"To bike fit or not to bike fit" that is the question

Like most people, when they here "you should go and get properly fitted for your bike" they say "nah, I'm comfortable as it is, why do I need to spend that extra money for someone to tell me I'm sitting on my bike right." I was one of those people until 1 month ago. I'm not going to lie, as part of working in the industry of bikes and racing for a great many years - 20 and counting - I was pretty confident that I had set myself up on my road bike and TT bike pretty darn good and wasn't really keen to spend a few hundred dollars for someone to tell me "that looks pretty good".

As part of a new sponsorship deal with Nic Arney at Ismotion/Unovelo - ismotion.info and www.unovelo.com - I had to (well not had to, but it was strongly recommended that I did)

go and see Aaron Dunford at Fusion Peak -

www.fusionpeak.com.au - to get fitted out for my TT so that I could get the most out of my body and bike, it is also part of Nic's company policy and quality control, that when they sell a bike they would like you to go to Aaron and fitted out. So I figured why not, I'll go just to see what all the fuss is about and maybe get something out of it.

The week leading up to my visit with Aaron, we had spoken a few times about what was going to happen and if had any questions or anything that I specifically wanted to have a look at, which I said yes as I am running Rotor Q-rings and have never had the opportunity to get set up properly on them and Aaron was open to the idea. I arrived at Aaron's place of work, with a glimmer of hope that I was about to gain some extra power and reduce time in my racing without any extra training and I happily not disappointed.

To start the day off I was on the bike measuring machine - is about the best name for it, Aaron can adjust anything while you ride so you can get a feel for it, as well as being able to see your pedalling power discrepancies and overall power. 5hrs later and many adjustments later, including cleat position, Esoles in my shoes with a wedge in my right, different crank lengths - to see if there was any power change between 172.5 and 175mm and the verdict was nothing, not a single watt of difference - we had the measurements for my new TT bike, that I'm able to transfer across to the bike when I finish building it.

We then put my road bike on his computrainer and did a few adjustments, mainly to the front chains. Using the power scales and graphs we able to find the proper position for my Rotor Q-rings.

All said and done, I will happily stand up and say " the money I spent on getting a bikefit carried out was totally worth it". I am now getting more power to the pedals than when I first started - with the adjustments Aaron made I increased 20-30watts just like that - and my legs are loading up evenly. In my case - I had no TT bike to do adjustments on - Aaron has done a CAD drawing with my new frame and all the required measurements on it for me to set up my bike with. Once I have done this I will be going back to Aaron just to double check my setup - as he has as the fan dangle tools to get it spot on - and to finish the build, as he has a complete workshop there - which is awesome for people who are not bike maintenance savy, Aaron will help build the bike as well.

I will go on record now saying - if you have a bike now and are quite sure on your setup or getting some lower back pain, knee pains or you are getting a new bike go see Aaron and get fitted out properly, you won't be disappointed at all and you should gain a few extra watts of power without even training.