Weakened Report

Spent a great weekend w/t Sven & Friends out in the wilds of western Maryland. I rode the Margrave Plantation Trailby Deep Creek for the first time. Nothin' to it, right? 7 miles, mildly hilly, intermediate skill level. I think if you thought "Lodi Farm" but added in "with no flat spots and typically on a 7-15% up or down grade with loamy pine needle forest floor" you'd be spot on. Nice, nice, nice trails, fairly technical (by XC rider reckoning) with some very technical options, really well marked, as if done by some people who knew what the hell they were doing. I managed to bite the wax tadpole on a downhill log that was diagonal to the trail - crashing on such logs is becoming one of my riding specialities. But the real highlight was watching the kids play, nursing a mild sunburn, breathing clean air, and counting the different ways that a large murder of crows spoke to each other. (A dozen distinct, repeated calls one morning). Evidently, people make a career of studying how crows speak to each other... who would have thunk it?

Mainly though, the weekend was sheer fun and it reinforced my belief that I am really lucky to have the friends I do.

Artist's Depiction:
Me, Waiting for Dinner on Saturday Night

#MakignCoffeets

What with doping scandals a plenty, it feels like the 80's and 90's again.

Let's start by makign coffeets.



That's for my pal AnonCX. I don't know who he is, but I know he *hates* you. Let's ease on up from there.




Solid, huh? Nice mix of rap & funk, showing rap's early roots. That's so good it makes me want to bust a move.




There's a lot of good stuff in there if you need advice - better than "take her to the Holiday Inn," for sure.




"Just in case you missed it, I'm the one that said just grab 'em in the biscuits." High-larryous. Man, I used to dance my ass off when this came on - clubs used to just go ape shit. Hard to explain if you weren't there.



"So chiggety check yoself befo you wreck yoself." Good advice. And there's really only one way to wrap it up before the long weekend. Friday!

Shades Of Black, White & Gray

When sitting there passing judgment - or more charitably trying to situate their acts along a moral spectrum, what do you take into account in drawing conclusions? I consider several things, including whether a rider ever (actually or likely) doped, whether they paid a price for their decision, whether they were caught doping, whether they confessed to it (before or after being caught), and what they did subsequently. Here are some cases, some drawn from this helpful reference, others from current press accounts. Understanding how I view things as a moral matter may help you understand why I'm particularly peeved at Tyler & Floyd. Seeing that I have a systematic way of viewing it, may inspire you to think about our current enforcement system, and what it is that we reward & punish, and how that system may need to be changed in order to be effective.

Consider first the possibilities that a rider faces - whether to dope or not; whether to deny or not if accused; whether to deny or not if caught; whether to become an anti-doper, or to continue on quietly (once again doping, or quietly not doping); whether to accuse others of doping.

Second, consider you you weigh these decisions. I weight the decision to race clean the highest; if a rider is willing to stay clean it has in the past been a costly decision - God bless those who hit the upper reaches of the sport and stayed clean. I consider the decision to confess use when not under coercion, and where it has professional and personal costs to be a less immoral course than denying and/or retaliating against accusers. Getting caught - well, that proves the doping; subsequent denial of it is adding lies atop the initial crime, while confession is at least coming clean after having screwed up. Becoming an anti-doper is clearly a bid for moral redemption, while turning state's evidence, while good in an honest sort of way, is often as self-serving as the initial decision to dope, perhaps moreso. Pile a number of bad decisions atop one another - dope, deny, get caught, deny, turn state's evidence - is a long decision of choices to act in an immoral and self-serving manner, whether or not any good comes of it. The decision, for instance, to become an anti-doper after being caught, is morally distinct from the decision to turn state's evidence. One decision *may* carry with it some professional or personal advantage, while the other decision - testifying to avoid incarceration - generally lacks even the appearance of altruisim. So too the difference between merely turning state's evidence, and turning state's evidence plus becoming an anti-doper. The additional act of undertaking anti-doping initiatives is an affirmative act, a thing that was not compelled to avoid prosecution.

Here are some test cases. The lettering tells you how I weigh things. Think about how you weigh them.

A. Never doped, lost professional opportunities because of it, speaks out against doping.

B. Never doped out of fear of getting caught, discusses openly that he views it as a moral neutral.

C. Doped, never caught, confessed, speaks out against doping, lost professional opportunities, post-cycling, because of it.

