Bike fitting in Kent

[HughG]

Morning all.
Think its time both the wife and I got fitted to our road bikes. It's something I've been toying with having done for a while, but specifically brought about now because as we're doing a bit more cycling she's suffering with numb feet and none of the easy fixes have worked.

Can anyone recommend somewhere in Kent?

[lufbramatt]

Geoff Wiles in strood always used to do bike fitting, remember seeing one of those telescopic set-up things in there. I know they used to have a frame building service. Think they might be under new ownership but still very much roadie biased. Worth giving them a call.

[HughG]

By way of a follow up to this thread. We had our fitting at Wild Side in Tunbridge Wells on Saturday with Gary, a very knowledgeable bloke who explained every step. I intentionally went for a fitting with someone who'd been there and done it, rather than one of these computer systems operated by someone who's done a 2/5/however many day course.

I ended up with the follow adjustments:

• new saddle (Specialized Romin Expert 155mm),
• Specialized BG SL footbeds to support high arches,
• Right hand cleat moved to position my foot slightly further outboard (but maintaining angle etc.)
• seatpost down 3mm, and saddle forward 15mm
• stem dropped by 5mm (spacer moved up)
• new stem - changed from 100 to 120mm (3T Arc team).

I've only done about 30km since but initial impressions are good.

Lucy had similar, footbeds, cleats setup (used the opportunity to swap to Keos from SPDs so from scratch), saddle forward, stem inverted, . And has been told that with some stretching work on the hamstrings she can progressively lower the stem.

[Type R Tom]

That can't have been cheap with all the new bits, is it worth the money?

[HughG]

Ignoring the price of the bits, yes absolutely it was worth the money, we were with him for 5 hours, and we both learnt a lot.

I had a spare set of Keo Sprints (old but still going strong after 10-12k km) so that else the pain of the parts slightly. I find the cost of cockpit bits always smarts. How can a stem be £60 when I can buy a rear derailleur for that. Surely more R&D goes into the latter, and it must cost more to manufacture too.

At least I now have a set of dimensions that should work for me (and early indications are good), and next time I buy a frame I wont need to guess at what stem I need, I will be able to work it out from the measurements I have.

Edited by HughG on Monday 9th June 19:03

[Gruffy]

Can I ask the cost of the fitting, without the new parts?

[HughG]

£102 each (£120 less £18 for signing up to their mailing list)

[Gruffy]

That sounds very reasonable. I'd be keen to hear your thoughts after a few rides.

Hard to swallow big fitting costs when I pedal a £300 bike, but I ride big miles and that's probably more important than the value of the bike. I'm also hoping it'll help when upgrade time comes, next spring.