Any reviews of bike fitters in the Baltimore, MD area?
The fitters I found so far are:
baltimore bicycle works (no idea who the fitter is) - Baltimore Fitting — Baltimore Bicycle Works
But the description makes me question the fit. Knee over pedal axel may be a good starting point but isn’t a destination. Though could be just the wording used on the page:
Corrections to the pedal stroke (such as aiding alignment of the knee over the center of the cleat)
Race Pace Bicycles (Fitter is Don Freesland) - Columbia http://www.racepacebicycles.com/
But they were bought out by Trek so not sure if they still do fittings. Plus if you went to Stu in the past and then try to use him, it won’t go well… Guessing since Don was trained by Stu there is a non poaching agreement but if you’re the one who is approaching them…
Richardson Bike Fit https://www.richardsonbikefit.com/
Seems great. Next available appointment is end of August so I’ll be ready for next year?
I used Chris Richardson (#5) when he was still involved with Bike Doctor Waldorf (owner?). I cannot compare him to any of the others, but would highly recommend him to family and friends. I had been already riding for 12ish years at the time and he was amazing to deal with (explained everything, actively listened to feedback, looked at me as a biomechanical problem to solve to improve comfort and power.) I think I did the mid-tier ($$) fit with him, which included an exam, dynamic video capture and saddle pressure mapping (the most important thing for me.). I had one 3hr appointment and 2 follow-up appointments that could be up to 3 hrs but were about 90min and 60min. Well worth the money in my opinion.
I have moved to North Carolina but have considered getting on his schedule and driving 5hrs to get a checkup.
Even if he was perfect (and he probably is great) he isn’t free till the end of august and kind of wanted to be more comfortable this summer. I don’t think I have anything that special but don’t want to wait that long
I have not been fit by him, but a few friends have gone to Mike Stone for tri fits back when he was at Princeton Sports and they said he was great. Both were pretty high level triathletes and qualified for Kona. Not sure if Mike is still active, his last Facebook info says he’s at Race Pace so I’m not sure if he stayed when trek bought them. His contact info is on his Facebook though Mike Stone Bike Fitter | Facebook
Yeah, but wanted to compare fitters rather than just talk about just him there.
Guessing if no one had issues with the fit and didn’t go somewhere else to tweak the fit outside of his recommendations that is still useful even if you might be biased. (Unlike using other gear no one would really know if you adjusted your bike in some other way and if the position was bad you’d do that)
Thanks
I’ve been fit by Stu at parcilla and highly recommend him. I took a day off work too, and found the time and effort he took to be focused on me well worth my time. I highly recommend him. I’ve been to Chris before ,but back when he was at Bike Dr. He’s great too.
Another vote for Johnny here. Been fitted to 3 bikes by him and I have other friends that went to the Specialized fit classes back in the day that verified he fit me correctly. He was also the first person to shim my shoes and that helped me knee and ankle pain.
I think I chose poorly. Starting to feel uncomfortable on the medial side of both legs including in my knee. No pain yet, but feels like it might turn into that. Seems to be from stance being too wide going by the symptoms fitting https://www.bicyclefitguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/BasicPedalingBase-1.pdf) Thinking of how the fit was done is what makes me think I picked poorly. Plus he hasn’t answered any emails even though he said to feel free to reach out with any questions. (Also doesn’t answer anything sent to his facebook page or if you fill in the contact form on his web site)
He saw my knees weren’t tracking straight and thought my stance (qfactor) was too narrow. That part seems fine. His fix was to make the qfactor as wide as possible while keeping the angle of my feet the same (basically straight ahead) using just cleat adjustment. This made my knees track better and so he was done with adjustments. Thinking about this now if you overcorrect qfactor it would seem like your knee tracking would be better as your stabilizer muscles can correct for being too wide. This would mean you should really find the smallest increase in qfactor that corrects the knee tracking to prevent being able to compensate. Guess I’ll adjust my cleats now
Another option to look at is John Hughes at 90+Cycling in Columbia. I have not had a fit there but John is a good guy and a good coach, very detail-oriented. The shop has state of the art fitting technology.
I’m not saying its an overnight process. Before the fit the medial side of my legs were fine and the cleats set from a previous fit in 2018 set my q factor almost all the way narrow. The fitter only adjusted the cleats to be set so my q factor would be as wide as possible, saw the tracking was good and ended there. There was no testing anything inbetween, any other cleat position or any real measure of what it should be.
When the fitter added wedges under your cleat did they go with the max amount of wedging and that was it or was it incremental? Though I guess it could have been measured and base on that