D. Doped, never caught, didn't exactly confess, speaks out and works against doping, may have gained professional opportunities because of it.

E. Probably doped, never caught, never really admitted it, never denied it either, just wants to get on with his life.

F. Almost certainly doped, vociferously denied it, never caught, filed libel suits or engaged in other attacks against accusers.

G. Doped, caught, confessed, became an anti-doper, has new professional opportunities because of it.

H. Doped, caught, confessed, became an anti-doper, avoided (maybe) prosecution as a result.

I. Doped, caught, denied it, shut up, went back to racing or retired.

J. Doped, caught, denied it, took others down in their defense, hit up fans for defense donations, admitted having doped but *still* insisting their dope tests were wrong or based in corruption, and making allegations against C, D E and F.

A. Danny Pate

B. Mike Creed

C. Frankie Andreu, Udo Boelts, Bjarne Riis

D. Jonathan Vaughters, Rolf Aldag, Jesper Skibby

E. George Hincapie, Sean Kelly**

F. Lance Armstrong, Stephan Roche

G. David Millar

H. Joe Papp

I. Danilo DiLuca, Ivan Basso

J. Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis

Aside from people who manage to avoid making the terrible choice to compromise themselves, everybody else is just a darker or lighter shade of gray. We should understand those shades, ponder the motivations, and figure out whether our current system is set up to drive people to the dark side, or the light.

As I see it now, it is set up as a gambler's choice - dope and maybe get caught and punished, or stay clean and certainly get punished in a practical sense, of having great difficulty reaching the top tiers of the sport. I've talked to some guys who doped; you need to understand it's not a huge choice presented with an opera playing some moody overture from an Italian tragedy in the background. It's a tough choice - you're a young rider, you're very good, you could be great. Do you want to take the bag and be a supported rider or a key domestique? Or would you rather have to fight for your contract every year and hang onto the fringes of the sport? Would you rather be staying as a guest in people's houses, ekeing out a bare living in-season and doing some ski bum job or something out of season, or would you rather be a decently paid domestic pro? It is a hard choice for them, an immoral situation thrust upon them, that offers only one - very difficult - moral path out of it. The choice shouldn't have to be so tough.

Looking at it in this analytical manner suggests to me that we need to think about how we can incentivize highly moral behavior - anti-doping, self-referral (confession) of doping, and turning attempted dopers in. Can we offer immunity to those who stop freely and subject themselves to verification testing? Would it be possible to incentivize behavior like Xavier Tondo's, who turned in the people who were attempting to sell him PEDs?

I think it could be done. It will take a mindset change at the top levels of cycling management, however, and in the grassroots. We need moral clarity, and we need to think analytically about what matters, about what behavior in particular we are trying to encourage, what we are trying to discourage, and how the current system of incentives and disincentives is set up. I would argue now that it favors the dopers who can most successfully evade enforcement, rather than those who would rather stay, or become clean racers.

As for low level racers who dope, well, you guys are just assholes. There is no justification for it.

**Tested positive in 1984 but it was determined he'd used his mechanic's urine for the test. His mechanic was on PED's to cope with the long hours of work...

TOT 51: Birthday Boys

Tyling the Floor

Thanks for all the feedback on my ranty bit about Tyler Hamilton.

I watched the 60 Minutes interview tonight, and I'm totally won over by Tyler.

Well, except for the part where he reiterated his long-running story that he didn't dope before/at the 2004 Olympics, and that he left the sport on 2008 after his second bust (for herbal supplements for depression) because he didn't want to injure the reputation of the sport. His big confession was that just like Floyd, sure, he took dope here and there, but he never got caught for the dope he was actually doing. He just got caught on a fluke mistake in '08, and God knows what was behind that 2004 bust. This story is completely consistent with his earlier denials, except for the admission that he did do some doping but was never caught for that...

Other than that tiny fly in the ointment, he was totally credible.

Holy shit.

Of course I'm not being serious. If this the knight in shining armor that's going to save us from Lance, then we've become stupider and more naive than we were in 2001 when we thought there was no doping after Festina.

On a strictly personal level, I'd respect him a lot more if he'd actually come clean and move on but given his allegations coupled with the continuance of his self-serving (and frankly sort of laughable) rationalizations and denials, it's tough to take him seriously.

