Road bike fitting before buying a bike?

Turbulent Bill

I'm planning on buying my first road bike fairly shortly, and was wondering whether you should get a general fitting before settling on a particular frame? My flexibility is poor (with a dodgy knee) so I'm worried about injuries and comfort.

CSS offer a general fitting service after which you presumably pick a frame with the recommended dimensions, but the reviews on here seem to be mixed. From this thread IrishFit seem to do very good fitting, but you need to bring your bike.

Obviously if you go to an LBS then you'll get approximately the right size and type of frame, but I might buy online (Canyon Roadlite looks very nice) where you can't try before you buy.

petethedrummer

I've never got a proper fitting session so I can't answer that but.

If you haven't noticed, there is a perfect position tool on the Canyon Website which should help you decide on the frame size, once you take your measurements. There seems to be quite a wait to get a Canyon bike at the moment. They look very good value and maybe they can't keep up with demand. I was gonna get a Canyon MTB, but was put off by tales of waiting and poor customer service.

Also aren't they are only available online? So you can't actually sit on one before purchasing, unless you go down to the factory(in Germany!!). But I suppose you could sit on a bike of similar geometry.

As for flexibility and comfort, the geometry looks quite racy. The headtube looks quite short. For relaxed geometry there is the Giant Defy and Specialized Allez, if you're getting an alu bike. Giant Defy advanced, Specialized Roubaix and Look 566, if you wanna go carbon.

Lumen

If you have poor flexibility the most important dimension for choosing model of frame is head tube length, this varies a lot between frames.

Once you have settled on a frame, pick a size based on the top tube length.

I wouldn't bother with the Competitive Cyclist type fitting, as it's too hard to get the measurements wrong.

My favourite is Dave Moulton's chart on here.

You can get extra head tube length by buying a slightly larger frame, but don't overdo it - you'll end up with a more forward saddle position and short stem to compensate for excessive top tube length, and your options to fine tune position will be more limited.

You're better off picking a frame for which you're sized in the middle of the range, then sorting out bike fit using saddle position and stem choice.

2 Wheels Good

Found this on Youtube from www.performancebike.com, some good points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAl_5e7bIHk

Lumen

pat_hurley@yaho wrote: »

Found this on Youtube from www.performancebike.com, some good points
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAl_5e7bIHk

All very conventional, but almost all of it (KOPS, handlebars obscuring the hub, ball of foot over pedal axle) is wrong, IMO.

Also, that dude is scary.

Turbulent Bill

Thanks guys, plenty to ponder. I think I'll stick with alu frames (carbon is probably OTT for me), and the Giant Defy was my first choice before I saw the value of the Canyons. There seems to be supply problems with most road bikes at this level so I might wait for the 2010 models to arrive.