FIT FIRST:
THE IMPORTANCE OF MEASUREMENT Purely Custom’s Zeb Miller runs us through the best way to use measuring tools and software to identify the best fitting bike
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hankfully, more and more cyclists are realising the importance of fit — and some are even realising the importance
of getting a fit before buying a bike. The days of a customer walking into your fit studio with a new bike and saying “it’s a different size to my last bike, but it was a great deal,” are waning; the fit first mentality has taken over and, thankfully, looks like it’s here to stay. When you fit your client before they buy their next bike, the process needs to be a little different and two key questions are thrown up. Do you do the fit on their existing bike or on a size cycle? And how do you identify what new bike would work best once you’ve completed the fit? Each of those questions will massively impact the final result for your client, so let’s walk you through what we’d suggest.
Size Cycle or existing bike? It depends on the client. If they like their current position, start there, because it might not be far off and you’ll get an extra level of detail from seeing how they ride currently and what compensations they make than you would from starting with a blank slate. If you see pretty quickly that the position is a long way off, you can easily switch to a size cycle, but that information alone might help explain why the correct position you’ve given them at the end of their fit may feel strange to them. If their existing position is fairly close, then by
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all means complete the fit on their existing bike. That way, if they plan on keeping the bike, they
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have a good position on two of their bikes and
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they can be riding in your suggested position while waiting for delivery of their new bike.