One of the benefits of being an asshole with an opinion and a blog is sometimes you get interesting feedback in email, and I've had some enlightening discussions offline with guys who have been popped for doping. The guys who have gotten popped and moved on, or done things that aren't in their immediate best interest, I've got no major problems with. I get their perspective, and although I don't forget I can forgive them what they did - granted none of them cost me any money so I have no skin in the game. But I see it as morally different.

In contrast, a guy like Tyler who is still telling the same old lies but (Now! New and Improved!) with 50% more Lance allegations, rubs me the wrong way. He doesn't appear to be coming clean about anything except for that vague admission that he did some dope once. Can we call that Floyd defense the Lancaster Loop or something, like the Immelman Turn, and just be done with it? Tyler is a guy who won't even admit to having been caught doping, who is making allegations against a guy the haters love to hate, and the serious flaws in his story in order to more deeply believe the allegations he is making against Lance. It's like we're all Agent Mulder now. The rush to embrace Tyler *screams* confirmation bias, and one has to wonder what will happen if Tyler drops some other shoe - news about an immunity deal, a book deal, or some other wheeze that benefits him.

Tyler gets double bonus points for his allegations of a massive UCI conspiracy to hide Lance dope test positives. I want to believe the UCI and Dick Pound and the Swiss federation and anti-doping authorities can be bought off for $25k... That *soooo* fits into my mildly xenophobic outlook and dislike of unaccountable international organizations. I want to believe, really. But the allegation just isn't that credible. If there is some coverup going on at UCI (and WADA, and the Swiss federation and their national anti-doping agency, and in France (and their anti-doping agency, see e.g. the $100k donation), it would be damned hard to hide. I suspect the actual truth is something simpler, and not being spoken anywhere I can hear it right now.

At the same time people I ordinarily respect and think of as somewhat rational are getting orgasmic over the Tyler and that just creeps me out; this includes one guy who is crowing and doing victory laps after being voluble three weeks ago in his criticism of the rubes who spontaneously celebrated Osama bin Laden's death.

It's getting so that it's hard to be an honest Lance Ambivaleteer these days. The baying hounds are rabid enough that I almost reflexively want to kick some of the haters in the shins and defend Lance until I hear *credible* testimony. Tyler Hamilton is only the latest example. The moralizing alone is painful to listen to, and reminiscent of the Clinton-hunters of the late '90's. Or the Bush-haters or the Obama-haters, for whom no act is without sinister motives. The latest one going around is that Lance stood up his cancer charity as a pre-emptive strike against future possible doping charges. I guess it's possible, and maybe it's possible he gave himself cancer in order to win a jury's sympathy vote at some point 20 years in the future. If you listen close, you can hear somebody whacking Occam's razor on a leather strop... I strongly suspect we will look back on this some years from now and be a little ashamed of ourselves for acting this way.

In the meantime -

Oh, what a damned mess these people - Lance, Tyler, Pound, the UCI, Nowitzky and everybody - are making of pro cycling. Some folks are cheering and thinking that Tyler is the guy who is going to burn down pro cycling, and then some pure, new version of pro cycling will spring up out of the ashes.

Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. I suspect that what will happen, is that everybody will get soot on their faces, and then sort of keep going on more or less as before.

TOT 50: The FBS LBS Ride
The Only Dope Here Is Aiming the Camera

Tyler Shamilton

Tyler Hamilton writes a letter, confessing to doping today:

Dear Everybody,

I hope this finds you all doing well.

First of all, sorry for sending this out as a group letter. If there was any way I could come visit each of you individually, I would. I hope we are together soon.

There’s no easy way to say this, so let me just say it plain: on Sunday night you’ll see me on “60 Minutes” making a confession that’s overdue. Long overdue.

During my cycling career, I knowingly broke the rules. I used performance-enhancing drugs. I lied about it, over and over. Worst of all, I hurt people I care about. And while there are reasons for what I did — reasons I hope you’ll understand better after watching — it doesn’t excuse the fact that I did it all, and there’s no way on earth to undo it.

The question most people ask is, why now? There are two reasons. The first has to do with the federal investigation into cycling. Last summer, I received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury. Until that moment I walked into the courtroom, I hadn’t told a soul. My testimony went on for six hours. For me, it was like the Hoover dam breaking. I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I’d never felt before — all the secrets, all the weight I’d been carrying around for years suddenly lifted. I saw that, for me personally, this was the way forward.

