so i got FISTed [long review]

if that title doesn't get you hot and bothered then nothing will.

about a month ago my boy p-funk asked me if I would like to goto Austin for a few days and party with some of his HS friends. I had wanted to visit a city that actually acknowledged the existance of tris (commercially) so i jumped right on it.

lo and behold i chose Austin Tri Cyclist for the obvious reason that they sell basically nothing but Cervelos and since I ride a dual i'd like someone that understood my bike to fit me. they are complete champs and didn't charge me anything. it took about 2 hours (including the owner letting me spin on his P3C since we have the same dimensions and bullshitting over TT/Tri fitting differences while looking at pictures of team CSC). he even changed out my 90mm stem for a 100mm at an even swap: no money charged.

so i'm obviously enamored with this place. thats the end of the Austin Tri Cyclist review. 4 stars.

onto the FIST review. i had read almost all of Dan Empfields thoughts and publishings on steep postures and though i had acknowleged most of it i am not the type to just jump off the end and treat it as gospel. i walked into the door of the shop and told them not to turn the fast forward seat post around because i didn't need to save my legs for the du's, sprints and olys i have this year (the races are just so short). but after showing me many pics of pros (zabriskie and bjorn andersson included) he had me convinced that there was some merit to it. as such i just said "well you're the expert" and let him do his thing. the process was surprisingly simple:

his first measurement was the seat height. i had that right from the get-go, he raised it maybe a sixteenth of an inch. the big change was that he turned around the fast forward seat post and slid the saddle up on the rails such that the very tip of the nose was directly over the bottom bracket. thats pretty steep if you don't know it. from there it was a matter of getting me as low as possible while still maintaining a posture that fulfilled some basic requirements: it couldn't be so low that my heart was basically pumping upside down (a physiological truth that many avid steep riders overlook in their zealousness), the 90-degree shoulder bend that allowed my elbows/bone and not my muscle to support my upperbody, and the ability to look down the road without cutting off circulation to my fricken brain.

this was a matter of trial and error and we eventually got it down to one 10mm spacer underneath my aerobars. thats a 6.5-inch drop from my saddle to my elbow rests. the owner has a 6-inch drop and he says thats pretty darned steep of a drop. i'm not one to be infatuated with the numbers though. so far the two brief rides i've done with it have been flawless but i've yet to really put it through its paces. i'm not so bent on having one spacer that i won't put another under there if i find that i'm just not comfortable/generating power that steeply.

and that was about it. to achieve the 90-degree elbow-shoulder bend he had to give my a 10mm longer stem which as i said was free of charge. besides that the process was pretty simple. assuming you are the right size for the bike you own, a FIST certified fit will not contain too much voodoo or advanced calculus, its just about getting you in a proper positioning for your dimensions and then adjusting from there for power and comfort. overall i give this enlightened yet common sense approach 4 stars. i won't tout it in the same way that some people froth over steep seat angles and total immersion and carbon fiber everythings. its a tool that if used properly will help you get where you're going.

my thoughts on the two rides i've had since then: i actually can produce more power sitting directly over the cranks and the lengthened stem has eliminated the shoulder pain i was experiencing. the aero bars don't point down as much as they used to adding a bit of stability, but the sheer drop from *** to elbows has made no difference in aerodynamic gain. i went riding along the SH-75 access roads yesterday directly into the 28MPH wind and didn't feel like i was catching anymore air, but felt stronger and more in control. overall i'd say a discernable improvement.

in other news: i went to check on my bike that i had stashed in a guys bedroom after the party was over only to find some jerk with his pants around his ankles lying face down in his own vomit. this vomit was also on my de soto transition bag (which was my luggage bag) and my dual 10. i pretty much ended his life right then and there.

ok hope you enjoyed my review.