[Yak] Bike Fit: Advice?

[Reed Kennedy]

On Sun, Jul 25, 2010 at 5:52 PM, eddie flayer <eddie.flayer at att.net> wrote:
> I am sort of curious if you have another bike that fits well for you, why
> you would not take the normal contact point measurements from that bike and
> transfer the dimensions over to  your Bike Friday.

Well, a couple reasons:

First, my main bike at the moment is a quasi-aggressive road bike. I
want the Bike Friday to be set up as a touring bike and somewhat more
comfort oriented. (I also have a flat bared fix gear, but those
dimensions seem even less relevant.)

Second, while I'm happy with the road bike, I don't feel the fit is
perfect. Part of the reason I went for the fit stem / ultralight
custom stem option was that it gives me the chance to experiment and
learn more about my ideal fit. Except that now I'm a bit overwhelmed
with options. ::grin::

I do appreciate the suggestion, though! I'd been kind of shooting in
the dark, figuring that my touring position would be radically
different from my road position. After reading your post I realized
that my road bike felt better than anything I'd figured out for the
Bike Friday so far, so I did transfer the dimensions over as you said,
and then went for a ride.

In the end I ended up changing things a good bit, with the bars
probably an inch higher and a bit closer in, but having a point of
reference gave me somewhere to work from, rather than just guessing.
I've now got a position I'm pretty happy with.

I'm a little embarrassed I didn't do this at the start now! I'm glad I
posted asking for suggestions.

I don't have any long trips planned for several months, so I think I'm
going to keep the fit stem for a while. Whenever I realize I haven't
changed it in the last month then I'll go ahead and send it in.

Big thanks to Eddie and everyone who has posted offering feedback and
advice. I'm feeling much better on the bike (and about this process)
now!

Cheers,
Reed