The second reason has to do with the sport I love. In order to truly reform, cycling needs to change, and change drastically, starting from the top. Now that I’m working as a coach, I see young people entering the sport with hopes of making it to the top. I believe that no one coming into the sport should have to face the difficult choices I had to make. And before the sport can move forward, it has to face the truth.

This hasn’t been easy, not by a long shot. But I want to let you know that I’m doing well. The coaching business is more fun and fulfilling than I’d ever imagined, and Tanker and I are loving our Boulder life. I recently turned 40, and my friends threw the best 80’s themed surprise party in the history of the world (hey, most of you were there!). Life is good.

Again, I just want to say I’m sorry, and that I hope you can forgive me. What matters to me most are my family and friends. I’m deeply grateful for all your support and love through the years, and I’m looking forward to spending time with all of you again, hopefully soon. My Mom and Dad always told me that the truth would set me free. I never knew how right they were.

Sincerely,

Tyler Hamilton

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I've got some thoughts on it too.

Dear Tyler,

I presume everybody who raced pro in the era you came up in, raced on dope. I suspect that very few avoided it; even anti-doping advocates like Jens Voigt are cagey, and admit they came their current position because they didn't like the other path, or slippery words to that effect. Yeah, Lance probably doped. So did everybody during that period. I'm more or less over it. He's an ex-racer who runs a cancer foundation, as far as I care at this point. I don't exactly follow him, or carry a vendetta for the dirty racers of that time period, I'd rather we expend resources cleaning up cycling now, than hashing over crimes from back when UCI turned a blind eye to the problem.

Many were caught, and many denied doping during your era. Yet few attacked their accusers - including 'accusers' who weren't actually accusing but citing doping convictions, facts - with the vindictiveness that you and those close to you used. Lance, who hasn't been busted, goes around personally attacking people who accuse him of doping, making a good point - you'd better be able to make the accusation stick in a court of law. Yeah, it's bullying, but it isn't the personal attack your buddies and family launched on people, and he doesn't go around telling outlandish lies about his phantom twin being the cause of the test failures. You have been caught at least a couple times that we know about, and a few years back I remember reading in Bicycling how you used your family and friends as attack dogs to personally abuse anybody who so much as raised a whisper about doubting you, including people you had known for years and who considered you a close friend. That makes you a buddy fucker, Tyler. And buddy fuckers are lower than whale shit.

You're like Floyd in that sense; you preyed on credulous others to get them to pay for your legal defense, knowing all the time that you were a damned dirty doper. Lance is probably a damned dirty doper too, but he hasn't made personal appeals to me or my friends to pay for his grand jury defense costs, based on his "innocence."

Doping is bad enough, getting caught is worse, then mounting a 7 year campaign to impugn those who caught you, is even worse than that. Now I guess we're supposed to absolve you because you confessed to make yourself feel better, or some bullshit like that. Like the phantom twin story, it strains credulity. I'm glad you feel better; but none of us feel better about what you did or the way you treated us. Reading your story about watching Lance dope is like watching a felon on the stand implicating somebody else based on a jailhouse conversation. Maybe everybody has to go to jail here for justice to get done, and maybe it's the truth, but it's damn ugly and an honest person looking on can't trust any of the actors involved. It's a train crash. Thanks for causing it, jerk.

I got a newsflash for you Tyler: you may be telling the truth and it may make you feel better, but it doesn't make most of the rest of us feel better. Many of us wish you'd just go away and maybe help Basso with his cancerous dog, or help out Leogrande as he quits cycling to concentrate on tattoos. Maybe if Lance is eventually caught, you guys can buy an island somewhere and spend the rest of your days rationalizing what you did.

Some of us fans are getting dubious about the flunked test => confession =>anti doper metamorphosis that is so common; but please understand, even in those cases where we as cycling fans agree to not despise a confessed doper, the doper didn't just wrap up a 6 year campaign of slander and agit prop. The coverup is almost always as bad as the underlying crime; and the coverup is worse when your mechanism isn't just lying but attacking others in libelous terms.

For many years, Tyler, you were completely sanctimonious in your denials, pointing fingers at others to explain away your doping. Like a preacher who gets caught with a prostitute, or a book keeper caught embezzling, you betrayed a trust. The hypocrisy of what you did is stunning; you didn't just deny, you blamed and lectured.

