Friday night after the Lehigh/Sals ride I went to Easton, PA for a bike fit at the recommendation of Matt Miller. John Strom / Cycle Fitters, recently started a business doing bike fits, and A-Line insoles. I set an appointment to have both my road bike and 29'er fitted.
Once I finally found John's place, after making a wrong turn due to the GPS thinking a rode went through an area it doesn't, I was greeted by John from his garage/fitting studio. He's got a pretty cool setup going on his shop, very clean and professional atmosphere. John offered my a bottle of water and asked a bunch of questions, took some body measurements, and some range of motion tests.
Once all that is completed he checked for the need of the A-Line insoles but measuring arch drop from a seated to standing position. They have a really cool fitting stand for the insoles that shines a laser up your leg without the use of the insoles to demonstrate how far out of alignment you are. When you stand on the correct insoles the lasers are then shined again to show the correct alignment - what a difference.
After we were all setup with the insoles we moved on to the bikes. We loaded the road bike on the trainer, and John took some measurements of the bike for a before/after comparison. First thing checked was seating position - then all other settings are derived from the correct seat location. John then installed a really cool "Size-o-matic" stem which adjusts to every length and rise angles to get the correct position on the bike. So we shortened the stem by 10mm and flipped it from -5* to +5* rise, rolled the bars back a little and moved the levers back up to compensate for the bar angle. This really helped with getting in the drops and riding on the hoods much more comfortable, hopefully eliminating some neck/shoulder pain I've been having. Now the after measurement are recorded for future reference.
Next up, 29'er - we used a spare wheel with a road tire on it so the bike would fit on the trainer. More measurements, lowered the seat a bit and again shortened the stem 10mm as well. That should take care of some lower back issues which I thought were maybe caused by riding a hardtail.
When finished John showed me how to replicate these setting onto other bikes, which is really helpful. I was also told that if I have any issues for I believe a year that there wouldn't be any charge for corrections, another great benefit.
Check out John's website for more info and contact information. I think he is running a special right now!
-matt
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