclist in the right position. You pay here for a full interview and assessment of the attitude and potential problems arising from it. For the consultation and set of exercises that should be made to minimize the effects of your imperfections. For the possibility of future consultations when changing the bike. For calm, choosing next parts, thanks to which you will lose unnecessary gaming and gain valuable aero points. AND ABOVE ALL, for what is most important to me - peace of mind while driving. If you have never wondered "whether my saddle should not be half a centimeter higher", I sincerely envy you.

You have made 630km at once, so bikefitting is unnecessary.

We once traveled with Panda about 630km non-stop (well, with breaks for food). It took a little over a day. Panda had a bike about 4 classes worse than now, I had a position like I was about to win a sprint on Grandmother. We did not experience permanent damage to our health (apart from our mental health).

The human body is amazing. I am reminded of it every time I see a movie about the castaways who landed in the mountains, when I think about the guests who rowed for years, or when I see guests, which without a professional position match, race around Poland. Our organisms can adapt. Driving long enough in a given position, you can get used to it.

If you just ride a bike, you do not hurt, you do not care about marginal gainsach, and whether you should have a 100 or 110mm bridge does not worry you completely, you can let the whole procedure go. If, however, something is numb to you, you are hurt by the ass or places lying in front of him, you are bowing your neck, biting your hands, banging your knees or something strange happens, it is worth working on it. Remember that by making a 100 kilometer route, your legs bend about 12,500 times. Imagine now that one knee is running slightly to one side. And three times a week. It's like this drawer, what you pervertively rubs on the edge of the cabinet. It does not bother you, and after half a year it turns out that there is no paint on the drawer anymore.

Cycling is to be a pleasure. Contrary to online opinions, it's not just pain, sacrifice, hard work and dedication. If you are going quietly, then you have peace to go. You should not think about muscle pain, which should not hurt. If after another ride in the season, something still hurts, it means that something is not halo.

Home bikefitting, or #cebula

In the twenty-first century, there is no thing that, with adequate fierceness, could not be repeated in the home (or at least try). Of course, this is not the case with the topic described here. If you have a trainer, a webcam that records a lot of frames per second (because otherwise the image is not smudged on a high-altitude stop) and someone familiar who has some time for you (hint: a friend, like a webcam can also be bought) - you can try.

I confess without beating, I do not want to do it. I do not want to move the trainer to the room where it will be possible to grasp it. I searched the internet, collected opinions, filtered knowledge and this is what follows.

If you belong to a group of people who use open-source projects, you can use the application Kinovea. This is a small harvester for analyzing movement in sport. As befits an open type design, it is ugly, complex and small intuitive, but works well ;-)

The alternative is a dizzying $ 5, and as befits a decent app, available only on iOS: Bike Fast Fit (the worse counterpart on Android is: The Roadie Bike Fit)

The first of them was described by DC Rainmaker here and it turns out that it works quite well. If you do not believe him, I can repeat it, but currently I am sorry for $ 5 ;-) With this appki, we are in a similar range to achieve what fitter-worker. This gives a good starting point to find a reasonable position that will be good enough for many.

Bikefitting is one of those expenses that is easy to move away in time. We gain something that theoretically can not see (unless the position was so bad that everyone saw it). It's hard to pay for it. I can imagine a multitude of situations in which it can be objectively stated that it would be an unnecessary expense or unnecessary luxury. Because if everything is OK, why change?
The problem is that I did not know about some problems until someone pointed them out to me. How do you know that your wrists are running behind the wide steering wheel? If someone tells you about it, you feel it all the time ...

I, despite the inherent reluctance to pay for comfort, do not regret the decision.

I changed the bridge last time, from very good, very, very good ... and more expensive about a 4-digit amount. How much does changing the good bridge for better? Objectively - nothing. Changing the bridge from good, to average, but well-matched, gives a colossal amount for it. That gives food for thought ...

Paragraph to avoid for road conservatives

Week after bikefittingu I went to the Runner's Store in Powiśle. Something is hurting my feet lately, the pace is falling and I'm running loud. I thought maybe it was time for new shoes (new equipment is always better results - psychological effect). I got there for a super professional who came across my feet, told me to come, asked a few questions and without asking about the price range he brought shoes and insoles that cost as much as one shoe. He also added that it is a miracle that I can still run because I have always used expensive, but hopelessly unkempt shoes (although I have always used the help of shop specialists). Now I have cheaper shoes, but running in them is some kind of magic. It turns out that the rates do not have to hurt. This is a beautiful analogy to bikefitting, which I will write about once, as I will delve into running subjects ...

legal note: for fitting in Absolute Bikes, of course, I paid it fairly and chose it from my own free will, so it is not a sponsored text. The first 5 people who go there with the slogan "hopcycling" have a PLN 50 discount ;-)