In the end, I'm sure God will forgive you. Me, I just want you to go away so I can forget you and get back to watching the ATOC and Giro. Your doping was bad enough, your coverup was worse, and all the crap you're now doing to make yourself feel better or sell books or settle scores or whatever you're trying to do, is worse yet. Please, go away while there are still three or four people left in the world that you haven't pissed off.

Warmest regards,

Jim

What I Did This Weekend

I was Outstanding in My Field:

TOT 45: TMR/DP/OR, PVSP

(The initials make sense if you ride, and live in Ellicott City). On Saturday, I fixed it, and got all wet:

TOT 46: Singin' in The Rain

Then I went out and caught wood with my wife, and Jon Seibold:

TOT 47: Life's Better When You Catch Wood (Fenders)

What did you do this weekend?

Minor Stuff

Blogger is buggered right now and I can't post comments. A number of high profile bloggers have been knocked off line and told their blogs are spam. Joy. Gotta love Google. Their motto is, "Don't be evil." It should be appended to, "Don't be evil unless doing good is too hard."

Anyhow...

I'd been thrilled, which is to say a little more happy than non-plussed, to hear that NBC was going to bring Wonder Woman back. Bracelets of Steel and Sex Appeal... good stuff, right?

Well, it turns out that David E. Kelly's master plan, perfect for our politically correct age, involves casting a skinny version of Rosie O'Donnell as Wonder Woman.


The hot pants are exchanged for loose tights, the cleavage... well, that's obviously being faked by a very ambitious squeeze-together bra, the post-Callista Flockhart era horizontal companion to the successful push-up bra. Look, it ain't always about the boobs, but I can recognize armpit flesh being tortured into posing as boobs. You want to make her a buffed out jock chick, that's cool. But don't take a skinny pilates chick and try to convince us dudes that she's Linda Carter's heir apparent. We're dumb about women, but we can still see.

It's soooo politically correct to take the sex appeal out of Wonder Woman. Part of the deal with Amazons is they're supposed to be... Amazonian. Capable of hitting for power, and average. Making her boney, and no offense to Rosie O'Donnell, Rosie-O'Donnell-Ugly? It just ain't right. I am womyn, hear me rawr... Naaaaah.

Anyhow, the TV gods are punishing Kelly for tampering with a good thing. Turns out the NBC execs saw the pilot and refused to greenlight the show.

Which is as it should be, if this is what he views as a suitable replacement for Linda Carter and her shiny outfit.

Sure, I know I'm being crass here, but the Chippendales ain't hot if they're wearing deep sea diving suits, and Wonder Woman ain't Wonder Woman if she's not wonderous in a way that a 1960's Italian movie director might recognize. The concept is Girlie Power, not Grrrrrrrl Power. David E. Kelly ought to rot in hell for even thinking this way. No wonder our culture is falling apart; he can't even speak in the semiotic language it relies on. Plus you just don't screw with the icons of my youth, okay? Put 650b tires on a Schwinn Stingray, forget to add the lettuce hold the mayo, or put a skinny girl in Linda Carter's suit, and there's gonna be repercussions. Hear me?

Can anybody here play this game?

Painful Truths

What I like about my bikes is that they tell me the truth no matter how harsh it is. I'm too weak to keep up a fast pace here and there, to fat to climb well, too chickenshit to descend well. My off road handling sucks compared to good handlers; I can't ride a skinny to save my life, stagger over logs with the subtlety of a pig humping a watermelon, ride rocks with the finesse of a one legged drunk guy navigating up stairs, cross streams like a six year old girl afraid of a monster under the bed, and destroy flowy sections with the gross incompetence a surgeon with shaky hands. Sure, I can lie to myself pretty well, this blog is often a place where I can lie to myself and others, and you can maybe lie to me too. But the bike just isn't capable of it. That is why I like it.

The bike does something else in its truth telling. It doesn't just speak to us; it actually punishes us for shortcomings. The bike tells a truth about us the way a prison sentence or a tax bill does. You may not like it, but you have to deal with it because the truth told has the harsh sting of reality to it. You cannot dodge it.

