Miami Fit

We had the opportunity to show off our skill-sets at the 2009 WSSC (World Spinning and Sport Conference) and the reception so far has been beyond expectations. Everyone from Master Spin Instructors to spin to recreational spinners took advantage of our services.

From early morning to late evening all we did was Fit, Fit and Fit! The waiting line by 9am was over 1 hour long, but people were not giving up their place in line to attend a class!


Here Paul and myself are just finished fitting 2 pairs of shoes at the bar where we were watching the NBA semis. Some instructors that are leaving in the early morning begged us to fit their shoes as they did not have time to wait in the 1 hour plus line that formed Thursday, Friday and Saturday! Of course we could not refuse service in exchange a glass of cold water!
Step 1 was to take a pic of their feet and to see how many wedges we would need; step two, I ran to the room to get the tools while they ran to their room to get their shoes, ... you know the other steps!

I wonder why Paul is smiling! It's almost 11:30pm and we have been at it for about 15 hours or so!


Both instructors have since reported that they now have "Happy Feet" and that their comfort level has gone from a 5 to a 10!

More rants about Speedplay

I know most of you have heard me preach this already but Bicycle Retailer did a nice article on the Pro Fit Case. Oh, did I give this case a name? Yep, it finally looks like we also have a name for this case instead of the pedal kit or whatever we were calling it.

check out this link
http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/newsDetail/2742.html

Sorry for my hiatus. As most of you know I was out with some health issues. It will be 6 weeks Thursday that I had part of my kidney removed which contained a small mass of cancer. I finally went for an outdoor bike ride yesterday. It was 45 minutes of pure pleasure. Some slight discomfort but no pain. JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a long way to go but I am alive and healthy. Hope to get back to bugging all of you with bike fit related blogs on a regular basis soon.

I head off to Miami tomorrow for the World Spinning Conference. Andrew our International Sales Manager will be there and I also hear Mr Lew Hughes from Louisiana will be joining us. Lew has been taking on bike fitting with a storm. Lew is simply a cool guy. Anyone that gets to spend a few hours with him will part with good feelings.

Swifty

Viva La France

There are a few things that the French do right and that is they know how to party! I have just returned from celebrating my brother-in-law's 50th birthday party which lasted 3 day full days party! Weather was perfect, the company just as great, the food was good and the wine was flowing like a swollen river until the drought came which was Sunday night about 12:30am. This was a very good thing because Monday I had a meeting with Look in the town of Nevers!


After a few introductions we went right to work in a secret location / lab where the walls are so thick that even a German attack on the building in WWII did not destroy the foundation! While Look pedals are the most sold in the world, I had to tell them that they were missing the boat on spindle length ...

"Mais monsieur, c'est pas possible!"

they said ... they are going to break; we'll see! I arrived with my ammunition and showed them and told them that with Speedplay we are able to offer a more precise fit due primarily to the fact that they are available in 5 spindle lengths! Look is going to have some added features for the new line-up for 2010.

So even though "C'est pas possible" I proceeded to so a few "partial fits" on a group that was going out for their evening ride. And with the person that stayed behind I was able to experience the functionality of the Look Keo Fit System which measure heel rotation.



The Keo Fit System is very interesting and needs to be "calibrated" each time by moving the heel of the shoe side-to-side 3 full times on each side after which the rider will ride for 3 minutes in order to be able to capture data.


The registered data will give the minimum and maximum values of the pedal rotation and based on that then the cleats are adjusted by averaging the difference in the 2 values. While we did only 1 partial bike fit using the system I can see that what I observed from standing behind the bike with the rider pedaling was different that the data indicated.


While the concept is interesting I am going to go back in 2 weeks to fit about 12 riders so along with the guys from Look we can observe any change in data. The Look Keo Fit System allows for data gathering however we at Bike Fit Systems do our fits based on the observations during the fit and the rider feedback. Stay tuned for more updates on this subject.

Au revoir, a bientot!