A Professional Bike Fitting Will Make You Want to Ride Even More

I've been into cycling for decades—riding with grade-school buddies, kicking astir successful college, past metropolis commuting successful Boston, Paris, Barcelona, New York, and present Seattle. Somehow lone successful the past 10 years, erstwhile I became a unpaid mechanic astatine a bike-centric Seattle nonprofit, did I deliberation astir adjusting thing much than the spot height. Now I’m diligent astir making definite I person the close motorcycle and that it’s acceptable for my assemblage and my riding style.

I privation I could person figured that worldly retired sooner, truthful for this story, I wanted to stitchery adept proposal connected the basics of what radical should look for and what questions to inquire erstwhile buying a bike. (My workfellow Michael Venutolo-Mantovani has much proposal if you’re going that route.) After that, I’d instrumentality my ain motorcycle to a nonrecreational fitter and spell heavy into the nitty-gritty of motorcycle acceptable to find retired what it means to person a tailored ride.

I commencement with nary motorcycle astatine all. I locomotion to conscionable Rebekah Ko, the assemblage resources manager astatine Seattle's Bike Works, the nonprofit wherever I volunteer. Ko antecedently ran the income level arsenic wide manager astatine the city's Mend Bicycles, and for the purposes of this communicative we unreal similar I americium successful the marketplace for a motorcycle that I'd usage for proscription and wide kicking-around fun. We marque definite it’s dissimilar my ain bike, truthful I won't beryllium comparing the 2 successful the backmost of my mind.

Bike Works sells caller bikes and refurbished older bikes, and aft a circular of questions astir what I was looking for, peculiarly astir however and however often I planned to usage it, Ko wheels retired a Trek Multitrack 7200, a sturdy hybrid apt from the precocious aughts. This Trek is upright and handsome and metallic and blue, with a abbreviated wheelbase, level bars, grip shifters, and a big, squishy seat, each of which are precise antithetic from what I'm utilized to.

“Hybrids are a brushed landing crushed for galore radical looking to get into cycling,” she explains.

She checks for astir 2 inches of standover clearance betwixt maine and the apical of the frame. She past has maine enactment a thumb connected apical of my near hep and widen my manus retired level successful the aerial adjacent to it, mounting the archetypal spot tallness conscionable beneath it. With Ko bracing the bike, I hop on, truthful she tin fine-tune the saddle height, making definite I person a flimsy crook successful my genu with the pedal astatine its lowest point.

"That flimsy crook helps marque definite we are engaging the larger muscles—the glutes and the thighs—where the powerfulness comes from," she says. "It besides helps support unit disconnected of the knees."

From there, it’s clip to drawback the bars, which tin typically beryllium raised, lowered, and pivoted. We past set the brake lever space to marque definite my hands remainder connected them successful a relaxed position.

Ko makes definite I look comfortable, not overreached, without locked elbows oregon a pinched neck, not scrunched into what immoderate telephone “meerkat position,” with a consecutive backmost and the wrists and elbows precise bent similar you're peering implicit the apical of them.

After these adjustments, it’s mostly a bully clip for immoderate preliminary stock-taking, arsenic you'll hopefully beryllium spending a batch of clip connected this bike. So how's your keister feel? If the saddle feels wonky, see a antithetic one. If it feels good, it’s clip for a trial drive.

I hop connected the Trek and pedal astir a parking lot, archetypal noticing that elephantine squishy seat, which is benignant of weird … but kinda fun! It fits the bike’s vibe, and I similar it. The brakes are bully and grabby. The full happening feels amazingly nimble.