Too fat, not trained enough, not smooth enough on the pedals - your legs and lungs will burn unnaturally. Stop paying attention on the fixed gear for a minute, it will slew you into the ground like you insulted its mother. I paid for that particular mistake with torn rib cartilage and an undefined shoulder injury that took months to heal. Fail to pay attention to a tiny stump, and you may fly headfirst into a tree at 25 MPH, and have clear fluid running out of your ears and nose for the next hour, and a killer headache. Hit the traffic circle at 30 MPH as the rain starts, slip on the oil, and you will have to lay in the shrubs just off the circle for 3 minutes until you can breathe again without involuntarily sobbing. Try to ride courteous in a crit and let him pass in a place you know he shouldn't, slide in a couple inches to him into the line, and the guy next to you make take you and eight other people out for your lapse in judgment, and when you come to your fingertip will have been ground up, your sunglasses broken, and you will have a number of perforations in your body. Fail to get your ass back far enough behind the seat on a steep descent, and the bike will taco the front wheel, and drive you into the ground head first like a tack, leaving you shaking and in shock. Lose concentration on a rocky descent, and you'll hit a tree hard, leaving your hand swollen for a week, and you afraid of rocks and descents for a month.

All these are true stories. They are stories about how the bike told me about my deficiencies, how it told the truth. Occasionally, the bike bites its tongue. It doesn't tell us that we should eat shit for how we misjudged that line of rocks, it holds its tongue and lets us slip through. It doesn't always chastise us for failing to notice gravel in the turn; instead maybe it is quiet while we slide a little, and pass through the turn with just a scare. Other times, we get away with crossing railroad tracks at an angle, hitting a log just wrong, or forgetting to pedal our fixed gear. In these instances, the bike gives us a freebie... but it does not lie. The bump, the skid, the brush of a shoulder on the tree - these are whispered truths. But they are truths nonetheless.

Mostly though, the bike just tells simple truths. Screw up, and it will drive you into the ground like a nail. That's its most basic, straightforward way of pointing out that you made a big mistake. Cause & effect. Tit for tat.

One of you guys used comments to call me an insensitive prick or somesuch for pointing out that Wouter Weylandt's crash was self-inflicted.

Sure, I'm an insensitive prick.

Doesn't mean that I was lying though.

TOT 42: We Pass By Like Shadows

Wout The Hell...

I've got some thoughts about Wouter Weylandt's untimely death in the Giro today but I'm not going to share them because what I have to say will likely cause a lot of pants pissing because it sure looks like operator error to me; a needless death.

The bike can be harsh; we love it because it does not spare us. It hurts our legs if we are unfit, it hurts our lungs if we have not trained. It hurts us far worse if we aren't paying attention to the road. We know this, and we love the bike anyhow because it makes us work hard before giving us rewards. The bike is the only thing we can be completely sure is telling the truth at all times.

And the truth is life is short. Make the most of it. And keep your damn eyes on the road.

All The Fits That's News

We often don't think about how important bike fit is until we start to have a chronic joint or muscle problem. Corollary: if we have a good bike fit, we usually take for granted just how good it is.

My buddy Jon, owner and operator of both Family Bike Shop and the most identifiable beard in MABRA, offered me a free bike fit recently. He has been doing a lot of work upgrading the shop's appearance, and decided to offer a new service, legit bike fits. To do that, he sent one of his top guys, Tyler, and his lovely wife Sarah, off to take several days of training to become qualified to fit bikes, using the Fit Kit system. Afterwards, Sarah said she wanted to practice and offered me a free fit.

I've gotten a really good bike fit in the past. Les Welch, of the East Coast Bicycle Academy in Harrisonburg, fit my road bike a couple years ago and solved a persistent knee problem for me. He's kind of a legendary old school bike shop guy, and worth visiting. He straightened out my pedal stroke and riding became pain free (except for hills which still hurt no matter what). I take for granted what that bike fit did for me, but it in effect trained me to ride in a particular way, to be used to a particular comfortable, efficient position. More on that in a second.

I was comfortable working with Sarah because she is a friend, and in past discussions about this injury or that, she's always displayed a lot of knowledge about physiology and rehab. She is also a licensed physiotherapy assistant, and knows how to use her training to help prevent, and rehab people's injuries. With her new training I figured with her new training I couldn't go wrong.

The bike fit was straightforward. I brought my single speed cross bike, in fixie trim, down to the shop. It definitely didn't fit right; it was rigged up for cross, with a padded WTB saddle, a short stem dropped low on the steerer, and the saddle was up and forward. That works great for handling in cross, but was brutal to ride over any distance, causing immense hand pain and general discomfort.

