Orny's Cycling Journal

When I bought my new bike, I also wanted to finally have a full premium fitting done.

Judging by the people I talk to, unless you’re a cyclist, you probably have no idea that there’s anything more to fitting a bike than making sure you can reach the pedals and the brakes, and that’s it. Well, it gets a whole lot more complex than that…

Still, it’s fair to ask why I would get my first professional fitting now. After all, I’ve ridden over 40,000 miles with no apparent issues, right?

Well, you can always improve, and there are a few minor annoyances that might be alleviated by a proper scientific fitting. For one thing, I tend to ride with my shoulders hunched up around my ears, which over long distances turns into a severe burning pain my traps. And I spend nearly all my riding time with my hands on the brake hoods, rather than down in the dropped section of the handlebars, which is much more efficient, but has been a lot less comfortable for me.

And my friend Jay’s experience was educational. Everyone who rode with him knew his setup was wacked, but he insisted it was correct for his mutant torso… until he came out of a professional fitting with a more reasonable looking setup, more power, fully functional genitalia (reportedly), and a much happier demeanor.

So it made sense to me to get a level-set to see if there were any tweaks that might improve my bike setup and my cycling form.

The problem was that my two-hour fitting was scheduled toward the end of Patriots Day: the day the Boston Marathon was bombed. That kinda blew a hole in our agenda…

I went in the next day and was told the fitter could work with me at 4pm. However, she only had an hour free, so we had to split the fitting up into two parts over separate days. The first part concentrated on basic bike fit, so that I could start riding, and I’d return a couple weeks later to do a followup and all the in-depth biomechanical stuff.

Fortunately, I’d ridden the new bike a few hours before the first fitting, so I had a good idea what I wanted changed. And I also had my old bike on hand, so that we could directly compare and measure differences between my old and new setups.

That first session mostly consisted of me talking about what kind of riding I do and how the bike currently felt, the fitter adjusting the bike toward what she thought would work best, and then me convincing her to tweak that so that it was closer to what I had grown used to on my old bike.

We pretty much agreed on saddle height, although I did learn that I tend to ride with my heel up and toes pointed down, rather than level or “ankling”. Our biggest compromise was over reach to the handlebars. My old bike had a lengthy 130mm stem and my seat was slammed back as far as it could go, and she gave me a 120mm stem and moderated my setback a little, because she thought I was too stretched out. Between that and the shallower handlebar drop on the new bike, we hoped I might feel a bit more comfortable riding in the drops, which eventually proved true.

The other main thing I brought up was my hunching my shoulders and back, which is a habit that I have real difficulty breaking. Basically, I know it’s bad, but I feel I need to pull on the bars to generate power, and that causes me to tense my shoulders. She had no real mechanical ways to correct that, so her only advice was to just stop doing it.

We combined the second half of the fitting with my normal 30-day post-purchase tune-up. That second fitting session basically consisted of the fitter asking me what I needed changed, and me saying “Nothing”. I’d expected us to do a bunch of in-depth biometrics work, but the only measurements we took were the same basic ones we had taken the first time: knee angle and knee-to-pedal. And that was pretty much all she did.

So contrary to my friends’ experiences with premium fittings, I don’t think I got much value from it: certainly very little beyond what one would get from a standard, free post-sale ride-ready fitting.

As for the 30-day tune-up, my results there were mixed, too. On the plus side, I had the shop enable multi-shift on my electronic shifters. Translation: instead of hitting the button several times to shift up or down multiple gears, I can simply hold the button down longer, and it’ll jump two or three cogs at a time. That’s a massive usability improvement for someone who rides in the city and is constantly jumping up and down the cassette while stopping and accelerating at traffic controls.

On the minus side, they charged me to attach my frame pump mount to the frame, but neglected to actually do the work! So I made them do it when I picked up the bike. (Aside: the only reason I had the shop attach it is because my bike has nonstandard-sized bottle cage bolts that wouldn’t work with the pump’s plastic mount.)

Overall this new bike shop seems informed and well-intentioned, but extremely forgetful and a little careless. I guess that means that I’ll just have to keep an eye on anything they do for me.

This week I also had my first massage appointment. This year, I’m planning on having full massages done after most of my big rides, to gauge its effectiveness in recovery and keeping my muscles from tightening up so severely over the course of the summer. We’ll see how that goes.

My first session was relatively benign. My only disappointment was that I’ve been off the bike for two and a half weeks, so I wasn’t in a position where I could judge the therapeutic and recovery value of the body work. But that’ll come shortly, and I’m looking forward to it.

The one thing the masseur did mention was that I showed symptoms of what is called “upper cross syndrome”, which basically means my body shows the hunched shoulders and other effects of spending too much time leaning forward at a desk or on the bike. And the prospect of looking like a hunched-over old lady is enough to get me looking at appropriate corrective exercises.

And in other news, I have to say I’m blown away (again!) by my PMC supporters’ amazing generosity. When my water heater blowed up (sic) on Monday, canceling a century ride I’d planned, I spent the day sending out my first 50 fundraising emails. A mere 48 hours later, they had already donated over $2,700 to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute! I have some ridiculously awesome friends!

And a lot more fundraising to do, of course…

So as I was saying, after a very short acceptance test ride, I bought my new bike last Monday.