At the outset, Sarah asked me if there were any problems. I told her about the hand pain, and how I'd start bitching about discomfort maybe ten miles into any ride. I thought it needed a longer stem, and not sure what else.

I swapped over the thin leather saddle, and Sarah had me warm up. After warming up, she asked if I wanted to make any adjustments. I did, raising the seat a few millimeters to compensate for the lack of padding, and then moving it back quite a bit to give it an effective seat tube angle that felt efficient and comfy. My hands still hurt as I pedaled the trainer. Sarah measured the incline of the seat and noted it was tilted very slightly forward. We adjusted it so it was perfectly level, and the pedaling felt fine. The reach to the bars was still crummy, however, and my hands continued to hurt.

Using the fit kit, Sarah worked out my optimum saddle height and setback on the saddle. It turns out that my adjustments on the fly, using just feel (and Sarah's brief measurement of the seat attitude) got the saddle into spot on height and setback - just about physiologically perfect as is possible with my weird physique (short legs overall / long lower legs - Mr. Setback Saddle). We may have tapped it a millimeter in one direction or the other but it was real close.

She also calculated stem length and determined I needed to go at least 10mm longer, maybe 15 longer. She got a longer stem, and it was in the ballpark. There was some weirdness up front - most cross bikes have a tall head tube, so it was hard to get the stem just right. A long stem put me too low or too high, and a short stem had me putting too much weight on my hands. In the end we settled for a 120mm stem with around a 6 degree drop, and we raised it slightly (2mm) on the steerer tube. So I'm reaching considerably further forward, and have more drop than with the 110mm stem. This required a bunch of leg and hip measurements and stem configurations, to see what configuration would allow me to pedal strong, and also to ride in a posture that was comfortable over the long run.

Sarah took final measurements and determined I was within acceptable ranges. She commented that many experienced cyclists are able to do a lot to dial in their bike fit by feel, which is what I did with the seat & seatpost's basic configuration. This was a direct result of Les's good bike fit on my road bike. Thanks Les! What Sarah brought to the process was an accurate way to dial me on things that I have no intuitive method of navigating, detecting the oh-so-slightly tilted seat, and helping work out the complex stem situation - which, BTW, can't be made exactly perfect because I've got weird shaped legs and monkey arms.

I've managed to get a couple rides in on the bike, including a 30 miler. Bike fit is always important, but it really matters on a fixed gear used for longer training rides, because there is no rest, no way to move the hands and butt and to shift posture out of an uncomfortable position. It has to be right or you will hurt badly. Sarah squared me away and the old discomfort is completely gone; it feels indistinguishable from my geared road bike. On the one hand, this is a testament to Les Welch and his old school methods of fit. His road bike fit has gotten me accustomed to having a properly fit bike, and the muscle memory that results from that fit allows me to adjust my bike to at least get the saddle height / setback pretty close to where it should be. On the other hand, other factors like proper hip angle, proper positioning on the bars and over the top tube, are not as intuitive, and little changes in stem can have a huge effect on how well your lower body is able to work. Sarah's fit is perfect for me on the fixie and I'll definitely hit her up for a bike fit in the future.

My takeaway is that it would be worth paying the money to get a fit, and that's what I'll do with the next bike I purchase. FBS is offering basic fits for $50http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif, and a more extensive and detailed fit for $250.
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Family Bike Shop's fit information is here.

Les Welch's information is here. Other places that have fit my friends, to great good effect, include Contes, which does 2D and 3D bike fits; and my good friend Beth Mason, who uses the Retul system for 3D bike fits. Beth is also a whip smart physiotherapist - and pro cyclist - who is wrapping up her PhD. She lives in the Southwest now but takes appointments and travels all around.

The takeaways are pretty simple. You need a good bike fit because if you don't have one, all that pedaling can cause injuries. Getting a good bike fit won't just prevent injuries, it will also train you to ride on a properly fitted bike, knowledge you will take with you in the form of muscle memory (or maybe in some notes on a piece of paper) the next time you borrow or buy a new bike. It matters to you because it improves the ride considerably. You might want to think about getting a fit, particularly if you are having some pain, and feel (or look) ungainly on the bike in your usual riding position. The bottom line is that even if you think your position is pretty dialed, it can't hurt to spend a few bucks once in a while and get a fit - and on the other hand, it can definitely hurt not to.