Of course, it rained Tuesday. And Wednesday. And Thursday and Friday and Saturday, too. But finally it cleared up last night, and stayed clear for half the day today, which was enough to get a 61-mile shakedown cruise in with the Quad Cycles folks.

Mind you, it wasn’t exactly ideal weather for a ride. After all that rain, there’s been a lot of flooding. But worse than that, the wind was blowing at a sustained 30 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph! Not only did that make biking difficult to begin with, but it also brought down a ton of wet leaves, wet pine needles, and whole branches of trees. It was a bit of an obstacle course out there.

But this post isn’t about the weather, but about the bike. For those who care, it’s a 61cm 2006 Specialized Roubaix Expert Triple. That means a couple things.

First, it’s a Roubaix. They’re designed for long distance riding, and are especially designed to handle rough roads. I have to say that even at 120psi, where you’d feel the road painfully on most bikes, the Roubaix rode like buttah, but without feeling like you were riding in an Oldsmobile. Responsive, but compliant.

Second, it’s 61cm. Bike stores don’t carry *anything* in 61cm. That’s Jolly Green Giant size. So it was going to be a special order right from the start, which meant I was probably going to pay list for it. But the sizing feels great; it’s the only bike out of all the ones I test rode that actually feels comfortable and natural, where I wasn’t constantly conscious of the bike’s fit. It just feels right.

Third, it’s a 2006. I rode a couple 2005 Roubaixs, but they didn’t knock my socks off, so I took a couple extra weeks and waited for the 2006s to come out. Well, actually, I snuck a few looks at the 2006 line on some UK sites, since they were released there earlier than in the US… But eventually they were released in the US. The differences are noteworthy: a different wheelset, carbon fiber cranks, a more attractive paint job, and—most importantly—the newer 10-speed Shimano Ultegra group instead of the old 9-speeds that they had on the ’05s. Of course, since I ordered the bike as soon as it was available, that’s another reason why I wound up having to pay list for it.

And the triple. A lot of riders think having three chainrings is wimpy, and that the few ounces of weight savings is significant. They’re cracked. First, I’m used to my hybrid and its mountain bike gearing, which ranges from 29-108 gear inches. In other words, it’s got crazy low gears. And I do a lot of mountain climbing, so I need low gears. The Roubaix double—same price, by the way—only goes down to 36 gear inches, while the trip goes all the way down to 30, almost as low a gear as my hybrid had! Second, I’m rapidly becoming an old man, and I stopped falling prey to the brainless machismo thing more’n a decade ago. I need those low gears. The third reason might surprise some people: the triple has a much higher high gear than the double! The latter tops out at fairly moderate 112 gear inches; the triple has a high gear that reaches all the way up to 120 gear inches. So not only do I get a much easier low gear, but I also get a much bigger high gear!

Now, the bike is all carbon fiber: frame, forks, cranks, even the seatpost! Hence its nickname of “Plastic Bullet”. When you tap the frame with your fingernails, instead of a metallic ping, it sounds like you’re tapping a plastic cup. But it’s light, and it climbs like a gazelle.

The one big change from the hybrid is my saddle height. The guys at the bike shop set me up with the saddle a full inch higher than I had it set on the hybrid, which is an immense change to my pedaling stroke. I can’t say it’s better yet, but I’ll give it a shot for a while and see how it works out. I will say that my chafe points moved, but that’s probably just a situational thing. So far the saddle is working out very well, which was another one of my big concerns moving to a road bike.

So how did it ride? Well, it’s smooth, sleek, and strong. I really feared moving from a fairly mooshy ride to a tighter frame, but the Roubaix really eats up the ground shock. It really was a pleasure to ride.

The one overriding thing I felt was that I had a lot more power at my disposal than I ever had on the hybrid. I don’t feel like I’m riding at my limit most of the time; at any point I could jump, with a lot more high-end speed than I had before. It’s a really nice feeling of power.

Of course, it comes at a bit of a price, and the price is my vanity slash ego slash machismo. Because the bike’s so much more capable, it really shows my weaknesses more. When I’m on, I can jump and ride with the best of ’em, but if I’m tired or blown, there’s no jump in me at all. So training’s going to be even more important, so that I can call up that additional capacity whenever I need it. But that feeling of power is really nice…

The only other thing I need to mention is that I also outfitted the Plastic Bullet with a new cyclometer that I’ve been lusting after for at least two or three years: the Ciclomaster CM434. It’s outta control geekery. It goes way beyond the usual trip miles, total miles, average and max speeds, and riding time. It’s got (are you ready for this?) current altitude and incline percent; max altitude and incline; total height climbed and descended; current, max, and min temperature; and current, average, and max watts output.

So that’s the ride report for the big shakedown cruise. Ironically, it is exactly five years and one day since I took the Devinci hybrid out for its 50-mile maiden voyage out to Framingham and back.

Oh, I suppose I should mention that the Devinci will live on as my commuter bike. There’s no way I’ll be leaving the Plastic Bullet chained up in any public place, and the Devinci will do good service in the rain and snow. Soon it’ll sprout fenders and panniers and all the accoutrements of a true workhorse. We’ve had some wonderful times, but after five years and sixteen thousand miles, I think it’s happy to relinquish its days of hard riding and long miles.

Happy day! Hopefully the weekends will continue to be tolerable weather, because I’d really like to take the Roubaix down to Great Blue Hill and give it a real serious climb to chew on…